Decisions, Decisions

One would think that since I've graduated from school and have a steady, stable job I would be finished making decisions regarding work and school for a while. Unfortunately, that's not the case.

This past week we had our yearly evaluations and I stressed to my supervisor that I was interested in working labor and delivery. I'm also interested in training to the Level II nursery, but they won't be bringing that back for another year or so. I'm getting to the point where postpartum has lost it's excitement, partly because I work the night shift. It's starting to feel more and more like I'm a waitress rather than a nurse. I enjoy working in the well-baby nursery, but that's usually only for one of my shifts each week, or two at the most. During my eval Donna told me that she'd keep me in mind for labor and mention it to Amanda. She knew of several people who were leaving or decreasing their hours, but she also knew that Amanda had just hired a new grad, whom she didn't think should be starting in labor as a new grad. A couple days later Donna called me and said she talked to Amanda and their going to move the new grad to postpartum and that I can start orienting to labor with the next schedule cycle. So as of October 3rd I will be a labor and delivery nurse. I'm super excited to start orienting over there and ready for something new and different. It's definitely a challenging department to work in, but it's one of the main reasons I wanted to become a nurse. I'm going to be orienting two days a week and one night a week. Thank heavens for wonderful grandma's who are more than willing to play with a little one all day once a week. Zach is so well mannered though I think he'll be watching Grandma rather than Grandma watching him.

I had a hard time deciding whether or not I wanted to orient and transition over to labor and delivery mainly because I'm also interested in Level II. One of the main deciding factors was the fact that the Level II won't be opening for a while, but another way that I decided leads me to my decisions regarding school.

Eventually I would like to go back to school and get my DNP (doctorate of nursing practice). I've decided I would try to get into the University of Utah (which David is very excited for football tickets) and I would either become a family nurse practitioner or a pediatric nurse practitioner. Since this is the field I'm pursuing I figured I have the rest of my life to work with children and babies, and I'd never be found working in labor and delivery as a PNP or FNP. This helped to sway my decisions towards labor and delivery slightly. I'm pretty set on the decision to go back to school, the question of when still lingers in my mind. I've been trying to decide whether I'd like to go back to school and then have another baby or vice versa, however, my main adversary is the fact that David is absolutely refusing to ever have another baby. I'm not really sure if it's just the fact that Zach is only 9 months old and it was a stressful pregnancy for all involved, but I think he's pretty adamant about not wanting another. We'll just have to see how that plays out I guess. I would really like to have another child before school because I don't want my only two kids to be 5 or 6 years apart in age since the earliest I could start the program is Fall 2012. To add to all of the confusion and decision making, we still want to send David to school and preferably he'd start in Spring of 2011 and it's a 4 year program. I don't think there is any way we can both be in school at the same time.

Those are just a few things weighing on my mind. I'm super excited to be orienting to labor and delivery and hoping I can figure it out and do well at it, but also constantly exploring options when it comes to schooling for both David and I and what to do regarding the future children situation. I know it will all be figured out in time, but I want to know what I'm going to be doing with my life in 1, 5, or even 10 years from now. I guess this is my lesson in patience.

"Learn the art of patience. Apply discipline to your thoughts when they become anxious over the outcome of a goal. Impatience breeds anxiety, fear, discouragement and failure. Patience creates confidence, decisiveness, and a rational outlook, which eventually leads to success."
--Brian Adams