Dayray

I have MS, probobly have for 15-20 years but just found out last year. I had some bad issues with confusing the ceiling with the floor and not being able to get up off of the later. That got me diagnosed i have over the years had struggles with changing vision, unexplained pain and fatigue. It is actually kinda surprising I didn’t get dx along time ago. Anyway several years before my dx I went threw several crisis. My daughter died, I was run out of work (partially unfairly but partially due to cognitive deficit) and my marriage almost ended. During this time I began to have sever cognitive issues with memory attention and well just not being too swift. Over the last 4 years I things have slowly been improving but still are far off from what they used to be. Weather it is due to MS or just emotional overload I’m not sure. I mentioned this to my nero and she sent my to a cognitive psychologist. 2 months after the testing I finally got the results back. I am mildly cognitively impaired in exactly the areas I thought I was. My IQ in high school was 128 it is now 109 (doesn’t seem terrible but believe me its hard to learn to live without those 19 points). My problems are memory which kind of scares me but not horribly because I can write things down and I have been doing my job long enough that remembering what to do isn’t that hard. Most of the problems I have in this area are just embarrassing but manageable (I think). I also have issues with processing speed, multitasking, CRITICAL THINKING, strength and motor skills. I can still act appropriately to problems but much slower I can see this in my charting. It take a long time because I have to remember how the computer program works and then process that, then remember what I want to say and process that and then review the whole thing. It takes way to long. I can manage the slower charting although I really hate it and its frustrating. However, The worry that I’m going to miss something is terrifying. I work OB and things happen very quickly one part of me says "I have been around a while and have seen situations over and over again" so I know how to react like most people know their way home. Experience also helps with assessment and although I cant add things up as fast as I used to, I just have that feeling about things and am usually right or at least close. Also the strength and motor skills thing is worrisome. I can’t start IVs anymore and I used to be really good at that. I mentioned this to my charge and asked to get remedial training but the hospital doesn’t have anything along that line to offer. It’s embarrassing to be orienting a new grad, teaching her and then have to have her start an Iv, which is the simplest of nursing skills. I think I could get by with the IV thing but what scare's me is babies. I have never ever ever even come close to hurting anyone and would not be able to return to work if I did. For the last few years even before the IVs became an issue I just felt weird when I was cutting umbilical cords. Sense my dx I have been ultra careful when holding babies or putting bands on and exhaustingly careful cutting cords. I think I can manage this too but I don’t know that I can and thats making me think I shouldn’t be doing this anymore. Even worse I absolutely love what I do. I am still passionate and still get happy when I know I get to take care of someone today. I can not imagine doing anything else sure I could work in an office or sell something but well it would just be for the money. I have thought of being a midwife and the doctor says I have the capacity for college but I worry about suturing and god forbid someone made me assist with surgery (which most midwives do). Money would be a huge issue if I tried for disability my policy covers 60% of my base pay and differentials make up 25-30% of my income so that like a 50% pay cut. So thoughts?

WOW!!!! I tried to read threw the posts after writeing mine I have to tip my hat to the Op for reamaining so positive and polite. I won't say anymore becuase i dont want to hyjack this post with a flame fest.

