I started IVs today. And at last onsite. These seem easy to me. There is something about the feel of it. About how you can just FEEL when you have gotten to the right spot and you're (almost) home free from there. I'm still a little messy about it, but I picked up a great tip from the RN in the group about how to keep things a little neater. On the other hand, I seem to be non-competant at drawing blood. I am not sure why I find the IV *cannula in particular* so easy to feel, but have no similar "just feel it" going on with the blood drawing. My instructors think that this is peculiar (not the instructors for this particular course, who are wisely -IMO- not critiquing this disconnect just yet), as not only are the ideas so similar but most people have it the other way 'round.
I have a bruise on my hand that is there by no fault of my classmate. I am mightily impressed that she got an IV running on the back of my hand, in a vein that looked and felt to me little larger than the IV cannula itself. I got saline and electrolytes. My dehydrated body loves you, Classmate.
We also took a look at some real lab slips, and that was awesome. The learning had been ridiculously abstract.
I still don't have a preceptor and am feeling...irritated. I am essentially in home turf for SMS, and them asking me for a list of midwives in my area makes me feel...how shall I put this nicely...oh I can't...like they're fucking with me. *breathe out* *release tension in shoulder muscles* *you didn't want a clinical placement yet anyway, you TOLD them you wanted to ease into it slowly and that delayed was OK, it is unfair of you to freak out about it now*
*sigh*
In other news, my husband has been having a grand time with the kids this week. They have met up with other papas, they've met up with his brother, they've gone to the zoo, and to the park. He has kept them clean and fed, bathed and played and happy. He CLEANED. The house is far cleaner right now than it normally is while I'm watching them.
He shows no signs of being stressed out about all of this. When I got home at 10 last night, he was putting the polish on a full day and totally happy about it. This reminds me of those times when I have been forced (not in a prying-it-out-of-my-hands kind of way, but in a "I can't jump in and just do it" way) to hand over large chunks of parental responsibility in order to preserve my personal integrity in the face of hyperemesis (morning sickness) or early postpartum. My husband has by and large simply jumped in and taken up the vast majority of what REALLY comprises the heart and soul of parenting. The tear-wiping, the park-going, the storm-drain-watching, the patient teaching, the kid-nurturing HEART of parenting. I've never needed to ask him to do any of these things, he has just seen the kids' needs and filled them.
He wants another baby.
I think that *he* could handle another baby with the way we live. But I don't think that I could. It makes me sad to tell him that I can't do it now, it really does, because of all the things that midwifery school has caused us to give up, this is the biggest saddest one. Not that we are giving up having another baby entirely, but that it feels so unfair to ask my husband to make all these huge sacrifices and contributions to something that is essentially all about *me*...and then I am, on top of that, telling him that while I can hear him and feel his pain and longing for another child, I just can't do it. And it is largely a CHOICE, a lifestyle CHOICE that I made when I decided that now was the time to do this crazy midwifery education thing. A choice that was all about me. I am important. It is my body, and my life that is overrun for the first good-long-while of a new child's life. So I stand rather comfortably by that choice as the best one all around. But it hurts to see my husband hurt, and to know that what I have chosen has largely caused that. Not that he doesn't have choices, too, and not that his hurt is ruining or overshadowing our relationship/family/whatever. Not that he is perfect and such a stellar person and father that I feel like I'm denying him this one-last-piece to his perfect life. It is simply a sad, sad thing.
But I am also, simultaneously, realizing that I suffer from some variation on SAD (seasonal affective disorder) that is kind of like a Seasonal Kinesthetic Disorder or something. My mood does not become depressed, but my body does. I was sick on and off all winter, and got so tired so easily and for so long. When the days are longer and I am spending time in the sun, I can get far less sleep and still be happy and healthy about it. I do think that there was something chemically, physically different about my body this winter, and I do think that it is because of the weather. What to do about that, if anything, is a different question entirely. At the moment I am simply relieved that I'm not feeling the 7 consecutive nights of less than 6 hours of sleep in the same way that I would have a two months ago. When we get around to next winter, perhaps I will devise some sort of management plan...even if that plan is simply to be aware of the fact that my body has set these limitations, and in order not to drive myself into sickness, I need to accept them.
2 comments:
Niki, you are so eloquent. I just love the way your words flow together. They really get me going.
IMO, you are doing the right thing by standing by your "reproductive rights" in your relationship. I don't know Fran, but through all of our talks and reading your blog I feel that I can say with confidence that you have an amazing husband. And, although he may be disappointed about waiting to have another baby, let him know that it's what you want also, but you just need to get through school (another two years) and then you can go for it.
I'm sure you've been through this with him and in your own mind, but I thought I'd just give you some "detached" support. I think you are right to put yourself first in this case. As a mom and a partner you put others first so often. You deserve this!
One last thing...sometimes people who get depressed can benefit from having a full-spectrum light to sit under during the dark season. Do you have one? If not, I do have one that I'd be happy to give to you. You can look it up if you'd like:
Verilux 3-in-1 Deluxe Full Spectrum Light.
It ain't pretty, but it's good for you. You be needin' the vitamin D!!
And it would give me a good excuse to take a day (or more!) to come and see you and have coffee.
Peace out.
There's something I want to note about Fran and SAHD-ness. That's all he had to do: be a SAHD for a week. This is not to take anything away from his awesome-ness because he remains an incredibly devoted, attentive father. But so far as direct comparisons go, it's not fair for you to measure yourself side by side.
You've been doing it for more than 7 years, with no end in sight. For you it is a permanent condition, and for him it was a week's joy-vacation.
You noted the physical component of the infant, but for you NOW, Toddlerness still require much more physically from you than she does her father or anyone else.
You're not on-site, but you're still studying.
Nursing, studying, running the measured pace of someone who is in the year-long marathon instead of the week-long sprint: these things set you apart right now and I won't hear you disparage yourself.
Thank you. Lecture over.
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