When It's Someone You Love

I thought I knew what it's like to be with someone in labor. And I did, in a sense. With my patients. My patients are lovely and amusing and sometimes frustrating but brave and powerful and utterly remarkable. But I am their midwife, and they are my patients, and those are our roles.  

Two weeks ago, my oldest friend had a baby. She is brave and powerful and amazing, just like my patients are, but I am not her midwife and so I was a wreck. I was a wreck because I love her so much and I loved her baby even before she was born and I didn't know how different it was to be with someone, really with someone in that space, someone that you love. 

I drove the six hours to be with her because I couldn't imagine missing it. I met her boyfriend for the first time when I got there, and gladly accepted hugs from her mother, who I've called "Mom" for as long as I can remember.

I made her walk the halls with me for four hours and we caught up on life as it is now, and reminisced about our high school antics until she couldn't talk during her contractions and we were running out of ice chips. I tried very hard not to hover over her when the midwife would check her cervix, and I tried to be helpful to her nurses who were, every one of them, so kind. I listened carefully to everything every doctor and midwife said and then explained it all again to her family, drawing little diagrams in the air when the baby turned out to be OP, and explaining what the fetal monitor meant with all its squiggly lines.

I held her hand and dozed in between her contractions, because her epidural only took the edge off and she woke up with every one. Twice, through a haze of Nubain and Benadryl, she woke up and looked at me and told me, "I'm so glad you're here. I couldn't do this without you," and I smiled and told her there was nowhere I'd rather be. She closed her eyes again and I felt like breaking open as a tear leaked down my nose because I wanted to take all her pain and hold it inside me and bury it deep but I couldn't.

I changed the pad under her every time she felt wet, and I made her open her eyes and look at me when she couldn't stop saying, I can't, I can't, I can't, and I told her that yes she could, she already was, and to squeeze my hand as hard as it hurt and to push through the pain even though it felt impossible.

And in the end, after the consent had been signed and her epidural was bolused, I pulled the curtain around us and sat on her bed and told her that it wasn't her fault, that the baby wasn't moving down because of how her head was positioned and that she did such a good job, the best job ever, and that everything was going to be okay. I told her how brave she was, and how strong she had been, and how after 48 hours of labor, the doctors were right, it was time for a Cesarean.

They wheeled her away and I fell apart. I felt like I'd failed her, like I'd let down my oldest and dearest friend by not being able to doula her out of an OP, asynclitic and unflexed baby's head. I am blessed to have midwifery friends who very gently and matter-of-factly pointed out how ridiculous that was.

So I waited till she was out of surgery, and helped her get the baby latched on, and stayed just a tiny bit longer and then drove all the way back to Connecticut in the wee hours of the night, already missing her sweet face and the baby's soft downy hair. 

I couldn't be her midwife, but that was okay. Because I am so lucky to be her friend.

The Fourth of July

The fourth is my favorite holiday.  This occurred to me only this year when, around Easter time, the boy told me Easter was his favorite holiday and asked me what mine was.  "Fourth of July," I said without missing a beat, wondering where this was coming from as the words flew out of my mouth.  "Because you get to eat hot dogs and there's no presents."  How true, I thought, as if I was listening to someone else.

I have friends here, now.  Real friends.  We played games on the fourth, did drunken headstands on the lawn while the dog grew progressively more hysterical.  We meant to go see fireworks but rather rolled around the hot grassy lawn, doused ourselves in bug spray, and drank sweaty sticky sweet drinks that have no name but consisted largely of sugar water and alcohol.  Throw in a lime wedge.  Play a guessing game that descends into a political discussion and tune out periodically to have passionate discussions about getting married and recovering from eating disorders (still, always, always recovering till the day we die) while our legs tangle in the grass and the dog licks our sweaty sticky sweet faces.

The night before, he took me to a baseball game (my first!).  There was promise of fireworks after the game, during which I practically squirmed with glee.  

"Is this the top of the fifth?" I would ask.  

"Bottom of the seventh."  

"Oh."  

"You'll get it."  

"Someday."

