Week 12 as a level 3 nursing student

This week marked the last week in my obstetrics rotation. After this week, I feel as though I have truly found my niche. On Tuesday, I was able to connect so well with the family and was able to do my very first baby bath!!!!!!! I was so nervous but it was so exhilarating at the same time! I think it's such a special opportunity to be able to take place in such an exciting time for a family. The husband was so excited to see the baby bath that he ran back to the room to see it. When I first walked in, I was so taken aback because the mum was asking if I was her nurse or if the RN was her nurse because she couldn't be interrupted from sleep all the time. I was so shocked but I totally understood what she meant. After hours and hours of painful labour, I don't think I would be very receptive to ppl interrupting my sleep either. I don't even like being woken up normally!! But the more I got to talking, the better we got along and it's always so incredibly rewarding for me to be able to come back from a situation like that. The greatest therapeutic relationships to me are the ones where I'm not 'welcome', so to speak, in the initial encounter. It's like a bit of a challenge for me. I like to see how long it takes/ how hard I have to work in order to make someone like me. It's kind of geeky. Haha!

I always ask for a new patient because I like the extra teaching I get to do to new patients and I like building relationships with new ppl so that I can learn more and see what works in building rapport and what only works well in certain situations. This Wednesday, I had a new family I was working with and yet again, the assumptions assignment came SCREAMING back at me. In report, I heard that the mum had bipolar disorder and I didn't necessarily think - uh oh, she's got issues, but I was thinking about how to approach it. When I opened the door, the husband seemed quite stern and not too welcoming, but nice. Nice, but not friendly. As soon as I got started on my assessments, though, I did a tonne of teaching about breast feeding, checking the mum's uterus, and a tonne of other things! The mum was SUPER nice and friendly and as soon as I started teaching them what I've learned in the past 4 weeks, the husband opened up SO much! I also think that being very respectful of their own wishes helped tremendously. The whole notion of critical social theory and not overpowering a family with your own knowledge has really taken a big role in my nursing practice. When I'm offering some information to a patient now, I don't tell them, I advise, but I tell them that ultimately it is THEIR choice, but that this is what I've learned in school and it's what the literature shows. But it is their life and it is their health and these choices are theirs to make. In general, people react SO well to that! When I was doing my newborn assessment, they were so adorable! The husband was taking notes of the things I was telling them and when I made a point about it, he said, "Yea, I know, I'm a geek." And obviously, seeing my weekly blog, I have that in common with him. We had quite the chuckle and it was just so nice. I guess there really isn't a better way to put it other than 'nice'. Heartwarming, maybe? Something along those lines!

I really felt like I took initiative this week. I was asking what I could do and was actually able to do things this week. I was really proud of myself because I felt like I took my learning into my own hands. I felt as though I put myself out there and got all the opportunities available to get as much hands on experience as I could. I was able to do 3 baby baths on Wednesday and I also offered some for other students to do, but it was huge for me because I took initiative to find those baby baths because I asked. I asked because I am hugely interested in this area of nursing and I wanted as much hands on experience as I could, since it was my last week, anyway.

This was a great week and I am so thankful for this long weekend 4 more weeks to goooooooo!!! AND THEN I WILL BE HALF DONE MY NURSING EDUCATION!!!!!!