Since I am a couple days behind anyway, I think I will take this opportunity to "blog lift" from my friend's idea (thanks Matti!) about nurse's week. I have a love-hate relationship with my job...I LOVE what I do and LOVE the place where I work, but it is a place of high stress and burnout. Being a nurse is one of the most rewarding experiences of my life and here are my top 10 things I love (in no particular order)about being a labor and delivery nurse at the University Hospital:

1. I love my co-workers. They are the hardest working, most flexible, smartest, and understanding group of women. I learn something new everyday from one of them and I appreciate that they still love me even though I am not the smartest nurse and often do something stupid. I love swapping recipes, going out to lunch or dinner with them and sharing stories of each others lives with them (especially in the wee hours of the morning!). Thank you for being so wonderful!

2. I love that there is an endless supply of treats on a regular basis. I love that we can go to Primary's cafeteria and order fries and no one thinks you are wierd for eating them at 2 a.m. because they are doing it too.

3. I LOVE being in deliveries. I still get awed by the fact that this little baby that is being extracted from a woman's body (what ever way that may be) is a MIRACLE and came from a little cell that just kept dividing and that little cell already knew what to do and what it was going to become. I get chills just thinking about it!

4. I love cute first time moms and I am apt to get teary in their deliveries when they are so excited and just love their little one. I love teaching them, answering their questions, and being part of their birth experience. Unfortuneatly, there are many who are not so excited and it makes me so sad.

5. I love that we get all sorts of patients. I am not saying that I love taking care of ALL of the crazy people or ALL of the babies with defects or that are premature, but my work day is never the same day twice and NEVER boring.

6. I love the teamwork on my unit. I love getting a stop and drop G9 P8008 at 9 cm and my admit is done before I even enter the room that is already set up so she can pretty much cough the baby out. I love that my patient can have hemabate fate and I can always have a co worker willing to help me clean her up. I love that I never have to do a crash c section alone. I could go on and on because there are so many other instances but you get the idea.

7. I love being in a teaching hospital and having a good relationship with our doctors. I feel lucky that the physicians on our unit are (with the exception of some) nice and calm...and that goes not only for our OB/GYNs but the anesthesiologists and the pediatricians as well.

8. I love that we have a team that will come and back me up on bad babies, a crappy strip, or pea soup mec. Yes, we are trained to resus babies, but it is nice to know on a busy shift (which is often) that you have other resources to help you out. I also love the drive thru window to NBICU...I can't imagine having a preterm baby without one.

9. I love starting my own IV's. I love this skill and I wouldn't trade it for the world. I know this is wierd, but some floors don't do their own IV's and it makes me so exicted to get calls from these floors to come and start one.

and 10. I just love our unit. It is the craziest place but for the most part it runs smoothly. I will probably get some backlash for this but I think we have a great manager who is totally dedicated to her job. We all work hard together and have fun together. I have had multiple people ask me why I work so far away from where I live and I just tell them that I could not imagine myself anywhere else.