It rained through one whole inning but I pulled my raincoat hood over my damply curling hair and proudly pointed out things like line drives and pop flies to him while he smiled at my excitement and asked me if I was cold.  The fireworks started and my mouth fixed in an O of admiration and I caught him watching my face light up with the shower of sparks.

"The waterfall ones are my favorite," I told him.

"Mine too."

I fell asleep in the cool car on the way home, then fell again hard and exhausted into his bed until morning dawned hot and blazing through the shades, waking me up and I thought to myself, This is my favorite holiday in my favorite season with my favorite person in my very own perfectly imperfect chaotic and spectacular life.

And oh, what a blessed life it is.

A letter

Dear next year's GEPNs,

Your fate (as it relates to grad school) is currently being decided by my professors on the admissions committee.  I know this waiting game is nerve-wracking, but it's out of your hands now and you've done everything you can do.  You worked your butt off on that application, I know you did (because I did too).  I signed up a few days ago to host you in February when you come for your interviews, and I'll also be speaking to you as a current GEPN when you split into these little sub-specialty groups, also on your interview day.  But I have something to tell you now.  And I will tell you this again and again. And you might look at me as someone who is not even finished with her first semester of nursing school and roll your eyes and wonder what in the hell of value I might have to share with you (and you would probably be right) but bear with me.

I am here to tell you that the culture of nursing has to change, and it can change, and it is changing, and you are part of that.  It starts with us.  It begins with us, as nursing students.  It goes like this - for a long, long time, nursing has been about "eating your young."  I'm not going to get on a soapbox as a baby nursing student and say a lot about the value of how preceptors and instructors teach us, but what I am going to say is this, so listen closely:

You need to take care of each other.

You need to.  It is nonnegotiable.  Other graduate programs might be about competition.  They might be about beating each other out for opportunities at internships and jobs, and they might be about proving yourself to your instructors and your peers.  I wouldn't know.  I wouldn't know, because I chose a profession that is built on a foundation of caring and that begins with how we take care of each other.  You will hear Linda make offhand references to getting close to your clinical group members, or you might hear older students talk about the connections they've made within their specialty.  That is not enough.  Hear me now, and hear me good - when you show up to Yale next August, you are not alone.  You are not an island.  You will not survive, you will not thrive, you will not be happy if you try to be an island.

You need to hold someone's hand when your first MedSurg test grade is posted.  You need to be able to look at someone in your clinical group and with only your eyes tell them that you need help bathing this patient, that it is too much and too hard for you to do alone and they will do it.  You need to be able to go hide in the bathroom at clinical and cry for two minutes (and two minutes ONLY) and know that they will cover for you.  You need to be able to study with someone (or multiple someones) late into the night before your test, and you need someone to tell you to take deep breaths and help you brainstorm nursing diagnoses for your care plan for your patient that is dying.  You need to be these things for your peers.  You need to be brave, and do these things even when they don't come easily to you (believe me, they do not always come easily to me) because as much as you will hear other people tell you during interview day and orientation and over and over again that you need to take care of yourself (and this is true, you do) you need to take care of each other, too.

You will be a better nurse because of it.  You will be a better person, too.

I wish that someone had told me this when I started.  Because I am fighting to make this true now.  And I am fired up about it, in a good way.  I was lonely and sad last week, and wallowed for a day and then stopped.  Because I am not the only one that is lonely.  We are all orbiting around in this incredibly hard new universe, feeling lonely and tired and scared and alone.  It doesn't need to be that way.  I know it doesn't, because I stretched and bent and reached out and I didn't break and things are better and it can be that way for you too, from the very beginning, not just starting in December.

Take charge.  Take care of each other.  Be each other's best resource, be the person someone calls in the middle of the night, be the best version of yourself that you never knew you could be.

Because nursing school is a long road.  But it's a hell of a lot more fun when you've got great people on the road right there with you.

Love,
Cait

Twelve Weeks Later

When the five of us shuffled into the hospital for the first time, we were worse than useless.  We were useless but dressed in scrubs and with ID badges, giving us the profoundly misleading appearance of being way better than useless.

