Mindylane

Hi, thanks for the response. Yes, we are probably going to utilize part-time childcare; however, babysitters cost about $20 an hour here and daycare for one is easily $1,600 per month. We cannot afford to pay that. I just looked at our budget, and we will have about $1,100 leftover for childcare each month. I'm jealous of $1,300 for 3 kids; it would be triple that where we live.

Hello! I've been an RN for 3 years and my husband just got his very first nursing job, (dependent on him passing the NCLEX). Assuming he does, he'll be starting in September (he's taking a month off because our first baby is due at the end of July). I will be going back part-time, so two, 12-hour overnight shifts per week. He'll be working full-time, so three overnight shifts per week. We are crossing our fingers that we'll be able to avoid working the same nights altogether for the sake of childcare, but how crazy are we to do that? We'll probably barely ever see each other...we realize we will probably need at least part-time childcare on days when we both sleep, but we are hoping to minimize it. There's no possibility for me to go to day shift at this point. The waiting list is literally years long. Is this even doable? Has anyone else who works overnights had a significant other who does the same? What is your life like? Thanks :) I already feel extra exhausted just thinking about it!

Hello! I've been a NICU nurse for two years this July. My background before nursing is in psych; my first bachelor's was in Psychology, then I worked in a group home for two years, followed by one year as a case manager. In the group home, I was the "client coordinator," basically doing assessments and coordinating care for 12 developmentally disabled adults, all of whom had a psychiatric diagnosis (schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, etc.). While I did administrative tasks, mostly, I did do a lot of hand's-on care with the clients, and also witnessed a lot of the challenges that come along with working with this population; i.e. a client had a coworker in a throat hold and tried to get a knife to cut him, getting poop thrown at me, threats of suicide (constantly)... the local PD knew all of the clients very well, and the house managers and I made numerous trips to the local psych wards. As a case manager, I obtained Medicaid services for adults and children, mostly with physical disabilities, albeit there were certainly mental health challenges as well. I love the NICU immensely, but I find myself missing psych a lot. Would it be possible to move from NICU to psych? Would I be making a mistake by doing this? I admit that I don't have any nursing experience in a psychiatric unit and I can't say that I know 100% that I'd love working in a psychiatric unit, but the hospital I did my clinical rotations at for psych has multiple openings for psych nurses (also makes me wonder why they have so many openings...) A much lesser consideration is that they also hire associate degree RNs... my husband will be done with his associate degree program in nursing next May, and I'm thinking that as an employee, I might be able to assist him in getting a job there as a new grad. Any insight? I greatly appreciate it :)

We seem to have feast or famine at our NICU. They're either desperate for staff and offer $450 to pick up an extra shift, or they're begging for people to put themselves on the "wish list" to be canceled. In April, I picked up a shift a week. In May, I was canceled once every week.

Our hospital's policy is that if a baby has a UVC, they cannot be held.

I'm really thinking you should stick with your other endeavors that don't include nursing. It doesn't sound like nursing is for you. Flame me all you want, but... nursing schools are churning out a bazillion new grads a year these days and I'm finding more and more of my coworkers really don't have a passion for it... and it shows. Also, I highly suggest some English/language arts classes if you are seriously considering nursing school.

Hello, I work in a NICU and I just found out last week that I'm pregnant, currently five weeks. I haven't told anyone at work yet, because it's too soon. Anyway, a baby is currently being tested for CMV. I haven't been the primary nurse for this baby, but I did help the baby's nurse with him briefly. The baby is in the same room as my patients. Is this something I need to be really worried about? We didn't know they suspected CMV untIl tonight. Thanks.

Northern Virginia is apparently one of the worst in terms of COL and income for nurses.

Haha, yeah, so you get it with the rent thing, haha. Same thing in NY. They strongly discourage you from working and honestly there's really very little time to work and I was fortunate that my husband was working full-time, but I was able to babysit regularly; I'd say about 10-15 hours per week. Over the summers, I was a personal care assistant and worked 20+ hours. It wasn't too bad, but there weren't too many people who worked at all during the program.

Hello! My boyfriend at the time (husband now :)) and I moved to Leesburg from Long Island, NY. Leesburg is one town over from Ashburn, where the campus is, so about 15-20 minutes away. We found roommates pretty easily through craigslist (we lived with another couple for the first year, and several afterwards) but met a lot of really not lovely people that we had as roommates subsequently... I know before the semester starts, there's a roommate-finding board that GWU does to help students. Rents here are pretty astronomical, but didn't surprise us as native New Yorkers, haha. Two bedrooms go for about $1400+ out in Loudoun County. I felt very prepared for the NCLEX. I finished my test in 45 minutes and only had 75 questions and I found it actually easy. GWU prepared my pretty well. There are always complaints of "disorganization," but that seems to go for every program, so I didn't find that it detracted from the experience. I could go on and on, but there ya go. Let me know if there's anything else you want to know :)

Hello! I graduated GWU's accelerated BSN program in May 2014. I'd be happy to answer any questions that you guys have! (I do this every semester :)) Just trying to spread my knowledge, as I jumped into this without knowing anything about the program, and wish I had had any information from former students. Feel free to message me!

Hey, thanks. Feel free to PM me with questions :)

Full-time in a NICU for the past 1.5 years. I continued to babysit until a few weeks ago, and now I'm started a job as a life care planner! Super excited

My parents are Jewish, so Christmas is pretty meaningless to us. Thanksgiving is really the holiday I spend with my family, who live across the country. I had Thanksgiving & New Year's off last year but worked Christmas... this year, I had to work Thanksgiving. We were planning on visiting my husband's family in Florida for New Years, so I switched to work Christmas and took New Year's off. But he didn't get his vacation approved, so he'll be working New Years, haha. So we literally have no holidays off together.

1. Northern Virginia (considered "DC suburbs"). 2. NICU, BSN. Started as a new grad at $25 an hour. Have been working there since 7/2014 and now make $29 an hour, base. 3. Very high cost of living area -- the first place we lived in (with a roommate) was a 2-bedroom for $1900. We moved further out and now pay $1435 for a 2-bedroom, in a much less nice area. I guess I should also add that I work part-time as a Life Care Planner and make $32.50 an hour doing that, but it's a telecommuting job, and the office is based in Tampa, FL.