I have not read the many of the responses but can guess that they are variable and some valid others not. I have known several lesbian L&D nurses. Some were great and others not. One of them was one of the best nurses I have ever known and took allot of extra care with her patients. the point being that as with so many things in life sexual orientation has very little to do with nursing. I don't know if these nurses choose to discuss their orientation with patients I would think that in most cases it wont come up and would be an issue that could cost you more energy then it is worth but in a case that it did come up I don't think you should feel the need to lie or cover up your life. As for how staff would treat you I do think geography would have allot to do with that as well as the kinds of nurses working there. Where I currently work we have at least 2 female nurses that are openly gay and in long term relationships. they talk about their partners and sometimes make jokes about being gay and I don't think they take much flack for any of it. I know that they go on social events with other "strait" staff members so for the most part are excepted into the community of L&D nurses. I am pretty sure that over the years there have been other lesbian nurses that have chosen to keep their orientation to themselves and I never knew the difference. I am a male L&D nurse. I don't have many problems with patients although it occasionally does come up. I am not gay but I know that many patients assume that I am. I used to always play along with this as i thought "if it makes them feel better then who cares" as of late I have begin to mention my wife and kids when opportunity / conversation lends its self to that. I really don't care if people think I am gay but just like I said you shouldn't feel the need to hide your life from patients I stated to feel i was doing this and felt it was somehow wrong. It hasn't seemed to affect things but I am also allot more experienced in L&D and I know this is evident to my patients and perhaps this is part of the equation. Anyway I can tell you that you and I have some issues in common and that well people will not react the same to a lesbian women as they would a strait man working as a nurse in L&D, there are some similarities. My biggest problem comes not from patients but from staff. I used to accept this as a given fact and approached things with the thinking that i had to live with this because i was different. I have changed my view mostly because i have been threw the ringer many many times and have decided that I don't have to take crap or prove myself to anyone just because i am a man. I don't know which is the right way to approach it. i just know that I am tired of the same old questions, issues and situations that I have to deal with every few years because i was forced to leave another job and start all over due to the "male thing" again. So this last time I have turned in every person that has made a comment or treated me differently. I don't let people slide when they treat me differently but instead call them out and resolve the issue and let my managers know about the conversation. I would much rather take the time to show those people that their ideas about me are wrong and gain their trust but I think that in doing that I somehow made people feel that they were justified in having a opinion about me based only on my gender/orientation and this lead to later problems. I did not read the post by the person about being abused but i did read your response and thought it a good one. I would like to make the comment that while this may be the way some abuse victims feel it is not the only view held by abuse victims. nurses tend to carry stronger bias against men/lesbians then the general public so don't take one view point as the only representation of people in that category. I have heard different statistics but somewhere in the range of 33% of women have been sexually assaulted (to varying degrees in their life). I have cared for thousands of patients so I know that many of them have at some point been assaulted. patients refuse my care based on gender (this is the only reason i have ever been fired) about 2-3 times a year so I know that a history of sexual assault is not an automatic indicator that a person is uncomfortable with me (or you). Also i have had 3 patients with strong documented histories of assault that would ask for me when ever they came in. That was long and I am sure some of the info will help you and other parts will not. The message i want to convey is that you should not let this be an issue that keeps you out of L&D. If you truly love this area then go for it. I think there is a good chance you may encounter some problems but for the most part patients will sense your dedication and either never know or not care about your personal life. Once you are comfortable with your new skills and role as an L&D nurse I don't think you should hide who you are to your coworkers. in the beginning with all the things you will be learning you may want to postpone the added stress of dealing with "coming out " to them. eventually though it would be more pressure for you to keep it from them then not too and let the cards fall where they may. good luck!

