Weekend musings

The client from yesterday and yester-yesterday ended up with a C/Sec this morning. A very long labor for her, but the baby is fine and she will recover. I'm sorry it had to be this way, but sometimes it's the best option left. Maybe she could have gone on for a few more days and pushed a baby out, but would that have been better? I don't think so, but who is to say?

It reminded me of a birth I didn't attend a few years ago. I'll call the mom Linda. Linda was pregnant with baby number 5. She had 4 previous C/S and wanted a home birth, vaginally, without drugs. Naturally (meant as irony). She was over 35 (read: consider by some as high risk), attempting a V/Bac (read: more risk), and post due, as in past 42 weeks preg. (read: mega risk).

I was her birth assistant up to 42 weeks, but then her midwife was uncomfortable taking care of her at that point and I didn't know the lay midwife that was going to assume all that risk, so I bailed. When she had the baby she had a very long and hard labor. She did have her V/Bac, but afterwards said it was much harder than the C/Ss and would have preferred doing that again rather than the vaginal birth (after a very long and hard labor).

Move ahead ten years...I ran into this lady again as her older daughter and my daughter became best of friends for a season. I never got the nerve to ask her if she still felt this way about the whole homebirth experience. I wish I had. If I get the chance I will. Sometimes surgery is a very good option. Just wish it wasn't used so much for no reason at all.

Like inductions that are planned at 12 weeks because the doctor thinks the baby will be too big. !?! That happened to the wife of the youth minister at church. Who could even consider telling a women that? But it was Reston Hospital, and they had a 70% section rate. Someone call the Health Department, PLEASE.

(hmmm, my next door neighbor is a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist, maybe I should speak with him???)

Back to thoughts about school.(Hence the hunter green color)

Questions I haven't had answered that I would like to know before school starts.

1) what type of insurance do I need for mistakes I might make that hurt someone? And a follow up - does the school offer this?

2) what type (kind, cost, availability, etc.) of insurance do I need to protect me if I get injured while in clinicals (sort of on the job, but not)? And does the school offer this or companies approved or associated with the school, or even a referral to a company?

3) when can I get the book list so I can find out what books I can beg, borrow or, er, um, buy?

4) why wasn't the dress code put in the packet of otherwise pretty much useless information sent out with the pretty much choiceless choice of clinicals list?

5) why don't people at the school contact us via email since we HAD to activate a GMU.edu email address? Wouldn't that be the reason of having that account, i.e. open this email account so we can send you email? Is this too obvious???

6) What other supplies might I need like, say, stethoscope? BP cuff? Scissors? Ya' know, the basic nursing student stuffage.

7) What exactly is the coordinator of this program doing for me at this point in time? And if this is the way they operate, what kind of he(double toothpicks) am I going to have to deal with this next year?

8) what is the possibility of me getting a part time job as the student representative of the 2nd degree nursing program? and can you pay me for that? B/C I would be making some changes! I do have a business degree, thank you very much.

Priorities for school for this week:

- get student ID
- get parking pass for campus
- check out the library at school and find out if they have put any nursing texts on reserve for the coming semester (oh, and maybe find out what books were on it last year if I can't figure out the books for this year, and then check them ALL out)
- drop off financial aid paperwork to the financial aid office (once I have figured out WHERE that is!)

Other Priorities this week:
+ do two postpartum home visits, bringing a gift to hospital client (I should make some sort of form for this visit and send it to BC since I will be doing it as favor to the midwifes and not using the normal chart forms...hmmm. Think about this one a little)
+ complete enrollment forms for N for school (including medical form from docs - bet they are getting tired of me by now)
+ finish reading Harry Potter book 5 and see the movie! This is purely for pleasure. I figure I'll not have time to read for fun once school starts. HA!
+ go through the partnership paperwork and look for the missing contracts and if I find them, send them out asap