50% Nurse

Sometimes I stalk the UCSF MEPN 2012 message board on AllNurses.com just to keep tabs on what the incoming class is chattering about and where they are in the application process. Surprisingly (or not?), I didn't get into any of the posts during my own application/admission cycle, but I am drawn to them now. This week last year, I got the letter in the mail inviting me to interview at UCSF in January. I scotch taped it to my wall next to the mirror in my room - visible, but sidelined. A long shot that I spent a lot of miles on Iron Horse Trail plead-praying for.

I had my last day in Marin, last day on L&D, turned my last final in on Sunday morning, and now I'm 50% RN.

We are all feeling this way - I've seen a lot of "halfway there"-type facebook status updates. I think they're all filled with some mix of feeling relieved to be done with this quarter, disbelief we've already made it halfway through, and panic that we only have halfway to go before being BRN eligible to sit for NCLEX. Whoa. (Said like Joey).

On my last day on 15 Long, my mama delivered at 0646... exactly 14 minutes before my shift started (just my luck!). I walked into Labor Room 5 right as the baby was taking his first cries. I missed his coming  into the world, but thanks to the awesome RN I was shadowing for the day, I got to take the lead on so many other firsts for him in the initial postpartum period. Mama's family had to go to work, so she was left alone in the room within about an hour of delivering a calm and very alert baby boy. She hadn't really been able to bond with him yet except for some initial skin to skin contact when he was born, so I wrapped him up like a baby burrito and got to take him to mama to hold for the first time. I introduced him to her and she cradled him in total disbelief. She kept saying "Oh my god!" as she looked at him, processing her motherhood and her power.

I helped her breastfeed (he latched right away - clearly helped by the fact mama had elected not to have an epidural), and gave baby his first bath, shots, and drops. And hell if I didn't sit on the side of the bathtub for an hour with mama across from me on the toilet as she struggled with her first post-delivery pee.

That evening for post-conference, our group grabbed a drink down the street to wrap the quarter up. My Clinical Instructor shared that the best part of her experience with Fall MEPNs is that we are still such baby nurses at the beginning of the quarter, but by the end of the rotation she has seen each of us look, act, and feel like nurses. I got teary when she said that, because indeed I have spent the last six months feeling mostly like an imposter when I throw on my scrubs and stethoscope. But facilitating mom-newborn bonding one minute, educating about breastfeeding another, feeling a boggy uterus firm up with fundal massage the next minute, and then sitting on the edge of a tub for an hour for the sole purpose of moral support and reassurance... made me feel like a nurse.

And then I went back to being in the way, slowing providers down, and taking five minutes to get vitals. Sounds just like a 50% nurse... with a lot more to learn.