First let me say that I don't agree with a lot of the things he says in his "plan" I also think that you need to find a doctor that approaches birth plans as a discussion aimed at arriving at a plan that is both safe and addresses your desires and concerns that you can both agree on. That being said, I cannot help you with resources to refute his birth plan. it is written completely in line with ACOG guidelines with a few exceptions) and the latest accepted research. ACOG guidelines are set up as a template based on statistics which is the accepted way of directing medical care. It does not mean that those things are the best for you in your particular pregnancy or situation it is instead safety by statistics (i.e. this works for 90% of people and 1% will have sever problems if you don’t do it this way) The things I see in here that don't have anything to do with ACOG are ( as I went threw these I see that I actually don’t agree with most of it but I do see where he is coming from lol): HOME delivery, water birth and delivery in a dark room- home birth is great (if it goes well), horrible if it doesn’t: most of the time birth goes well with little need for intervention and usually those interventions are simple however if problems develop they can be catastrophic when you are out of hospital because it takes 5,10,15,30,60 minutes to get to a hospital and that may be too late. Water birth is fine but unless your practitioner is trained and comfortable doing them it can be dangerous. just think of bending over in a weird position and trying to do the things you normally do without falling in the tub also if you really want water birth please make sure you watch a few tapes of water births before you make your final decision. dim room - the thing he is worried about here is not being able to see. many times problems with delivery and possibility of tearing can be seen ahead of time if you have a clear view. that being said if you spend some time with the patient before delivery then your eyes are adjusted and you can see better also doctors tend to sit or stand at the foot of the bed away from the patient . if you are sitting near the patient on the foot of the bed or with them on the floor, couch, stool you can not only see better but can easily feel with your hand the same things you assess with your eyes. not accepting birth plans/ Bradley - The underlying idea he has here is good but the harshness and finality with which he states it is insulting and in and of its self would make me look for a different practioner. what he is trying to do here is head off any weirdness that comes up. these things are rampant on the internet and coming from childbirth advocates with little education or experience. so i can see why he wants to state he wont do those things but again it needs to be a discussion and not a edict from him. not accepting Bradley- The way he puts it and the finality with which he states it is again a red flag. Again i can see his point here however. The Bradley method works well for some people although i don’t particularly like it the problem comes because for some reason Bradley has been embraced by the most devote anti-medical birth advocates some but not all bradley instructors teach a distrust of the medical profession in general also the idea of the father as a protector is great except that if the father is a control freak or is unsympathetic to the women’s pain he becomes a huge problem it was not the internet of original Bradley but the father is told it is his job to keep the mother from taking pain medicine and they sometimes become abusive in keeping her from doing this also I have strong opioins that it is the mothers decision to take pain medicine even if she makes that decisition when in labor , yeah you offer other ways of dealing with labor and confirm her decision several times before actually giving them but it is her decision and she does not need a guy to make her feel bad or like a failure because of it. aside from any of this i find it really really strange that bradley has been embraced by so many child birth advocates. I have known several nurses that worked with Dr Bradley. All of them describe him as mean demeaning, paternalistic and some times abusive in his practice in reading his book and considering his method you can see this. ( ia m sorry for the personaly opioin here) Bradley works fine for some people and if you like it you shoudl use it. Douala’s and labor coaches as visitors - I completely agree with this one. doulas can be great they can also be horrible when their agenda is not to give you a good experience but to serve an agenda of their own: either unmedicated child birth at all costs, a desire to be a nurse or doctor and make nursing/ medical decisions, or placeing their desire to experience your birth above the desire to help youhave the best experience or to learn even at the expense of your comfort. I have worked with hundreds of doulas and only had problems with 2 of them and a few others that i didn’t have a problem with but saw them as spectators more then labor support. in most cases even overly aggressive doulas can be worked with when you refocus them on the patients well being and experience but in the rare cases you cannot they need to be removed. I have to wonder though. it is so rare that these problems come up, why did he feel the need to put it in print. IV access- I have mixed feelings on this one but I think it should be left up to the patient as long as they don’t have factors that make their labor high risk. there is nothing more beautiful then a women sitting in a rocking chair or walking for a few hours and then delivering with no cervical exams, Ivs or meds and little interferance from us at the same time there is nothing more terrifying then having a post partum humoring without IV access in most cases i can start an Iv and give meds in 30-60 seconds but I fear for the times that i cannot and there are other emergences when IV access is even more critical it is defiantly safer to have an IV and its only a small discomfort but if you don’t have any risk factors and understand the risks of not having one it is your right to say no. Continues monitoring after 4 cm - the only guild line i know for that is AWHONN's guideline for intermittent monitoring. if you don’t have any problems or reasons to watch closely i.e. non reassuring heartones, abnormal growth, placenta issues like low lying, partial abruption or previa, bleeding or something else. then AWHONN's minimum fetal monitoring is heartones every 30 min preferably before during and after a contraction for about 3 min with 20 min strip every 2 hours and continues while you are pushing. I generally follow AWHONNs recommendations and if something makes me feel i need to watch closer we talk about it. the only ACOG guidelines i know of are for monitoring