Jennifer Vitti

Hello hello hello!

Similar to Emergiblog I have had a blog crisis and despite the huge amounts of stuff I want to tell you all, and yes even some downtime moments where I could have blogged, I just couldn’t bring myself to write. But here I am! I’m back again after a few weeks of rest!

So what’s new with me? I’m still in my maternity rotation (only 2 more weeks though! then I switch to pedi ) I have not seen a vaginal birth yet! One week I was in labor and delivery and the other two weeks I was on postpartum/nursery. The week I was in labor and delivery I was SUPPOSED to see a vaginal birth, but that did not happen. The woman was being electively induced, this was her fourth child, all previous had been easy vaginal births. I made nice with the family–great family!! It was basically my first day in maternity (orientation was not very helpful except in terms of learning where everything is on the floor, but not learning much about actual maternity aspects), so the nurse at one point in the beginning sat down and taught me A LOT about maternity including how to read the fetal heart monitor, which was great! My patient received an epidural, and the nurse helped me put in my first Foley into a REAL PATIENT! This was VERY EXCITING because I had not had an opportunity to do so yet AND the patient had the epidural, so she couldn’t feel what I was doing down there, so that calmed me down. My patient was great and she was very supportive that I was a student, so she didn’t mind that the nurse walked me through things either. I know feel like I have a better sense of what I’m looking at “down there”. Hopefully next time, epidural or not, I’ll be able to do one as well! Later in the labor things were still moving slowly (she was GBS positive, so they wanted to make sure they got their two doses of Penicillin in before they sped it up with the Pitocin) and I was getting very comfortable with the family and vice versa, so I hung out in the room with them while the nurse worked at the nurse’s station. There was a change of shift at 3:00 PM and the new nurse arrived. All of a sudden like literally 8 people come rushing into this poor patient’s room looking at the fetal monitor and talking about the mom and the baby (in front of the mom no less). Then they are unlocking the wheels of the bed and saying “You’re going to have an emergency C-section”. The poor woman bursts into tears because she had NO idea what was wrong with the baby, she had never had a C-section before, and this was all sudden. Apparently the baby was having variable decelerations (which he had been having for a while, but he was having good accelerations, so they were just monitoring), and then his heart rate started not coming back up. They were worried the baby was not getting enough oxygen because the cord had prolapsed when the doctor broke her water. So I saw an emergency C-section instead. Apparently one of the nurse’s afterward told me that an “emergency C-section” and a “non-emergency C-section” are very different (basically acknowledging that the poor mom got taken by COMPLETE surprise and that they aren’t always super polite in emergency situations–I have “eh” feelings about this, but I won’t get into it). Most importantly!! Mom and baby did fine! Apparently there was no obvious signs of any cord prolapse and baby came out with a great set of lungs The nurses referred to him as a “tricky baby” I believe. So that was fun.

Postpartum has been a good experience too. I love seeing moms and their new babies, but what I’ve realized is that I also love seeing new DADS…they are soooo sweet and just genuinely happy! I’ll save some of my postpartum stories for a later blog entry. In general though, I’m very much enjoying my maternity rotation. I don’t think I’d want to be an OB/L&D Nurse, but it’s fun for these 6 weeks.

I also just finished my short, but SO FUN, School Health Nursing rotation. I was in an elementary school. The nurse was FANTASTIC. She really let me “take the bull by the horns” and be school nurse for two of the three days I was there! I really strengthened my assessment skills, learned a lot about this age group (ice packs = magic), and also got to see a lot of “cover your butt” health care- so important especially in pedi. I loved it though. Even though I was only there for 3 weeks, 1 day a week, I still saw some kids all three times, and on the last day I got happy squeals of “Nurse Jen…you’re back!” Melts my heart <3 I could definitely see myself doing School Health Nursing down the road when I’m sort of ready for a change of pace, but want to continue working in the pedi age group. I didn’t have very high expectations (I’m ashamed to say) of this experience and I was blown out of the water by how much I enjoyed it! Not all programs get to do a rotation in School Health so I feel very privleged.

Last topic before I call it a night–we took our first exams in both Maternity and Pedi. Maternity was okay (passed!). My boyfriend was home for 1 week (the only week of the whole summer that I’m going to see him before he finally moves home at the end of August) and I will be the first to admit that I did not study as much as I should. However, I thought the test was very fair, so I’m glad I passed this one, but I know I can do even better next time. Pedi exam went very well! I was nervous because pediatrics is supposed to be “my thing”, so I put a lot of pressure on myself. Luckily, I did great and can relax now!

Onto another full week! I’ll write again soon!

~love always~

Jen