Change is scary!

[adpiRN]

I had an interview today for a pediatric office job.

I want the job but I left feeling anxious about all the change. (I don't tend to handle change well)

Right now I work full-time in a hospital 3 12-hour shifts, which I'm finding exhausting, hate working weekends and holidays, and am just generally feeling burnt out from the physical and emotional stress of labor and delivery.

This new job would be part-time, 3 8-hour shifts a week (8-4:30).

That would leave time for per diem at the hospital if I want to keep my skills up and teaching childbirth education (which I'm doing right now).

I'm excited about learning new things, and the pediatric office would be great experience for other goals of mine (school nurse, FNP).

So why am I so anxious?!

A lot of it has to do with the fact that the new job would mean a lower hourly rate, more cost to me to get health insurance for myself and my husband, and less vacation time (2 weeks instead of 4).

There's also a 3 month waiting period to get health insurance and that makes me nervous too.

So I just have to think hard about whether the new job is worth all those sacrifices!

I've never been in the position of interviewing for a job while I already have a job.

It creates a lot of ambivalence about whether I want to the job or not.

I can see why people stay in jobs that they don't really like anymore - because change is scary!

[Horseshoe, BSN, RN]

thanks everyone! talking through it has made me realize that i do want the job, i'm just scared of change which is normal.

of course now that i know i want the job, i'm worried i won't get it!

one of the hard parts of having an interview on friday afternoon is having to wait all weekend with no word.

i've decided that i'd probably do cobra for the 3 months and just making that decision helps relieve some anxiety about not having health insurance.

another complication thrown in is that my husband and i may try to get pregnant sometime in the next few months, but i worry what will happen if i get pregnant during the first 3 months of the job when i'm covered by cobra on my old insurance.

can the new insurance company refuse to cover my pregnancy if i got pregnant before coverage starts?

here's what i found on the oxford website:

pre-existing condition: an illness or injury which manifests itself in the six months before coverage under a policy starts, and for which treatment was received or recommended by a provider in the six months before coverage started. a pregnancy, which exists on the date coverage starts, is also a pre-existing condition. complications of such a pregnancy are not considered to be pre-existing conditions and are not subject to pre-existing condition limitations.

but is that only if you're applying for health insurance as an individual, not through a company?

this is all so complicated....

we may just try and wait to get pregnant until after those 3 months are over (if i even get the job....)

it's a very personal decision, but waiting would avoid a potentially very expensive outcome.