following decels I am sure they have a guild line for intermittent monitoring that is similar to AWHONNs. his position on fetal monitoring is excessive but i know why he takes this position some times weird stuff happens and the only way to be 100% sure we catch them is to have you on the monitor all the time. I see his point but with AWHONNs guideline and assessment as well as info from prenatals i think it is relatively safe to let people be at least a little free during labor. you can find lots of studies that prove fetal monitoring is not that reliable ( and it really is not 100% or even clsoe to it) but it is all we have and legally if we don’t use us it we are up the creek also i wouldn’t use AHWONN guild lines when writing a letter to a doctor. They tend to scoff at guid lines set by a nursing organization. epidural - it is true that the current research says that epidurals do not hamper labor in any way. But any person who works in obstetrics can tell you that’s not true. there are also doctors who go the completely opposite way and say that you need to wait until 4 cm and that too is not true. the simple answer is that when to get an epidural is a joint decision between you and the people caring for you. You can of course override everyone one else and get one whenever you want but it can slow things down or in some cases stop them. I usually tell my patient to tell me when they want it and we will talk about it. 99% of the time when patients ask they can have one with little risk of slowing things. delivering in stirrups - Position for delivery is not (as far as I know) addressed by an ACOG guideline. there are studies showing that lithotomy position is not the best and sometimes harmful. that being said doctors (not midwives or nurses) are trained in school and in residency to assess everything and deliver babies in Lithotomy position. when you are in another position it changes your pelvis and moves the landmarks doctors use to assess your pelvis and the decent of the baby- which can make it harder to anticipate problems or help you not to tear and really to make sure they don't drop the baby when its delivering. I personally hate stir up's i think they are uncomfortable and have known them at times to hurt. it also just makes things seem so cold and a bit scary. I know doctors are comfortable with them because it keeps your pelvis open and your position content allowing them to assess things better. I don’t agree with this item but I understand his motives for writing it. I think sometimes doctors get a bad wrap people assume that they force issues about position / surface only because they prefer it. it is true that the standard position for delivery was developed with more consideration for the doctor then the patient. Doctors however are not forcing a certain position out of selfishness or control issues its because it was the way they were taught and they fear complications in other positions. I have known some that deliver in other positions but they are rare and i assume they how to deliver in other positions threw trial and error you can imagine how scary that is for them though, trial and error with human life.. deliveries only on standard labor and delivery beds- again this goes to this training and abilities to assess/ perform maneuvers to deliver. it is probably safer to do this in the rare case if a complication its allot faster to have people on a bed but most of the time you can anticipate complications (not always) and then say we have to be on the bed. it is pretty easy to move to a bed or out of other positions if need be also it is beneficial for many women to be on another surface or in another position so again well i see his rational i don’t agree with him episiotomy - i think his explanation of the reason he performs episiotomy and the things he does to avoid it are good but the way he says "at my discretion" worries me honestly necessity of episiotomy is rare and there is no way a patient can judge it for them selves so it does need to be left up to the doctor. So a discussion (before delivery) needs to be had of what his thoughts are on episiotomy, factors he would use in making a decision to cut and what his % of episiotomies is, the fact that he felt the need to spell it out makes me worry about how often he does them. sense he is the one that has to make the decision you have to decide if you agree with his basis for making that decision. clamping the cord- this one is a hot topic lately. years ago i did a lot of research on this I was able to find some evidence and suggestion within the medical community that this could be beneficial. I was not able to find any studies that set parameters for how long to wait how to assess how much blood the baby was getting or the babies need for additional blood. also there is some risk of the baby getting too much blood. because of this I am not comfortable with letting the cord pulse. I have heard that their are more recent studies suggesting parameters for how long, why and how to do this but i haven’t seem them. also problems i have seen arise from this are patients refusing to let the doctor cut the cord when the baby has thick me conium or other complications needing treatment. even the benefits of delayed cord clamping (which have not been quantified by any study) are over shadowed by the babies need to breath or the risk of me conium aspiration. C/S non negotiable - umm i really have problems with the finality of his statements anyway unless you have a baby that is in distress, you are bleeding or have some other risk of you or your baby dieing you can take some time to discuss things and make a decision. It sounds like he has had problems in the past with patients demanding extreme things and possibly having bad outcomes due to those demands (which every practitioner has). He writes this plan to head off problems before they come up. The problem with that is by doing so he has completely removed any room for judgment and gone with an ULTRA safe plan. I don’t like his plan over all and I think it puts all the power in his hands and that it is too rigid and removes any room for assessment to guide his decisions it also does not allow for your input. that being said I don’t think he is an evil man. I think he wants to be safe and has developed a plan that keeps him legal, following current recommendations and allows him to sleep at night because he is doing everything on the safe side. his plan is the "perfect plan" for the doctor. it will useualy deliver a live baby with minimul risk to his professtional reputaion or pocketbook and with little need for him to use his own assessment or problem solving skills. liek others have said Run for the hills , find someone else but don't tell the guy off or think of him as mean i really think he is trying to be a good doctor and is just a bit misguided

