Having trouble coming up with ideas, How do you get started?

[MicheleHrisckoCook]

Hi! I was a hospital nurse for 11 years in everything from neonatal ICU to adult med surg and telemetry, but mostly NICU. I came home because my husband is terminally ill from Mitochondrial Disease. If you have never heard of it, look it up, many have not, including many doctors! That is why it took us forever to get a dx! I may of heard of it once in Nrsg school if at all! Anyway I have been out of the hospital for 8 years now and really don't want to go back, as the hours would not go well with taking care of my two school aged kids, or taking care of him which is a full time job! However as you can very well imagine, going from a full time Nursing job to living on his SSI and assistance was quite a cut to our lifestyle not to mention my self esteem, esp since in some ways I work harder now then I did then (I am always on call for him, NO days off, NO shift off....he is completely bedridden, full care, and I am alone). I tried "home business opportunities" however most of them, while I was successful for awhile in earning extra money, require you to buy a certain quota of their product a month to be able to either sell it or represent them and advertise for them, and I could not on this lifestyle maintain that!! I would LOVE to be able to truly work from home using my education and expertise, AND get the pay that I am accustomed to and NOT have to live on handouts anymore!! Does anyone have any ideas??

I had an idea of being like an advice person for new moms, remembering how scared/unsure I was at first coming home the first time, even though I had worked in NICU and OB/GYN, it is different when it is YOUR baby!! But how do you start???? How do you set up, get your name out there? I would not even know how to begin!!!!! How would I charge for that? How would I get insurance companies to pay for such a service???

[NedRN]

I think I can safely say that you can forget about insurance companies paying for such a service. Can you state a medical need? On the other hand, you might be able to accomplish something similar by working directly for insurance companies. More and more, they are providing nurses on call to answer any questions. You might try finding such a job and I believe most of them work at home.

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

You're describing the role of a doula. Your local midwifery service would be happy to point you in the right direction. Good luck!