Luckily I work with really amazing people! Since it was going to be my turn to float, my manager asked them to keep me in our unit since it was my first day back from maternity leave. So, they took it easy on me and gave me one of our more "chronic" kids to take care of. It is crazy being out for almost 5 months total. I could barely remember my pyxis password! Thankfully, it didn't take long to get back into the groove of things, but I still somewhat feel like a new grad again, wanting to look up everything to refresh my new "mommy mind" how do you calculate mcg/kg/hr again??? oh yeah phenylephrine is supposed to be ordered as mcg/kg/min silly doctors! You always have to be on your toes when you get new orders....the residents and fellows are still learning as well.... It was comical the other night my patient needed a better pain control regime so the resident ordered some dilaudid for me, actually for my patient, but you know what I mean. So we as nurses are supposed to make sure the order is complete before faxing it to pharmacy: (does it have the right dose, a route, a frequency, wt based dosing, prn explanation, etc). Well he had written it as Dilaudid 0.4mg Q2 hours. Without a second thought I faxed it right to pharmacy. A few minutes later the resident returned to write an order clarification. As I looked at the original order I had to giggle to myself (the way he had written it the pt was going to be scheduled to receive the pain medication every two hours regardless, instead of every two hours as needed!) I apologized to him for not catching it before it reached pharmacy and said, "Sorry about that, I am just not quite back to my "A" game yet." and he responded, "oh that is ok, I don't think I have EVER been up to my "A" game!"
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About a month ago we started a nanny search. I didn't want to be tied to working every.single.weekend night shift. As we began the search the task became more and more daunting. How do you "screen" or "interview" a complete stranger to possibly come and take care of your most precious person in the world??? What do you ask??? How do you pay them??? Do you have to pay into their social security??? What is a reasonable rate??? I posted an ad on craigslist and got an overwhelming response. Essentially we were just looking for someone to come into our house for 8-16 hours each week to take care of Maya while I slept. I had nursing students to non-english speaking grandmothers respond. The going rate to pay a nanny out here is $15-20/hour. Whoa, we were kind of surprised to find that out. We couldn't afford to pay someone for 16 hours/week, so then we were back to the drawing boards to find someone who would be willing to work for only 8 hours/week. We also looked into share-care, but since Jason commutes everyday up to Novato in northern Cal we would need to find a family within our neighborhood. The further and further we got into the process the more skeptical I became. Since she is still so young I decided I would rather be sleep-deprived than have a total stranger taking care of her.
So, I am slated to work every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights from 7pm-7:30 am. It is not my favorite, but this is what we have to do for right now.
Hopefully things will change when:
a. Maya gets a little bit older
b. Jason finds a better job
c. Someone we know refers us to their nanny
Luckily we are blessed beyond belief and my sweet co-worker has volunteered to take Maya Monday mornings so I am able to get a little bit of rest! what.a.blessing! She has a little boy that is 16 months old and she works part-time every Friday and Saturday nights so she doesn't have to use child care either! And the best part is that she only lives 19 blocks away! :) So J has been able to drop Maya off on Monday mornings after I get home and nurse her quickly, and I wake up around 12:45 pm to walk over and pick her up. We have taken her twice now and so far so good. It doesn't seem like very much sleep, but it is just enough to take the edge off, and by the time I get home with Maya it is usually 2:30 almost 3pm and she likes to take a nap around that time, which works great! She has taken it pretty easy on me so far, but I know she is just going to keep growing and getting more busy by the minute!
I felt really comfortable leaving her with W. I know she is CPR and PALS certified and is a mother, so she totally knows what it is like leaving your baby. She takes lots of pictures and even a few videos to document Maya's time spent with her and little H. Of course she denies the need for us to compensate her, so we are hoping to take her little mister off of her hands every once in awhile since she is such a HUGE blessing to us!
P.S. So now at work we have a mandatory dress code. It is has been interesting making the transition, we can only wear royal blue scrubs and they have to be a certain brand, and we have to order them through the hospital. This was all implemented when I was on leave. I actually got to try on the scrubs when I was 8 months pregnant to try and figure out what size I would need for my return to work...that was fun! (I guessed correctly which was a huge relief!) But....we actually had a choice of getting either 3 pairs of pants and 3 tops or a scrub dress for one of the outfits. At first I was thinking "hmmm, a scrub dress?" But, I have since seen a few nurses rockin out these super cute scrub dresses so I am considering ordering a dress for myself! Or maybe both since the styles are a bit different! We will see...apparently it takes like 2-3 months before you actually receive your order....so here they are...just think of them in royal blue instead!
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