Jason and I both had our first days back to work yesterday after our whirlwind weekend. I know that I was super excited to have a little emotional break from our personal news to just focus on my patients and their needs. Sometimes the universe conspires to give you what you need right when you need it! I worked with wonderful patients and thankfully none of them were needing to be sent to the ICU or needing to have a Code Blue called at the bedside... I don't think I had the emotional reserves yesterday to have handled that! Instead, I got to dote on one patient in particular who has a particularly grim prognosis. Nothing helps you to stop dwelling over your own perceived challenges like stepping into someone else's definite ones...
I absolutely love my job, and I love the oncology unit that I work on. I was lucky enough to spend some clinical shifts on the unit during my second semester of nursing school, and I have to admit that I fell in love. I fell in love with my patients and being a positive part of the journeys that they were on. But more than anything, I fell in love with my coworkers. I was so moved by the compassion that they showed for all of their patients' needs- physical, emotional, spiritual... and I fell in love with how they took care of each other. It felt like a family, and I connected with that sense of teamwork that they lived out through their treatment of each other and their patients.
I was lucky enough to be accepted for an internship on that same unit and spent three intense months seeing if I was capable of being a contributing part of that team. And now, just a few short weeks away from my one year mark of being gainfully employed there, I thank God everyday that they continue to let me show up and be a part of the team. It's very important to me to work with people that inspire me and are willing to invest time in mentoring me, and I can honestly say that I won the lottery when I got hired there.
And apparently I won the lottery again, because they were as excited (and shocked!!) as anyone could hope for when I dropped the bomb on them. I got hugs and smiles and jokes all day from everyone, and you would have all been so impressed with how they just seemed to embrace the news. My boss started downloading forms for me from Human Resources (and even started filling out the basic info!) to let me know about different benefits available to us. The first thing out of the nurse's mouth that writes the schedule? "Well, I want to start working on the schedule so that we don't let you work three days in a row. You're going to need to rest!"
No one had anything but positive things to say, and no one expressed anything about what additional responsibilities they might have to shoulder as a result. Because I won't be able to work for as long as I want to during this pregnancy (my previous plan of asking someone to hold my pager for an hour or so while I go deliver the baby during my lunch break is obviously no longer a reality!), I am quite aware of the extra burden that this is going to put on my coworkers. As I get bigger and move slower, I won't be able to help my fellow nurses out as much as normal. They'll probably even need to help me more during my shifts. Heck- I have this comical vision of throwing some wipes and new sheets from the doorway to my incontinent patients and asking them to clean up themselves. :) Hopefully it won't get that bad!
This is going to be a hard pill for me to swallow. I'm not used to asking for a lot of help, whether it be personally or professionally. I'm far more comfortable with being the one that others ask for help (perhaps that inspired my decision to pursue nursing in the first place).
I fear being seen as a burden, and I don't like being needy. And having triplets is going to force me to face that fear.
I'm going to have to start really understanding that asking for help is okay. I'm going to have to start making the connection between how much I gain from getting to help others and allowing others the opportunity to gain those same benefits from helping me. I envision this as a lesson I'll need to revisit a lot.
Jason's coworkers were much the same. They were so excited for us and apparently he was finding it a little tougher than normal to accomplish things as people kept stopping by his office and offering up their congratulations and excitement. In fact, when he got to work, he was greeted with this sign on his office window that someone made!
I worry about Jason. He's going to have a lot of responsibility placed squarely on his shoulders financially once I can't work anymore- this from a man who already works his butt off to provide for our household and our family. This from a man whose internal sense of responsibility is already higher than that of the average dude. He's already stressed over the fact that we'll need a bigger house in the future and whether we'll need a different car and how we'll pay for childcare... no one will ever be able to accuse him of shirking his responsibilities. And since you know Jason's big into planning and researching before he makes a decision, you can only imagine how much internet research he's already done! While I know that eventually we'll need to make these decisions, I will keep working hard to remind my sweet pumpkin that everything will fall into place the way it's supposed to whether we stress our or not.
At this point, I do have a respectful request for everyone. I am perfectly comfortable discussing the potential medical challenges that the babies and I are facing, including the labor process. Between my nursing education, my research, and my job, I'm well aware that this is not going to be a walk in the park for me physically (let's be honest- at some point, I probably won't even be able to walk in any park!). There are significant physical ramifications involved with carrying and delivering triplets, both before and after they are born. I am ready to face head on whatever comes our way in that regard. That may sound naive to you all, but I promise you I'm going into this with my eyes wide open.
But Jason is not quite at that point yet. He's not had the exposure to these kinds of things before, and he is already scared enough for me in regards to the delivery process and the health of the three amigos. And at some point, he'll need to face that. But I don't feel that right now is exactly that time. I don't feel like he's trying to avoid it- far from it, but we both want him to be more adjusted to the situation as a whole before he's forced to go down that particular road. So my request is this- if you have questions or want to talk about the medical aspects right now, talk to me. If you have more questions about the delivery, ask me. Jason will eventually be available for those conversations as well, but for now, I'm your girl and am excited to talk with anyone about it. Thank you too much!