Ive worked at both ends of it. i started at a small 50 delevry a month hopital, worked at the largest L&D in the state and now back to 100 deliverys a month place. The bigger the better for us. lots of different nurses, less time for them to talk and less energy they have to spend on you.

Wow, I've been looking over the net the last few weeks and thought maybe All nurses would have something. well they do lol. I've been diagnoses with MS but ill see the MS specialist next week to begin treatment and I'm sure he will have allot of fun stuff to confirm for himself that it is in fact MS. I'm gunna tell my stories because I am bored, have nothing else to do and well I want to. I'm an L&D nurse for about 7 years I've had symptoms, eye problems, numbness, weakness, fatigue, depression , pain etc etc.. I wrote them off as stress, age all normal stuff. in hindsight I can see that it wasn't normal and I think I really knew at the time but anyway. almost a month ago I was having a drink and thought "wow I am dizzy those 2 beers must have been really strong" I went to bed. when I woke up i still felt a little dizzy so i took my kids to school and went to bed. when i woke up I was violently ill. I couldn't lift my head without the room spinning. My wife took care of me but i was kinda out of it and anytime I lifted my head i threw up over and over. after about 2 days of that she took me to the family doctor who gave me a shot of phengran. The doctor said it was stomach flu and dehydration. I was pretty sure she was wrong but I just sleep for like 26 hours. I woke the next day pretty much normal went to work and only noticed a little dizziness. I just tried to hydrate and by the middle of the week figured i must have gotten really dehydrated because vertigo isn't normal for me nor is throwing up. The next Monday, it was about 8 am and I felt that feeling again. I was dizzy so i went to bed and woke up sick again throwing up, room spinning and I couldn't walk strait. I would get up and fall right back down. So i crawled around my house puking in a trash can. I don't think my wife really knew what to do. I'm told it was a few days later but I am not sure. she sent me to the family doctor again. my daughter drove me and i was able to walk out of the car but I swayed and struggled to keep from falling. I saw someone else they thought i had maniers and that seemed likely to me . they made a referral to the ENT and I waited for my appointment. In the mean time I used the phenegran but told myself i needed to get control over the nausea and was able to. i was also able to teach myself to walk and only fall a little. after a few days I could drive and i felt that i was safe for other people on the road. the whole time i was dizzy and things would spin finally 2 weeks after it all started i saw the ENT. he tested my hearing and although he was a little put off by the whole dizziness thing he and his assistant did some maneuvers aimed at fixing postural vertigo. he said i had postural vertigo. I knew that I didn't and that it was more serious. he was very nice and said that if things didn't improve to see him in 4 days and he would test for maniers. I knew it wasn't maniers by then because my ears were fine and i didn't have any of the other symptoms. Things didn't improve by the 3rd day (now 2 and a half weeks form the start) so I decided i had to go to the emergency room. Now as nurses I am sure you realize the gravity of that, I mean ERs are for people who are really sick , who are gunna die or cant take care of themselves but I was at the end of my rope. It was the only place I could think of where i would find an MRI and people who had to be responsible for me. The ER doc was nice but annoyed by me I never tell anyone I am a nurse but I could tell he thought i was crazy for being there. He ordered an MRI and they found 10 lesions on the brain as well as one on the spinal cord. The Nero was not an MS specialist and the hospitalist seemed a bit put off by his haste in diagnosising MS but I am pretty sure he was right or at least close. I got 2 doses of steroids in the hospital and 3 more at home. I am suposed to see the MS specialist next week. What bothers me more is the gait issue. I can walk almost normaly and a person watching wouldnt know. if you saw me stumble you might think i was drunk or just weird but my legs are very week and I have a weird falling senstaion and when I close my eyes I dont really knoe where i am in space. I still have waves of nusea but just burp them down and they pass. i could walk the halls but wonder about doing it all day and if seomene turns out the lights or grabs me (which is not unheard of in L&D) i can't promise i wouldn't fall. I think i could do the physical parts of my job moving, lifting, supporting but it seems so risky. so does anyone have anything like this? I know i can compensate for the vertigo but will I ever not have to be so conscious of where i am and how I am moving? does the strength in the legs return? i ask every doctor and therapist i see, they all seem really happy with my ability to move around but no one will really answer the questions of long term progress. I assume its a mixture of them not knowing for sure and knowing that it wont ever be the same but i just don't know. For the long term MS seems manageable, it sucks but there are worse things. still the ataxia is really freqing me out. I am 34 years old and before this happened i was in pretty good shape. physically i still seem normal I just wonder what this mean for me. i want to go back to work but If i ever hurt anyone ..well I couldn't

Sure as a man you can work Ob and successfuly. pateints really dont care and the rare situations that it is a problem are easily fixed by changing assighnments. That being said i would recomemnd that if you have a love for another kind of nursing you should presue that. The reason is that no matter how good of a nurse you are , how much your patients love you or how respected you become amoung other nurses. You will always be different. people will always asume they know things about you based on your gender and a few (no matter how they denigh it) will always hold gender related things aginst you. with all the other things you need to worry about in nursing why take on the extra? If you truely love Ob and wont be happy without it then go for it but if you can be happy elsewhere then do so

yes, computer documentation has turned into the standard by which you are measured ie. bad at computer charting = bad nurse. when computer charting was being developed i looked forward to it but its entierly too cumbersome now, there is so much more to chart on becuse it all fits together so neatly for admistraiters add to that most hospitals still require the same amount of paper charting they used to i dont like it , dont think its good for pateints but it seems to be the way nursing is headed. if you want to be successful in nursing dont rock the boat , dont make doctors mad and make sure you keep the computer happy. who cares if your pateints die from neglect? i mean it was charted correctly right?

