Back to Work

Yesterday was the big day. My maternity leave came to an end and I headed back to work. I had been starting to dread this day. Don't get me wrong, I love my job and I am very thankful I will only be working 6-8 shifts a month. Many people are not fortunate enough to have a job that is flexible to that degree. In some ways I was looking forward to having a couple hours of being around adults each week, but in other ways I was very sad to be leaving Belle.

The hardest part of the whole evening was when I left the house. She was having a major meltdown when I left, and it was harder to leave when she was so upset. It would have been much easier if she was happy and in a good mood. I will not lie and say there were not any tears -- there were plenty to go around. I called one of my friends that I worked with and we talked the whole way to work in order to distract me. It is weird to be going to a job to take care of women having babies while someone is at home taking care of your own baby.

Overall, the night went great. I had very easy patients and good doctors/midwives taking care of them. For many of you who don't know, I work at the busiest delivery hospital in the nation. We do around 18,000 deliveries per year. Due to the reputation and the quality of care we take care of a much larger population of higher-risk pregnancies than many other hospitals. This is what makes going back to work there a little scary. You have no clue what to expect. I knew I had been officially welcomed back last night when our nurse's station got the call that there was a patient coming in by ambulance screaming and she had been 5cm dilated at her doctor's office that morning. My team leader and I got busy and had the room set up for delivery before the ambulance even arrived. The baby was delivered safely about 5 minutes after she arrived, and the doctor even made it in time. This was definitely my "welcome back" moment. I was surprised at how it is like riding a bike. It all for the most part came back to me. I am sure along the way there will be little questions I will have to recall things, but overall it is as if the nurse switch had been turned off and it was turned back on last night.

Everyone has asked me if having my own baby would make me more sympathetic to my patients. In some ways I have become more sympathetic and in other ways it has made me want to tell some women to toughen up. It makes it much easier to explain things to patients as to what they might experience. I miss those hours with Belle dearly, but I know she is getting to build a special bond with Mark during that time.