Career Choices After L&D Specialty

[UnluckyDuck]

Hello everyone! I'm a new BSN grad here and will be starting a position as an L&D Nurse in a few weeks (Yay!). I'm very excited as this has always been the field I wanted to specialize in and I'm still in disbelief that I was able to get a residency position fresh out of nursing school. I'm looking forward to the next few years and hope to get a ton of experience and become a great nurse. I'm someone who always likes to keep the future in mind and with that, I'm looking to set some long term goals for after these next few years. I would want to go back to school eventually, but I'm wondering what kind of options an L&D nurse would have to take that next step in their career. I know becoming a Nurse Midwife would, of course, be an option since that's right in the L&D specialty, but I've also heard of people going back to school for their FNP or WHNP (I didn't even know FNP would be an option). My question is, for those nurses who had those L&D years of experience and went back to school, what degree/career did you decide to pursue? or if you're in L&D now, what degree/career would you want to pursue next? I'm trying to figure out all the options that I could take into consideration and what everyone's thoughts are who have more insight on what those careers look like and the pros/cons of each.

[labordude, BSN, RN]

Tons of my colleagues have done/are doing their FNP because of the flexibility it offers them. Fewer people are doing WHNP because CNM covers that AND more. If you want to do CNM, L&D is very helpful. I have gone back and forth between CNM and MD and after trying out school for both, landed on CNM.