Our first day on the floor, only twelve short weeks ago, the following things happened in my clinical group:

A. started sweating so badly in her contact precautions gown that our preceptor had to lead her out of the room, sit her down, and take her vitals.

K. delayed going into her patient's room for so long that by the time she did, her patient just wanted to go to bed.

T. lost her stethoscope and spent an hour looking for it on every mobile computer station on the floor.

W. listened to her patient's heart with the wrong side of her stethoscope and flew into a panic when she couldn't hear any heart sounds.

And I...well, you all have heard tell of my many clinical inadequacies.

But now?  Times have changed, y'all.  And today, on our second to last day on the floor this year, I looked around at all of us and my heart swelled with pride.  My group, these girls, they inspire me so much.  Every shift, we grow and adapt in ways that seemed impossible twelve weeks ago.  I held a stack of papers for A. today while she gathered her patient's meds, donned some gloves, and headed into his room.  I stood outside and listened while she calmly and confidently asked to see his wristband, confirmed his name and birthdate, and doled out three cups of pills with grace, charm, and precision.  She knew every med, she made sure he knew what he was taking and why, and she did the whole thing without a second thought.  That might not seem like a big deal, but trust me, it is.  Or two weeks ago, T. and I gave her patient a bath and the tenderness with which she washed and combed her patient's hair while talking to her and telling her a story nearly took my breath away.  It was beautiful to see, and the patient's heart rate fell below 90 beats per minute for the first time all morning.

I know we are not nurses yet.  We have a lot of learning yet to do.  But when we're bustling around the floor, confidently heading into patients' rooms, handing out meds, emptying bedpans and changing sheets without a second thought, advocating for our patients to their doctors, looking up their labs and explaining procedures to them, ordering them meals, and flushing their IVs, I think back to the first day when we all were such disasters and my spirits lift.  These friends of mine inspire me to work harder every day.  I'm so sad that next week is our last week.

30 Days Hath November
Day 01: A place I'd like to travel.
Day 02: A favourite movie.
Day 03: Something I never leave the house without.
Day 04: A friend I adore.
Day 05: My hometown.
Day 06: A book I'm reading.
Day 07: A song for the day.
Day 08: Three inspirational quotes.
Day 09: A close-up of my day.
Day 10: A favourite recipe.
Day 11: Three years ago today.
Day 12: The last item I purchased.
Day 13: Something I'm proud of.
Day 14: Style inspiration for the season.
Day 15: Three blogs I always read.
Day 16: Someone who inspires me.

Three Years Ago

In the fall of 2009, I had...

...some truly amazing, irreplaceable friends.  They pulled me from the darkness more times than I could count.

...days, still, where I was so paralyzingly sad that I couldn't see how to keep going.  Days that felt like even a year out from being hospitalized and being on the right meds was not enough time to hold back the growling, howling, teeth-gnashing beast of crazy that had crash-landed into my life.

But - also, this:
(from my Facebook, late November, 2009) "...is exponentially happier than she was last year at this time."

I loved Alix.  And she loved me.  And three years ago today, her love was a force of good in my life that propelled me through my last (drama-filled and anxiety-packed) year at Smith.

All that said...it's good to be where I am now.

* * * 

30 Days Hath November

Day 01: A place I'd like to travel.
Day 02: A favourite movie.
Day 03: Something I never leave the house without.
Day 04: A friend I adore.
Day 05: My hometown.
Day 06: A book I'm reading.
Day 07: A song for the day.
Day 08: Three inspirational quotes.
Day 09: A close-up of my day.
Day 10: A favourite recipe.
Day 11: Three years ago today.

A Long Way From Home

Not giving up on 30 Days Hath November.  Not, not, NOT giving up.  But now that my last exam before Thanksgiving break is over, and my brain can start oozing out of my ear canals a bit more, I feel like I can catch up.  Prepare yourselves, people.

