lelania1

I am another homebirth midwife who went back to school and became a nurse (Neuro ICU) because of money and also schedule. I became a mother myself and no longer wanted to be gone at a moments notice for unspecified days in a row and on call 24/7. I have specifically avoided the OB nursing setting because I doubt I can psychologically handle participating in what I see as abuse of women and babies as my area has only large resident run teaching hospitals and few to no real options for low risk women to have normal births. The section rates are 40-50% and the induction rates are 70-80%. I have seen many infants damaged and even killed in hospitals, it just doesn't end up in the papers when it happens. Recently, a friend who is a homebirth midwife delivered a baby who had a completely normal course of labor, but was clearly in resp distress at birth and was discovered to have aspirated mec in utero, the neonatologist believes long before labor as is the case with most cases of MEC aspiration. The nurses were total jerks to this family and midwife, called the birth a trainwreck, turned the midwife into the state on and on. The irony is that there were two hospital delivered infants also in the same NICU wth the identical diagnosis who were managed and delivered by OB's. NO one seemed to notice the hypocrisy or irony in the situation except te neonatologist who repeatedly told the parents and staff that the location of birth would have in no way affected the outcome. The midwife acted responsibly, stabilized the baby and transported for care. The baby is fine now, but the experience for the family was made so much worse by the nurses and their ignorance. My childhood friends baby has CP from a botched hospital delivery where they bagged her baby following delivery without working wall 02, and my cousin had a baby with permanent nerve damage to his arm from an overzealous resident who refused to allow her to push her own baby out. He was pulling too much on the babies neck. I personally wached a resident snap a babies neck during an overly involved manual "delivery" of an infant. The baby died of course, instantly. And those are just some of the more extreme stories that don't take into account the infants with run of the mill hospital aquired infections, the moms with necrotizing fascitis of their c-section wounds and so on. My hospital has seen 3 women in their 20's and 30's die from this exact scenario in the last two years, flown in from community hospitals and none of these sections emergent. I don't believe hospitals are bad places to have babies, because as awful as these stories are they represent a fraction of the total number of births. Likewise, homebirth tragedies also represent a fraction of the total number of births. The major difference is that when a hospital has a bad outcome they often convince the family that it was just an act of god, whereas when it happens at home it is always attributed to the location of the birth. I have fortunately never had a bad outcome that was preventable. I am an apprentice- trained midwife, and sought out diverse training opportunities that included externships overseas in higher risk populations and low technology settings. I have transported my share of women, and what is always sad is that the family is generally punished for transporting badly enough that it gives the midwife pause about transporting the next woman. That is part of why hospitals in some areas see "trainwrecks" because midwives are willing to try more and longer at home because they fear for their clients safety in the hospital. Ironically the lack of a collaborative relatonship between hospitals and homebirth practitioners leads to more problems. People often tell me they think I am brave to have had my kids at home. Personally I feel like I took the easy road. I didn't have to worry about superbugs or infections, I never lost ownership of my body, I didn't have to battle policies and protocols designed to protect the hospitals interests at the expense of my and my babies care and I believe that the care I had was actually MORE research based in terms of the screenings, tests and procedures I had done. My prenatals lasted 1 hour to 90 minutes (yet had I transported I would have been documented as having had "no prenatal care" compared to the rest of the women there who had a series of 8 minute prenatals) and my midwives not only knew my name, they knew my whole life story, my husbands, how we live think and operate. They were intimately involved with my dietary choices, health history and baby. The icing on the cake was that the day before my first son was due, my OB who was my backup provider told me he esimated my baby at 9 pounds and tried to scare me into a hospital delivery. The next day I delivered an ELEVEN pound baby at home in the water without as much as a tear. My labor was 9 hours long, I pushed for under 2 hours with no coaching and caught my own baby. Following this success story I was admonished that I had had a life threatening delivery (????) and should NEVER have a homebirth again, and should perhaps even think about a section for the next one. I just cannot get the logic of that. For my second baby, I was unable to find backup because of my first babies size despite all evidence that I can deliver a large infant. Despite less weight gain and a closer watch over my diet my second was 11 plus two ounces. He was born in three contractions. Also at home, also no tears. We did have a less straightfoward experience though as I had numerous false labor starts for a week leading up to labor, I had an ultrasound that had show a possible kidney problem with him (which didn't worry me because my mother had an identical diagnosis with my brother that ended up being a flase positive) and we had obvious cord related decelerations in labor- he came wrapped in a mile of cord like a present a few days after christmas. I am currently on the road to getting my FNP, and still think about geting a CNM to be able to do births again, but it is just so complicated in the current legal and medical climate. The solution seems so obvious to me- an integrated system where midwives, OB's and nursing professionals work in collaboration to support lower costs and better outcomes with increased choice for families.

I am three months into my orientation on a neuro ICU floor, and started night shifts recently. I find that working nights eats several days per shift in recovery time. Does this get better with time? Do you adjust? I also find myself really loopy by the early morning, so much so it seems unsafe, my processing is slower, my reflexes are slower and even my vision starts to be weird- it gets to where I am seeing stuff moving in the periphery and such. Do people adjust to this schedule and find they can function throughout the shift? I work all 12's. Also, is it easier to work 3 twelves in a row at night, or spread out? When folks move to permanent nights does that make it even better? Thanks!

I was in FACT. I think everyone who has actively pursued employment has it. Only a few people are left from the scholarship program without employment. But Jeff has assured us all that everyone will have a job. Problem is, many positions don't open til august.

I was one of the scholarship students from TJU this last year, and it has been rough. I am not entirely sure what happened but initially we were told we would interview for several positions during january and february, and then pick from what we were offered. I just got and accepted an offer last week- the last week of may and my life has been an absolute nightmare of stress and fear up until then. Many of us weren't given start dates until August 18th!!! And several people are still unemployed. There was some big problem with getting the budget approved, and fewer nurses than they expected left during the January attrition that happens each year, which is a good thing in some respects but terrible for us since there weren't any open positions. People threatened legal action over this and I am not surprised the school decided to take a year off from the program. I don't really know the full back story but I have major regrets about having taken the scholarship, though at the time it felt like the only way I would swing it.