The saga continues
Haven’t had any babies in our level II nursery in a couple weeks. This has made observing in there rather boring, though I did get to go to the c-sections and other nursery-attended births. I wish there had been something to see in the actual nursery. In spite of this, I got the sense that I would really like it. I felt like I had come home. I knew I would.
Then comes the blow (not unexpected): there is no room in the budget for me to orient there. I could see this coming from a mile away, but I kept my fingers crossed that the stars might align and things would work out in my favor. No such luck. So I’m back at square one again, the nurse without a home. I can’t be just a postpartum nurse. Well, I can, as long as I agree to be per diem, which really doesn’t work for me. I need the income and benefits. Not to mention that I don’t really want to postpartum regardless of the pay scheme.
So now I’m back to trying to figure out what to do, where to go, etc. If I was willing to do some administrative stuff I could probably get myself more hours in my other job, but I would prefer to find something where I can use the nursing knowledge. And I do want to do something clinical.
I am feeling a lot of frustration at finding myself in this pickle. I was hoping I could at least get through that magical first year without bombing out. Now I have too much experience to try to pass myself off as a new grad, and not enough to say that I’m experienced. I wondered today if I should ask to go back on L&D orientation. I could probably wrap it up fairly quickly and then I could have my 24 hours a week guaranteed. But that screams bad idea for many reasons, key being the fact that I was miserable in L&D and everyone knew I was miserable. I really don’t think it’s worth it. But trying to find a job in this economy blows. Pickings are slim and the jobs that are out there are largely per diem. I get that they want to be able to flex their staffing as needed, but it’s not like I’m doing this for pin money here. Blah…
One of my biggest frustrations is the simple fact that I know what I want to be doing. And I wish I had said so at the beginning. I could have oriented to the level II nursery from the get-go and avoided this whole brouhaha. Argh… Yet even as I type this, part of me knows that this is probably the right thing for me in the end. The scary part is not knowing where this road is leading. Am I supposed to be in another specialty? Another institution? A completely different nursing role? I really don’t know yet, but the universe seems intent on telling me that I need to move on.
So here I am… trying to figure out where my next step will lead. Exploring my options and hoping something good comes along. We can only hope!
As a brief follow-up on my diploma post, I talked to one of my friends from school the other night and was relieved to find out I wasn’t alone in my thoughts. She, too, thought it was a puny document and very unceremoniously presented. Although she at least got her middle initial on hers. Harumph.
The piece of paper
The diploma showed up today… finally, two months after the official graduation date. I was surprisingly underwhelmed. I pulled it out of the envelope, sniffed at it disdainfully, and shoved it back in the envelope. Not quite sure why I felt that way.
Maybe because of its unceremonious arrival. My undergrad degree was handed to me onstage, rolled up and tied with a wide ribbon in the school colors. That is far more meaningful than arriving in a plain brown cardboard envelope. I’m surprised it didn’t say “please recycle” on it.
Perhaps it was its size. Again next to the undergrad diploma, this one is puny in comparison.
Maybe it was the fact that they decided to omit my middle name entirely. No initial or anything. How can it be official if it only has two-thirds of my name on it?
Maybe it was the bland generic-ness of the diploma. Really didn’t scream, “Hey you, what a big accomplishment, yeehaw!” More like, “Thank you for purchasing Cracker Jacks.”
Perhaps I’m just retaining my bitterness about the end of the program. No last class, no class party… We found out we met the requirements by looking up our grades online. The diploma comes in the mail in a plain brown envelope. And the graduation ceremony won’t happen for another three months and many of my classmates have moved away and won’t be making the trek back to campus for that. Would’ve been nice to have a class hoe-down. One of these days I’ll get over it, I’m sure. But for now I remain, faithfully yours, Ms. Disdainful, MS, RN, CNL with a puny, ugly, incomplete diploma in a brown cardboard envelope.
(Seriously, I’m not that bitter, but I am kind of surprised at exactly how underwhelmed I felt by the whole thing.)
Becoming militant
I just finished reading a book I saw recommended on another (or should I now just say “an”) L&D nursing blog entitled Pushed: The Painful Truth Abouth Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care. Wow. It sparked so many thoughts in my head and I am sure I will be thinking about it for some time. Basically it managed to put into words what my gut has been feeling for months now, why I have been so uncomfortable in the labor & delivery arena. I have a lot of things going around in my head right now, too many to put into words. But the one thing I will say is that I went into L&D fearing that I would become complacent and develop the “that’s the way it is” mentality. Instead my original feelings have only been amplified. Maybe I’m quitting too soon, but quite honestly, I can’t practice in a way that goes against my own ethics. I don’t yet know how to join the fight for true reproductive rights in an effective way… but I am not giving up my fight just because I’m leaving L&D.
Meanwhile, back on the farm. After my breakdown on Monday I circled back. I had gone onto my Netflix account to see what was next in my queue and saw a banner saying “You’ve watched ‘The Business of Being Born’ before, watch it again, instantly.” So I thought, what they hey, and watched it again on my laptop. Slowly I began to feel that I had made the right decision. And when I woke up to the alarm on Tuesday morning and realized that I no longer had to do L&D a sense of relief washed over me. That relief was what ultimately signaled to me that I was in the right place.