* * *

There is a familiarity to my hometown that I feel is etched into my bones, even from hundreds of miles away.  My parents don't live there anymore, but I will still periodically drive through it, either for fun, or if I'm on my way to see my one remaining friend from my days there.  The shops change a bit, the roads might be repaved, but it's like running my hand up the same bannister to the same staircase that I've been climbing my entire life.  You anticipate the slightest groove or bump, but think nothing of it.

I know what the swings feel like in the playground outside the now closed elementary school where my two best friends and I used to go and swing under the light of the moon, late on weekday nights when we should have been asleep.

I know where the road dips and turns on the ramp up to the one lane bridge over the Erie canal that I had to cross to get into town or to get home.

I know how heavy the side door is to the Catholic church I attended for more than a decade.  And the faint smell of incense and candle smoke that fills the air inside is so familiar that it could make me cry if I let it.

The people in my hometown refuse to be reduced to some simplistic version of small-town folk that the world might want them to be.  Indeed, it took me years to stop reflexively criticizing or making fun of my hometown because of its arbitrarily small population size.  Small does not mean stupid.  Few does not mean powerless.  And I am forever grateful for the help and love that my neighbors, friends' parents, teachers, coworkers, bosses, and long lost friends surrounded me by while I was growing up there.  

They helped make me into the person I am today.


30 Days Hath November
Day 01: A place I'd like to travel.
Day 02: A favourite movie.
Day 03: Something I never leave the house without.
Day 04: A friend I adore.
Day 05: My hometown.

May it happen for you

Tonight, I met up with an old friend.  A friend I thought I'd lost forever, because of extremely bad behavior on both of our parts.  I had a myriad of reasons, nay, excuses, for why it was better for me to cut her out of my life than to try to repair things between us.  But something has shifted inside me in the wake of Alix leaving me.  I don't have time for regrets.  I don't have time to hold grudges.  I don't have the time, or the energy, or the need to be anything other than exactly who I am and to do the very best I can, every day, at this thing called life.  So last week, I reached out to this person.  I apologized.  I said she was under no obligation to write back, but that I just wanted to say two things: that I was sorry for the what happened with us and that I was (and forever will be) grateful for the friendship we had.  And you know what?  She wrote back.  Turns out we live in the same city.  She said she was sorry too, and would I like to meet for coffee.  We met up tonight and something clicked again with me.  I felt like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders, a weight that I've been carrying around with me for the better part of three years.  I may have lost a fiancee, but I have regained a wonderful, treasured friend.  Apples to apples?  No, of course not.  But sometimes, we reach out to people, we try our hardest, we do our best - and it works out.  I came home and read this poem tonight and it hit me, hard.  Sometimes, everything really is okay.  Sometimes, what we do and what we are is enough.  Tonight, I'm grateful for friendship, for forgiveness, and for the myriad of second chances that I am blessed with in this precious life of mine.

Sometimes things don't go at all,
from bad to worse. Some years muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives;the crops don't fail,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war;
elect an honest man; decide they care
enough, that they can't leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best efforts do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.

Sheena Pugh (b.1950)

Flying, Friends, and Pho

Months ago, Southwest had an amazing deal on plane tickets.  Guess who jumped on that deal right quick?  THIS GIRL.

September 15th finally rolled around, and after a 3 AM cab ride, two hours to Chicago, four hours to LA, one tearful reunion, five cups of coffee, and a dinner that reminded me that I am secretly Vietnamese (if only for my intense and undying love for the food...especially pho), I am finally here!

I can't begin to explain (at least, not without crying) how amazing this girl, this friend of mine, is.  She stuck by me through four years of college, holding me up when my world was falling apart and laughing along with me when it finally righted itself.  She's even vowed to host two bachelorette parties, bless her soul.  (Take two girls getting married to each other and multiply everything girly about a wedding by two.  Scary, right?  It doesn't faze her a bit.)

Here's the thing about me.  I don't have that many friends.  As I've gotten older, I'm more and more okay with this fact.  I had plenty of acquaintances in college, people that I lived with and ate with and had class with, but with whom ultimately I don't keep in touch.  I have a low tolerance for bullshit, and this includes bullshit friendships that don't have much beneath a shiny surface.  This can make for a pretty low friend density, I've found.  But - I could not be happier with the truly amazing, loyal, loving friends that I do have.  I can only count them on one hand and that's okay.  It leaves one hand free for holding on when we need each other.

