¿Comprende?

Day 3 was so ridiculously overwhelming, but it was also really good too.

I was assigned to the mother-baby unit which is where mother's go after they have delivered but before they are discharged from the hospital. It's a recovery unit of sorts. I was paired up with a really good resource nurse who had been working int he field for about 7 years or so, so that was helpful because I was tres nervous about my first day in Mother-Baby.

I worked with three families all together, but really only interacted with two of them. The first of these two was one of those "if you had waited one second longer the baby would have been born in the hallway" situations. Mama and baby were super comfortable and mostly healthy. The baby was really jittery, which we first thought was because of low glucose. But, we later found out that the mother had smoked some during her pregnancy and so baby girl was going through some minor withdrawals. It was sad to see both a mother who didn't fully realize what the consequences of her actions would be as well as seeing this tiny, helpless infant who was in pain and had no idea why or what was going on. Fact: The placenta doesn't protect the baby from really anything other than holding in all the amniotic fluid the baby pees out. Everything you do to yourself you are also doing to your baby!!

The family that I worked the most with and felt like I bonded with was a Mexican mother who spoke little English. Although I took five years of Spanish in middle/high school and one year at UO, I am super insecure about my abilities, even though they are way more there than I would like to admit. So, no, I never spoke Spanish to her but I regret it now. There were a lot of times where I almost felt myself slip naturally into conversation but because of insecurity, I held myself back.

It was cool though over the course of 8 hours to see how we bonded and how much more comfortable she became with me. I felt like we understood each other well even though we weren't speaking the same language. At times it was almost like I understood her better than the RN which was kinda neat. She had two grown sons who served as translators (MAJOR RED FLAG. YOU NEVER HAVE FAMILY MEMBERS TRANSLATE!!!) because she didn't want to use the translator services as reported by her night nurse. It worked out just fine, but it really wasn't an ideal situation in that sense.

I got to watch a woman's c/s staples being taken out today, which was good because staples freak the heck out of me. This helped me get over my fear of looking at them. Staples should be in paper, not in people. Blech. No me gusta.

I also got to feel a fundus (the top of the uterus) for the first time today. It was nice and firm and in the midline, but it's also weird to be like "I am touching someone's uterus through skin" Just surreal, but also neato!

Pretty slow week as far as cool stories to tell, but it was a big week for me in realizing my style of acclimating to new situations.

Future Goals:
-Get over the nastiness of staples
-Speak Spanish even if minimally
-Make sure to buy those cute mitten things for my babies. So stinkin' adorable!

Have a good week!