The hardest part for me was the sheepishness. A phrase from “The Devil Wears Prada” kept going through my head, “A million girls would KILL for that job.” How many new nurses want L&D and have to pay their dues in med-surg? Meanwhile I got to skip all that and go right into a specialty… and then didn’t live up to my hype. I felt guilty. I felt like I screwed it up for some up-and-comer. Like they’ll always say, “Well, I dunno about taking a new grad… remember what happened with Rori.” On top of that, I don’t like looking foolish, and yet there I was feeling foolish for making the wrong choice of first job. I mistakenly thought that I could provide maternity care in an environment that went against my own convictions. After all, most of our nurses will admit that they don’t like the number of interventions that are done, but they strive to make the experience the best possible given what they have to work with. I give them a lot of credit for that. I thought I could do the same. I thought that feeling sick every day before work was normal new-nurse jitters. I didn’t want to throw in the towel without giving it my all. I have often used the phrase “just suck it up” when faced with unpleasant tasks. But one can only suck it up for so long before there’s no more room in the vacuum bag (sorry, dumb analogy, but it’s what I’ve got). I also wanted to leave on my own terms, rather than being told that I should consider other avenues. It was hard not to feel as though I’d been told that I failed, even though my manager assured me that I was a good nurse, that this was simply a bad fit for me.
I had another discussion with her on Tuesday and she asked whether my unhappiness was merely philosophical differences or whether I had issues with the orientation. While I did have issues with the orientation, I knew at that point that it wouldn’t have mattered if I had the best orientation program in the world. It might have postponed the inevitable, but ultimately it would not have changed my feelings. I told her, “I just don’t want to do it anymore.” I felt relieved to finally say that. After months of beating around the bush when people asked if I liked L&D (“well, it’s a lot to take in,” “I still need to work on some things,” “I have some philosophical differences”) it felt liberating to say that no, in fact, I do not like it. At this point I will say, however, that I am glad I had the experience of trying it. Sure, I feel guilty that they spent money orienting me and it’s turned out to be for naught. But I will never regret that I tried. I was able to bear witness to many births in my short stint and I feel honored to have been a part of them. I will never have to wonder if I was missing out.
In talking to my boss I did tell her that I am wary of jumping into another area without doing my homework first. As I’d mentioned in my previous post, she’d offered the potential of going to our level II nursery. I asked if I could shadow a nurse in there for a day and she offered one better… a few weeks there, after which I can tell her whether I want to pursue it. That’s a weight off of me, at least for a while. I have a feeling that I will like special care far more than L&D, after all, I’ve been on a sick baby kick since the one day I got to spend in a NICU during my maternity rotation over a year ago. But I want to make sure that this is the right choice for me. We shall see what the next couple weeks bring.
Until then, this week starts my increased role in quality and I’m looking forward to hashing out my new responsibilities. I am a bit nervous about taking on a more independence there, but I know that I will learn a lot from it, and I can’t think of a more supportive group to learn from.
A mixed bag
Good and bad news this week.
Bad: Awesome co-worker in quality left for a new opportunity. Sad to see such an asset to the hospital go.
Good: Her leaving is allowing for a couple of us to grow our roles in the department. This includes the offer for me to increase my hours in the department from 4 to 16, with a new title and added responsibility. I am very excited about this.
Bad: This change had to get cleared with my other boss on the unit. While she agreed to the change it prompted a discussion between the two of us about my feelings about that job. Which, if you haven’t picked up on the subtlety in prior posts, are generally negative. Okay, I’ll just say it: I don’t like what I do. L&D in a hospital is a bad fit for me. The upshot of the conversation with my boss is that I’m getting pulled off L&D orientation. My boss was very flexible in terms of what I will do now. I’ll just do postpartum for the time being while I figure out what next. She even offered to try to get me into the special care nursery which is a big interest of mine. But I am wary of jumping at that opportunity without doing some serious soul-searching first.
For one thing, I am not sure that my feelings are solely related to my philosophical views on birth. There is the culture to consider, as well. The unit and the hospital as a whole have distinct cultures and I’m not sure where I fit into this culture. This leads me to wonder whether I should look at a specialty unrelated to maternal/child health. Or even beyond that, whether I should look outside this hospital entirely. Not that my brief experience and the current economic situation make that easy. Not a ton of hiring going on around here.
I do count myself lucky for one thing… my awesome mentor (formerly my clinical preceptor). I was able to sit down with her today and bounce my thoughts off her. She understood my feelings of “how much longer do I have to do this?” that come with a job that’s a poor fit and validated many of the thoughts that have been rattling around in my head.
These past few months have been such a roller-coaster. At the moment I feel half-sick and half-relieved. Relieved to have this burden off my shoulders, sick to not have a defined next step and feeling pressured to make a decision. But I was able to think out some next steps with my mentor today, and I guess I just go from here. If only I could stop bursting into tears I’d be all set.