Hiking in Hawaii post-graduation

Blessed

Allison Kraus played on the stereo and a cool breeze blew through the room.  I sank sleepily into the couch cushions and felt like my heart would burst with love for the girl in front of me. She rocked her nannyboy slowly back and forth until his 12-week-old body sank into sleep against her shoulder and I simultaneously dozed off on the couch.  I'm in Cambridge this weekend, visiting her, and oh, you guys, I don't know what I'd do without her.

Her name is Hallie.
She's my life twin.
I am so blessed that the universe tossed me a handout as great as her during this awful, crazy, time in my life.

Sometimes, you're lucky enough to find a friend who is exactly what you need and the two of you lock into each other's souls and worlds and lives irrevocably.  I was that lucky.  She gets me.  She's also like a better version of me: she's a nanny, she wants to be a midwife, she's obsessed with books, she's smart, she's an awesome photographer, and her blog is much more well-loved than mine. (Sigh). Um...I'm a nanny, I want to be a midwife, I want to be a photographer, and I wish my blog were more loved.  But it's all good.

Most of our time together we spend in stitches of laughter, quoting Ellen Degeneres and making inappropriate jokes about sheep.  Some of the time, she holds me while I cry.  We listen to music in the dark while we talk for hours until we drift off to sleep.  When I wake up in her yellow room with the fan blowing, I feel at peace.

I'm calling it now - someday, not long from now, we'll be working together as midwives, catching babies and having our own (I gotta find her a babydaddy) and raising them all in a giant joint-family commune that has a vegetable garden and too many animals and cloth diapers drying on the clothesline outside.

Sometimes, the universe deals out a lot of shit.  And sometimes, it sends out blessings so big and so unreal that they take your breath away if you let them.  She's one of those, and I thank my lucky stars every day for her.  Because now that I've found her, I'm not ever letting go.

If the mountain won't come to Muhammad...

It turns out that 3,000 miles isn't enough to keep me away.  Of course, a 3-day-only special on Southwest Airline tickets sealed the deal, but hey, I'm not being picky about how the universe works in my favor.  It's a long way off, but come September 15th, I'll be dragging my sleepy ass to LaGuardia for a 6 AM flight to see someone who lights up my life

She's been there through it all.  Our friendship sprang from a shared dislike for a fellow first-year: while all the upperclasswomen were moving in, a sophomore was giving away a queen-sized bed and asked if any of us younguns' wanted it.  She and I, friends for barely two days, sprang into action.  "WE'LL TAKE IT!!" we yelled, just as this other girl was opening her mouth to accept said bed.  Okay, okay, so maybe that was mean of us.  But we - two poor kids on full scholarships - definitely needed that bed more than the girl who had shown up to Smith with a 12x12 foot beach poster from Urban Outfitters and a sheet/comforter set from Ralph Lauren did.  (I looked online.  The poster cost $300.)  It marked the beginning of four years of friendship - splayed across her queen-sized bed and my king-sized one (her twin and my twin pushed together and covered in memory foam and mattress covers).

She managed to stay straight through four years of Smith (no small feat).  But she'd still give me frequent kisses, especially under mistletoe, regardless of my relationship status.  (It's one of the many things that non-Smithies will never understand...how do a bunch of friends become so incestuous?)

We spruced ourselves up for this momentous occasion - commencement!

And then we celebrated four of the toughest, best, most heart-breaking, back-breaking, growing-up years of our young lives by...jumping off a cliff.

(Seriously, I'd highly recommend it for stress relief.  Something about plummeting to your possible death will make all your other worries seem far less significant.)

And now (well, in September anyway), I finally, finally get to see her again.  It's been more than a year and I miss her so much.  California, I'm coming to you.  Get ready.

