allthemadmen

I live a daytime life when not at work. If possible... your first couple of weeks working nights, do not work several nights in a row. You'll just be screwed up for a few weeks, no matter what, and accepting that makes it easier. :) When I first began working nights I needed benadryl, or a screwdriver, and something over my eyes even though I'd never liked anything like that before. Now I come home, have something to eat so hunger doesn't wake me, some orange juice, sometimes a drink (day folks would have a beer with dinner, so a mimosa with breakfast is ok lol), get settled, and go to sleep asap. My son gets off his bus at 4:10 so I get up at 3:50 when my husband is not home. If my husband is home, I get up at 4:30, which gives me two hours before I have to leave for work. This way I get to see family, do anything that needed to be done (post office, etc.), and not feel rushed. I have a small something to eat and pack dinner to eat at around 10 pm (and a bagel for 4-5 am). When I don't have to be back at work the following night, I might stay up a bit longer, or nap only until 1 or 2 pm so I don't lose the whole day. When I haven't been at work but need to work the next night, I get up, put my son on the bus, and go back to sleep by 8 am and sleep until noon or so. I used to be unable ever to sleep during the day- I never napped, and only slept during daytime if I was desperately ill. I've learned to sleep during the day (kind of too well!), and while sometimes I don't get entirely enough rest it's working well enough so far. It took several months to get completely settled into working nights.

It's much easier for this to come naturally when there are no strangers around and people are in their own homes. I'd suspect it's far more likely and comfortable when people are having UC (Unassisted Childbirth).

I was also a young single mom who wanted to be a midwife. I would suggest you go to a community college for a two-year ADN RN program and then a BSN completion program; this way you can work as a nurse after only two years of school, and if your plans/life change, requiring a delay in advanced education, you can still make a living. Hopefully you can go straight through, though. Good luck!

Thanks for the quick reply (and the good news)! :)

Does the Bridge application also require the portfolio/paper?

Thank you! I feel the same way. And just talking to one of the counselors about this concern was delightful. Now my concern is getting in with so little nursing experience, even though I have the doula experience; they made very clear that the ADN-MSN bridge is the most popular program!

I am a new grad RN with an ADN. I work in a Surgical ICU at a level I trauma center. (I've wanted to be a midwife my whole life, but wanted critical care experience right out of school.) I am enrolled in a BSN completion program, but am feeling discouraged (although I love critical care, I miss women and babies- I was a doula for many years). I started thinking about Frontier's ADN-MSN bridge, but I am concerned that not having a baccalaureate degree in any discipline might hurt me in the future. The bridge program would not only save me a year, but allow me to focus on what I'm truly interested in, instead of forcing me to prove myself in subjects (humanities) in which I am naturally very strong but have no formal credit. Any thoughts?

I agree with your feelings on this, but on the other hand, just as nursing schools have to prepare entry-level nurses to practice in any environment, so do nurse-midwifery schools have to prepare CNMs. Most babies in the US are born in hospitals, so familiarity, indeed comfort, with hospital L/D practices- especially cesarean birth- is not necessarily an unreasonable expectation.

Well said. I have many years of OB self-education and work as a doula/childbirth educator in all settings, and my nursing experience will be in critical care. I am not sure I could work L/D nursing for long. :\ However, I would also value the experience CNM2B reports- I just haven't always found L/D to be the most welcoming place for those with alternate experience.

I really appreciate this thread. I just graduated from my ADN program at 37; I've transferred to my BSN program, and want to fulfill the dream I've had since I was 16 and found Spiritual Midwifery in the dusty basement of a used bookstore where I worked. In just planning my BSN courses, though, Frontier seems so far away...in my head I have every confidence that age means nothing, especially in midwifery, but sometimes it is hard not to get discouraged or think of experience as time wasted instead of what it is, an ASSET. Good luck to everyone here!!!

Critical care experience, especially a very busy SICU or MICU, should be carte blanche for just about any program, but you may not like that kind of intensity. If you work L/D you can at least improve the experience for people, but you do need to be careful that you are helping them to experience *their* birth to the fullest, not the birth you would like for yourself. I agree that experience with high-risk patients and poor outcomes/complications can only help you, not only in terms of getting into grad school but in caring for your patients and understanding the real consequences of primary care responsibilities. (You may also find it less emotionally upsetting once your own baby is a little older.)

They don't even need to drink it; absorption through the skin of alcohol (aftershave, sanitizer, etc unwittingly used) can also be dangerous.

Even the online applications usually have the opportunity to upload a cover letter and resume. If not, then get the address of the brick and mortar HR department and drop it off, or find out the name of the manager of the unit and send it directly (this is what I'm going to do for a unit that is not yet advertising, though I am still in school). If you haven't already, make separate cover letters and tailored resumes for each position you're applying for. Find the experience you can best translate to NICU and talk it up. Go for a consult with someone if you're having trouble doing this on your own- my community college has such services for students and the community. Join organizations or subscribe to journals specific to NICU or birth/infancy. Show that, although you might not have experience in NICU, you have a knowledge base and you are motivated to educate yourself in the specialty you want to work in. Even if it takes more time for you to get a NICU job, those last can't help but better prepare you for it when you do land a position. Good luck!

I am lucky to have seen this post today. I am a student in my last semester, and I'm completing an extra internship on a unit where I'd love to work- except yesterday I saw a lot of gossipy, depressing, manipulative, political behaviour among quite a few of the nurses. It made me question whether I could survive or be happy on such a unit, because I really don't and never have done that sort of thing. It's why I was a misfit in high school and I guess none of us outgrow who we were back then! I don't care about being in the clique (perhaps that's really the problem in terms of fitting in!); I just want to do my work and be left alone and have enough camaraderie to help each other when we need it. Seems like that's too much to ask from some people. So thank you, afrocentricRN, for your reply. It will help me get to my internship next week!

Do you mean elementary and high school? All fifty states have some kind of exemption for school, and many private schools are more lenient even than that. But no, no one, anytime, anywhere, should be forced to take medicines they don't wish to. Their reasons are personal and must be respected as valid, and possibly even better-informed than those of us who have to toe a party line.