nurses who dont feel overwhielmed in L&D during orientataion (and for a while after) are scary. if you dont realize how scary it is you arent gettign it. the fact that you feel stressed shows that you are learning and that you do get how important your role is and that you dont know everything. keep it up and talk with your preceptor abotu your feelings chances are she is waiting for you to show some sighn that you are overwheilmed and can help you with it.

I only use stir-ups if the leg is just to numb and to heavy for me to help her with (very rare). I just think they look bad and hurt. I do have to question some of the other things they are saying about posistion and breathing. I have read things about open glotis pushing and it all makes sense BUT I tried it with epidurals and without. People just didnt push well with open glotis in fact the baby didnt move at all I really wanted it to work so i would have them use open glottis for an hour, there was little to no progress at the end of that hour and then we woudl use closed glotis and things moved right along with respect to position: the people i work with are pretty educated and frequently have doulas. many of the doulas guid them threw pushing or patients have their own prefrances. squt bars and hand and knees are common. If the pateint has a preferance or if the doula is working with her i tend to just go with it and let them do whatt hey want usualy i find that progress on squat bars is poor and the pateint expends so much energy they tire quickly. hand and knees seems to work well but most pateints don't seem to like it. I have read the reports and honestly I dont care what posution people use BUT after they squt or use hand and knees and ask for help I have not found a postion that moves a baby faster then lithotomy with hands behind the knees and yes closed glottis pushing. Ive seen allot of babies born in hands and knees and only a few in squating. belive me i try to help people do them and im really not sure why my personal experiances dont seem to reflect what the studies show. I offten wonder what population these studies are done on. in the US people dont squat much in everyday life in other countries its pretty common maybe thats why We dont see the same results from it as studies show. Thoughts? (please don't quote studies i have read them) please talk about what you ahve seen (more then once or twice).

it a good manouver in the right situation but like many interventions is misused quit offten. I have mixed feelings on informed consent on this one, as if it is nessasary time is of the essence. If only people could know OBs well enough to know weather or not to trust their judgment. its unfortante but most dont know their docs that well and many docs arent worthy of that trust. Ive seen allot of docs use it, pateints dont useualy notice

I think you should work in ob as a nurse. I also think you shoudl write down your feelings about how evil OBGYN is now so you can look at it after a few years actualy seeing how things are. I think you will be greatly surprized at how differnt things look to you.

No one knows, the main theroies are adrenaline, hormones and lowering of core temp. take your pick I think its becuse there are just so many physical and emotional changes going on. its best just to distract them in conversation or movment and the shakes will pass and then coem back. always tell them "dotn try not to shake, it makes it worse"

being a good nurse is about knowing how to be a good nurse not a good pateint. Having kids does not mean that they know what you are going threw (the expeance is different for everyone) haveing 10 babies doesnt teach you to talk someoen threw the pain or the pushing and definatly doesnt teach you what to do in emergencies. Many times the nurses without kids are the younger ones. newer nurses are going to gush over you and feel bad for you when you hurt. they are full of the of passion and amazment. the more experanced nurses are going to make sure you and your baby live and some of us still are very passionet for OB. Really you cant pick nurses based on anything other then maybe recomendations. I have worked with good and bad nurses new and very experanced. in a pinch id say take the more experanced but many many of them are just burned out. So don't ask if someone has kids if they don't it is kinda dishartning for them. For me I assume they are tryign to figure out weather or not im gay lol - eitherway it is a horrible indicator for the care you will recive

yeah its a bunch of junk- I absolutly love labor nursing , the pateint, the a&P, the families , the commonsense nursing interventions, the nursing process as you decide what to do for your pateint. Saving lives by running in a bag of fluid, calming a girl who is screamign at the top of her lungs , the quite deliverys that flow so nicly and sweetly. I could go on forever I just Love l&D but even with all of that - I never ever would want to experance what women go threw. Stll i have 5 shoe boxes full of cards telling me how much good i did for pateints and how much they value my care. So forge the peopel who say "you need to have had kids" Bah! bah! I say