Pre-Dawn Thoughts

I'm not going to lie, waking up at 3:30 AM isn't fun.  Waking up because you're shaking with panic and can't get back to sleep, no matter how hard you try, no matter how soothingly your bed-mate talks to you, and no matter how high a (safe) dosage of anti-anxiety medication you take really, really sucks. 

On the other hand, sitting here on the couch, watching the room slowly fill with soft, gray light (no real sunshine this morning, unfortunately), listening to music through my headphones, wrapped in a fleecy blanket, and browsing the internet with no intention is kind of...nice.  I am glad for Alix and Rupert that they are peacefully asleep.  I don't resent my solitude, in spite of the loneliness that inevitably hovers in my subconscious like a pesky cough that never seems to quite leave your lungs.  My loneliness and I have made a kind of peace with each other.  I accept that it's here to stay, for an indefinite period of time, and that I am given occasional respite from its persistent presence through the love and support of family and friends.  My loneliness, in turn, has learned to back off a bit when I am surrounded by this love and waits semi-patiently in the background until it again seizes free reign over my mind.  So yes, am I lonely out here on the couch by myself, tired but not sleepy, dreading the day ahead?  Of course.  But I'm also enjoying the rising sun, the fleecy blanket, and the warm computer on my lap. 

I'm also enjoying the thought of my friends and family in different places and what they're doing with their time right now.  My dear mother has been up since at least 5 AM and is enjoying her morning coffee at the kitchen table with my father in their pajamas.  She will shower soon and get dressed for work, driving an hour through the countryside, listening to NPR and idly thinking of her many children and the newest renovations on the house she and my dad are working on.  I might not know time differences for shit, but I imagine a college friend, of Latitude 43, waking up to the crisp, cool air in her Chilean home and shivering a bit while building a fire in the gray foggy morning light that New York is also seeing this morning.  I imagine a newish but so-close-I-swear-we're-twins friend, of The (Online) Nanny Diaries solidly asleep in her cheery yellow room, buried under her blue covers, getting ready to wake up to a full day of work and the chance to love on her six-week-old nannyboy.  I imagine my friend in Brazil on a Fulbright sleeping under barely a sheet, with the warm breeze blowing through an open window (truth be told, I don't have a clue what the weather is like in Brazil these days, but I'd like to imagine someone in paradise right now), getting ready for her day of research and adventuring in a new country that is beginning to feel like home to her.  I wonder, do they ever think of me?  Do they think of me catching a nasty cold from my nannykids, or waking up at 3:30 AM, or getting my morning coffee around the corner and enjoying the first delicious sip? Do they know how much my heart aches for their physical presence, for their hugs and kind words, and their simple proximity to myself?

I'd like to imagine they do.  It might be selfish to pine for these things, but when loneliness and anxiety are always waiting impatiently for the chance to flood their way into my mind, I think pining for love is justified.  Lord knows I'm lucky to have as much coming my way as I do.  But right now, sitting alone on the couch, I'm trying hard to remember what it feels like to feel warm arms around me and kind words whispered in my ear.  In the meantime, I'll relish my blanket, my music, and my loneliness solitude.

Wanted: Friends

Here's the story...

This is me

 I used to go to college and had some awesome, truly amazing friends.  (Don't worry, they're still there.  They're just very far away.)  Then I graduated.  Then I moved to NY, where I know no one, except for Alix (and she's wonderful...remember when this happened?).  Anyway.  I spend my days with an 11-month-old, and while he's working very hard on his conversation skills, they're still not quite up to my speed.  I spend my weekends handing out cookies in exchange for money (yay for a free market economy) with people who are vaguely my age and should be good friend material but are somehow...not.  It's definitely because I'm shy but still.  I'd really like some friends.  Can we be friends?  Here are some things about me in case you need to know.



I used to wear a boot (briefly).

I illegally housed a cat in my dorm room for two years.  I could have gotten kicked out of school for this.  Instead, I didn't and Tucker and I watched Animal Planet together.

I was sad for a long, long time.  Now, it's not so bad.  Tucker, Rupert, Alix, my family, and the sunrise keep me going even on days when it threatens to pull me under again.

So what do you think.  Can anyone help me out with this friend thing?