Good luck with all your hopes and dreams!!

I've been wanting to transition in my job for a long time but the timing was never right.  Finally after a lot of waiting and then a LOT of waiting I am now a labor and delivery RN.  And the proud owner of about a thousand tons of stress.  I mean I knew I needed much more training but I am just now discovering the depth of my ignorance.  I figure about the only thing that could stress me out more at this point would be going into the OR naked.  

And I've had to relearn things from my nursing school days like EKG strips so that I can be in the PACU alone.  And just in case I had some sort of memory loss about just how horrid cardiac strips are, the class brought it all back into crisp clear awful focus.

It's exactly as fun as it looks.

But the good news is, I absolutely LOVE my job.

I come home exhausted both mentally and physically but drenched in the amazing miracle that is childbirth.

I don't care how many times I see it, it's still incredible.  And I get to be a part of it.  I get to come along side a family or single mom or scared teenager and hold her hand as she meets her son or daughter for the first time.  As she feels the rush of motherhood and watch as her tears mingle with the tears of her baby and it's magic.

So I'll grumble as I take a stupid cardiac test and try to rub out my sore muscles as I stumble to the bathroom at five am for the sixth day in a row and I'll even try not to panic as I'm watching my patients strip on the monitor and I know in my heart things aren't going well.

But when I'm in that moment with my patient and she's pushing and I'm counting and I say "Take a look dad!  You can see the baby's head!" and then is eyes get big and my patient stops pushing and says "You can see her?!" only now she's crying as she says "Does she look...happy?!"

That moment makes my day.