Missed a Birth

My first missed birth. And whaddayaknow, it had nothing whatsoever to do with how far away I live from my preceptor.

This birth ate 12 hours of my life, not including a leave-and-return episode to a house nearly two hours from mine. Hospital transfer for failure to progress and mom's desire for pain medication - she was 4cm. And mom got out at the hospital and pushed that baby out 10 minutes later, while I was parking my car in the not-as-convenient parking garage and making my way up to the L&D floor, just in time to hear a very final-sounding roar and a cry as I bustled up the hall.

Fuck.

First time I've seen retained placental fragments and membrane (and scraping of the uterus), so the hospital was probably a good place to be.

12 hours further behind on my already-behind school work.

Fuck.

In other news, Girliness and Boyness are absolutely absorbed in "Engineering an Empire" from the History Channel (we rented the whole lengthy series). I'm negotiating with BittyPrincess in an attempt to get her to hug the nummies instead of nursing. And my decaffienation project is moving along nicely. You know that pre-cofffee brain haze feeling? I don't get it anymore! That is AWESOME.

Adventures in Bacteria and Yeast

So this whole bacteria/yeast thing is going pretty darned well. I have a little too much of all of my cultures at this point and am not quite sure what I should do. I'm making kefir and water kefir too fast for the family to consume, but it seems somewhat sacriligious to just toss the cultures. I'll be handing some out for sure.

The Kombucha is perhaps the exception to this rule, as the girlies seem to like to drink it and it has a long brewing time, which keeps the volume from getting out of hand. Still, I was able to separate three distinct layers when I set up a new batch today, which meant I've now got two gallons brewing and another starter set aside to give away.

It is all taking my mind only a little off the stress I'm feeling about getting the kids safely watched and getting to births in some sort of reasonable time frame. I'm teetering on edge here in a big way and it needs to resolve, and the feelers I've put out have met with only moderate success.

Ready for a Break

Long birth yesterday, culminating in a csection after 7 hours of pushing that went exactly nowhere. Babe was 11lbs 12oz, and sealed the deal by presenting acynclitic and deflexed.

Anyway.

My biggest hugest issue is child care. My friends are wonderful but far-flung. My neighbor/aunt has placed herself off the roster for anything but a few hours here and there in between other arrangements. She has 5 kids of her own and her reasoning - that it was insane in her house with 8 kids for a whole day at a time - is not in the least faulty, however inconvenient it may be.

I wish, yet again, for family. MIL is wonderful when she is available, willing to move mountains for the kids. But she is one person and she's got a difficult schedule herself. Fran isn't shirking, but he's got to work to keep this whole crazy enterprise afloat. I've survived for four years out here 2000 miles from my family, and I still miss their presence often.

I cannot afford to hire someone to watch the kids, I just can't. And my help is stretched so, so thin and sometimes nonexistant. I had to scramble hard to keep the kids watched yesterday, and it is fortunate it worked out, but it almost didn't.

I have nothing to offer people in exchange for watching my kids.

Figuring this out could make or break my education. This whole school thing just isn't going to happen if I can't get it set up.

I find myself scrambling to get covered for the last few weeks of this placement, and looking very much forward to the time Fran is spending away in HI, when I've placed myself entirely off of the clinical schedules and call and backup lists. At least I won't have to stress out, hour by hour, about what I would do if I were called *now.*

Tagged by ~L~

I think this is hillarious. Not what I would have thought at all.

You Are Cayenne Pepper

You are very over the top and a bit overwhelming. You have a fiery personality, and you can give anyone a good jolt. You can easily take things up a couple notches, no matter what crowd you're running with.

What Spice Are You?

I'm not going to tag anyone, but go ahead and click into the quiz if you're so inclined. It is only 5 questions (less than a minute) long and is at least mildly amusing ;).

Daylight Savings SUCKS

A LOT.

When I signed up for a CPR renewal/refresher/whatever for 8:30am on a Sunday, I didn't really think there was any significance to the date. But if there is anything worse than waking up at 6:30am to get to an ungodly-early rendition of something ungodly-boring, it is losing an hour of sleep in the process.

Spring forward, my ass.

Ugh. I'm fucking worthless today.