StarrySkies

Thank you so much! :tku:

From what I can see even Public Health RNs make more than I do in a hospital. It seems like a good field with a lot of autonomy and opportunity to really help people.

That is exactly where I am heading I think. Also, I am thinking that the CNMs that have talked (a tiny bit) about salary with me are calculating how many hours that they work in a week, and dividing their salary on hourly wage. Frankly, as I work nights many times the CNM will be sleeping until delivery just as the OBs are. Are we counting sleeping time here? Probably.

Thank you. I have actually been looking at UCSF trying to find salary figures, but have been unsuccessful. I am going to keep searching.

I am trying to figure out if it makes financial sense for me to go to grad school. I am a RN in CA and already make about 100k/year. I am in L&D and have had several CNMs tell me that nurses make more, but no one will give me actual numbers. I am open to Midwifery (my preference actually), WHNP, and even Nursing Education. The main issue right now are the dollars and cents. Yes, I want more autonomy. Yes, I want to further my career. But, I am a single mom and a Dave Ramsey student so the bottom line has to be in the black for me to be able to go forward and justify the expense of grad school. Can anyone give me some real numbers or point me to information on the web? Thanks!

I am also one of the nurses on strike who was locked out for 5 days. I blame the lockout- not the strike for this patient's death. The hospital wanted to punish us for striking for one day. Instead of putting patients first, they locked us out for 5 to punitively strike at our paychecks. I still believe that the strike was necessary. I still believe that the reasons for striking were valid. I am terribly sorry for the person who lost their life and for their family, but I know that it was NOT my fault. It was not YOUR fault either. We all know as nurses that medication error is possible. We all triple and quadruple check ourselves, our meds, and our orders before giving any med. This nurse made a terrible mistake. A terrible mistake. She and the hospital are responsible for this death. Not the striking nurses.

Thank you craig1978! That is exactly what I was looking for!

I have had 2 out-of-hospital births (one home and one at a birth center). I teach childbirth classes and I am a L&D RN. I have an acronym for the pain in childbirth that I teach my students and patients. P- Purposeful. This is not the pain of a broken arm or a gall stone for example. This pain has a reason! A- Anticipated. You knew it was coming. You had lots of time to practice relaxation techniques to help you cope. I- Intermittent. It comes and goes!!! You get breaks!!! N- Necessary. This pain is necessary for you to meet your baby. There is a BABY at the end of all of this! I have seen women who denied all pain (those were hypnobirthing moms) and women who wailed throughout labor but still refused pain meds because wailing was part of their coping. Labor pain is a subjective experience, no one else can assume that you need pain relief. For me, I did feel pain but it was a completely manageable pain. It was not terrible. My second labor was much easier than my first simply because I had my bag of water intact for that whole labor. My bag was AROM'ed at 2cm with my first labor and that made the experience much more difficult, but still manageable.

I am kind of surprised that you will be working in OBT right away. I am at a county hospital too and I was hired as a GN under the OBT cost center, but didn't actually work in triage for well over a year. Most hospitals only put the most experienced nurses in OBT since it is a pretty high acuity environment. BTW, I am in TX too. If you want to PM me we can talk about which hospital you might be at.

I loved this book. This diary was actually one of the things that spurred me to go to nursing school and now to grad school for midwifery. What is even cooler (for me!) is that I am relocating and just got a job at the hospital that Peggy Vincent wrote about... I am just so excited!

I am moving to CA from TX and I would like to get my certification in Public Health Nursing. I have been trying to call the CaBON for several days and I keep getting that the lines are too busy to take my call! I have a BSN, but I understand that I need a 7 hour CA child abuse recognition and prevention course. I am trying to find a course that fits that requirement online, but after hours of searching I am coming up empty handed. I would prefer to have an online course, but if I have to travel to CA to take it I can manage. Anyone know of courses out there? Thanks in advance... :)

It is impossible to know until she is in labor. The pelvis of a primip has a miraculous ability to expand when the labor hormones get going. I honestly think that most women can deliver a 10lber lady partslly without surgical assistance if they have freedom of movement. It is harder to deliver bigger babies on your back with your coccyx immobilized in comparison to an upright or hands and knees position. Most Obs don't really use positional changes in mothers whereas most midwives know those tricks.

I was a doula and childbirth educator before I was a L&D RN and let me tell you- there is a huge difference. Have you ever attended an out-of-hospital birth? Without that experience, you really can't compare. Nearly everything that we do to women in the hospital disrupts "normal birth". Heck, just being in the hospital can slow down labor, affect her fear level, and cause complications. Starving women, denying them liquids, denying them freedom of movement, starting IVs, continuous EFM, et are all considered to be "normal" in the hospital (ie- not an intervention) but all of these things ARE interventions and do affect the course of the labor. Let alone the actual interventions that we do! AROM, internal monitoring, hanging pit, pain meds, epidurals, et (some have their place) but all immediately increase the risk of the labor. Lets talk about pushing... In the 50 or so out-of-hospital births that I have attended I have NEVER seen a woman choose to deliver on her back. Yet, that is the only way that I have ever seen an OB deliver a pt in the hospital. I did see a CNM deliver in side-lying once though. How many dystocias happen because of maternal positioning during the 2nd stage? A LOT IMO. Now, lets talk about expectant vs active management of the 3rd stage. There is some new research that makes this inconclusive, but what I will say is that at my hospital they routinely cut the cord right away which leads to a lot of pale babies. I never saw a baby born so white until I started working as a LAD RN. I HATE having to call NICU to do an IV bolus on a baby- if that OB had just waited for the cord to stop pulsating, it wouldn't of been needed. Sorry to rant there. I'm a little frustrated with my job right now, but I am very happy to be starting grad school this Spring! Normal birth is out there, but it is rarely seen in the hospital setting.

6 years now! I love it! I am looking at sitting for the IBLCE next July.

I have been looking at the excel worksheet instead of the book, but I am having a hard time figuring out how to protect the information that is entered from being changed and still allow new information to be entered on the next line. How do you manage that or does only one person input information vs a variety of secretaries? Of course the birth book is double charting- everything is already in our central monitoring program (OB Tracevue) and we still write it all down!