pumpkinsooner

In my case, I was racing against endometriosis; if I hadn't had my kids when I did, I might not ever have been able to have them at all. I was 23 when my oldest was born, and most of my friends didn't yet have kids because they were either just married or waiting to set aside more savings. You're never going to be really ready, regardless of what they tell you about waiting or not waiting. Nursing school is hard enough without the extra burden of infants or toddlers, but so is the world of a new graduate nurse. New grads get the nights or rotating shifts, and they also have to learn how to be a nurse; school and working are two very different things. I think I did better as a new RN because I knew how to manage my time. I saw really smart, technically-capable nurses struggle with the patient load that I could handle pretty easily. To have an infant while working nights isn't fun, either. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you're either going to be torn between school and baby or work and baby no matter what you decide. It's no more or less dangerous to be pregnant during school as it is to be pregnant working as an RN -- I think the physical demands aren't as great during school, but that probably varies from program to program. I don't think I'd like to be a new grad with a new baby, though -- too much 'newness.' :) It's a tough decision. At least you have a little time to consider your choice carefully.

Boy, do I have experience here. I started nursing school when my first child was 8 weeks old, I had my second child during nursing school, and I finished on time. Is it hard? Absolutely. You have to have an excellent support system, especially about child care. In the days when my husband was traveling overnight, I'd get up at 0430, get ready to go to clinicals, get both kids up and ready to go, drop them at child care at 0615, spend all day on the floor, get home at 1600, play with/bathe/play with kids until 2000, get them to bed, then spend 3 hours working on care plans and other homework until I collapsed at midnight. Then I'd get up at 0430 the next morning and do it all again. I still don't know how I did all that. The school arranged for me to have my daughter in the middle of my psych rotation, because that's the rotation with the least physical work. There were three of us that year who had babies during school, and two of us finished on time, so it's definitely not impossible. You just have to keep your eyes on the prize -- remember what your goal is and do everything you can to juggle all the balls you have in the air. I'll be happy to answer any questions you have. I think it's easier to answer questions than to just write, because I may not answer the question you have. Post them here (so others can see too) and I'll check back to answer them.

When I worked nights in an ICU, we had a forty-something female who had an MI at home, arrested, and no one at her house knew CPR. EMTs arrived and resuscitated her but too late to prevent cerebral damage. When we got her, she was on a vent and posturing, and had no potential for any improvement. (First moral of this story: either have people in your house learn CPR, or get a tattoo that says "do not put hands here with intent to perform CPR" in the center of your chest. Do NOT allow a combination of the two. If CPR is started too late, this scenario is what will happen to you.) One morning, right before shift change, I was doing oral care and the respiratory therapist came in. He wanted to move the ET tube to the other side of her mouth, and I agreed -- she'd been in the unit for a week, and the tube was starting to break down that side of her mouth. When we tried to move the tube, she bit down really hard, but she had an oral airway in also so she wouldn't occlude the tube. The RT decides he needs to take out this oral airway, which he seemed not to have noticed before this point. Well, that was clue #1 the guy wasn't paying very close attention. I suggested we pass this off to the day shift, so they could consult family about possibly traching the patient, and I could get out of this mess I shouldn't have got myself into in the first place. But he kept trying, and he must have tried too hard, because when he got the oral airway to finally move, one of her lower front teeth came out with it. Root and all. The lady's HR went up a little, but no other response. I discovered at that moment why I did not choose dentistry as my profession. Yuck. That was the last time I listened to that RT. I put the tube in a specimen cup, gave it to the day charge nurse, and I wrote myself up; she was my patient and I was responsible. I never heard another thing about it, and I don't know what happened to the lady. Okay -- somebody top that.

One of the things my first pain MD tried on me was methadone. She started with 5mg twice a day. I tolerated that okay, but when I tried to go to tid or 10mg bid, I couldn't stop vomiting. The low dose wasn't enough to allay my pain, so we went to OxyContin instead. I was disappointed and even kept trying to make the methadone work because it was cheap and didn't make me woozy, but I just couldn't keep anything down.

Legal nurse consultants (LNCs) may not give legal advice on any legal matter. Our job is to review the records and assist with matters that require the expertise of a nurse, not to render legal opinion or give a referral. If you do run across a LNC who gives you legal advice, you should know that he/she is not qualified to give you that advice unless he/she is also an attorney, in which case that person would be called a 'nurse attorney' instead of an LNC. The difference between an LNC and a nurse attorney is an important one. You can also find legal assistance at little or no cost by calling Legal Aid; the number is in your phone book. As an LNC, I hesitate to recommend a specific attorney as that falls outside of my scope of practice. Best regards -- Delia