Nursing School

In 2013 I decided a nurse was what I wanted to be. It's been a very long road...and I'm still not there yet, but the light is finally at the end of the tunnel.

1 year and 8 months left! Getting here has taken so long. It's been trying at times. It still is. I'm not the mother I want to be right now, or the wife.

Oh yeah, I got married. August 23, 2014 I married Tim. He is a corrections officer now and I work for Nationwide Children's Hospital. I LOVE it. There is no life I would rather have.

Oh, and we are looking at houses!

I started at Lakeland Community College in Kirtland, OH. I fully intended to finish there, and then Tim applied for the state. Pickaway Correctional Institution, where Tim's dad worked for 22 years, called him and offered him the job, so we moved home...with my mom.

We had to wait for 4 months for him to start, meanwhile I started back at Columbus State, expecting to have to wait another YEAR to start than I had initially waited.

Then, one windy day there were tables set up outside at CSCC. The wind was blowing all the paper all over the place and a table that said, Chamberlain College of Nursing caught my eye. I walked over there, not consciously, almost as though I was being drawn. I spoke to the admissions lady, and expressed an interest (that I didn't even know I had). She called me later that day and we set up an appointment.

A few days later, I met with her. The school was everything I had dreamed of and more. I was in love. I was hooked. Also, I could do a work/study at Children's! So, I applied, took the HESI the next week (94%!), and was admitted a week after that.

My first semester I had a 4.0. I was confident. The first half of the second semester, I had a C, a C+, and failed a class. I retook that class and got a B. My confidence is not what it was, but it is adjusted. I'm learning. I'm working hard. I'm going to do this thing.

I started my work/study in March. I started applying for various positions, thinking it would take up to a year to get hired. I had an interview in May for Patient Transport, as well as a couple of other positions. I was hired in Transport at the end of May, and started the end of June. I LOVE IT THERE!

I have different goals now. Tim and I want to foster and adopt children, having seen abused children and the results. They often go into the state, just to be abused more. We want to help as many children as we can to not face that.

I want to be an NAS nurse (Narcotics Abstinence Syndrome), which is a specialized NICU nurse. I'm working towards that right now. I'm putting one foot in front of the other.

Kiley is having trouble focusing, and she has received referrals to an opthamologist and a neuropsychologist to figure out what is going on. I'm excited to get it figured out.

I'll try to keep up with this page. It's been therapeutic.

Measuring struggle

There is something going around lately that really bothers me. There is a consensus that those of us who were able to breastfeed, who were able to cloth diaper, etc. are pretentious, that we "just don't understand" the plight of those who were unable, and thus, that we have not struggled.

Let me tell you a thing or two about the past 3.5 years.

When my child was born, her dad was a pill addict. I was under the impression that he was recovering. I was 21, and I hadn't the foggiest idea what that looked like. Not enough struggle for you?

When Kiley and I first started breastfeeding, she had an immensely shallow latch, and ripped off about half of my nipples. But I pushed through, because that was what was best for MY child. I didn't enjoy nursing until she was 7 weeks. You didn't push through? Wonderful. We all make our choices, but that doesn't mean you get to demonize ME because I made it work. I am going to celebrate that.

Ever had a 102* fever and a two week old, whose dad is off trailing drugs instead of being with us? I have. Mastitis is also QUITE painful for your breast. Yet I kept at it. And I won't apologize or keep that to myself so that YOU will feel better. Nope. I am quite proud of that fact.

Ever heard of cluster feeding? Kiley was a champion at that, and it made getting anything else done IMPOSSIBLE. But I kept at it, because it was what was best for MY child. She would eat for an hour or more at a time, multiple times a day. And I still nursed because I am a fucking badass.

Kiley didn't learn to walk until she was 15 months. When she started to walk, she dragged her left leg. She was fine, but her doctor had me totally freaked out. There is nothing scarier than believing something could be wrong with your child, that it could be something YOU did.

She has always been ahead mentally, and a little behind physically. I am the same way. I did attachment parenting with her, and I think this has a lot to do with it, and yes, I breastfed. MDs are doing studies all the time linking cognitive aptitude with having breastfed. Your child was formula fed and is soooo smart, too? Wonderful. It's like the warning about McDonald's. It raises your CHANCES for having a heart attack. It doesn't mean that you WILL have a heart attack when you eat there.

Also, I added formula at 6 months, and only nursed in the morning and night from 10 months on. Avid breastfeeders advised me NOT to do that over and over....But after 6 months, I couldn't get anything, other than, like, an ounce when I pumped.

I used cloth diapers, because economically and environmentally, they are SO much better. Also, would you like paper on YOUR butt all the time? Not me! Give me cloth anyday! And honestly, it wasn't a whole heck of a lot of work. It added, like, 10 minutes of work per day. I can sacrifice 10 minutes per day.

I also had a natural childbirth- i.e. no pain meds. I was also on pitocin, because, well, I'm a badass. Again, not going to apologize. The research I did told me that was best for MY child, minus the pitocin, but that's a whole other story entirely.

Also, her birth father? Tells me the fact that I have received less and less child support less frequently is "not his problem" and that I "have her calling another guy, dad" and that she didn't really know who he is, so he doesn't need to call her. Then, she asked me if it was him every time the phone rang for 2 months at just over 2 years old. Yeah, my heart broke!
 
I don't think I am MORE of a mother, or a woman, for doing these things, but these things sure as hell add to that. I try to do what is best for my child at every turn. THAT is what makes me a mother. Your story is different? Wonderful. That adds to the spice of life, and we need that. Just don't demonize me, or tell me that I don't understand. I will never understand your particular struggle, but I sure as shit understand struggle involved in modern parenting.

If you insist on putting us in different categories, do it. Fine. I don't need the negativity, but I do need support. I'll just find it elsewhere. I don't have time to convince anyone. This is purely to vent.

Chaos

Hard to believe it has been 6 months since I posted anything! I guess this blog may become an exploration of the new job, nursing school, and the first year of marriage.

I have decided to go into nursing. My focus will most likely be neonatal, although I may do some midwifery and OB nursing, once I specialize. I will definitely also get my lactation consultant certificate, and will become a Nurse Practitioner as soon as I am able-- in one form or another. My goal is also to teach college, specifically, future nurses. I want to encourage nurses who think outside the box, think critically- ones who are not machines, as I feel nursing has become, and the proof lies with the way I was treated during Kiley's birth.

I just finished my STNA training, and that class helped me to see this is truly the field where I belong! I love the location, too. The pay won't be the best I could have gotten, but the environment and the hours were what really drew me to it!


That was my STNA class. :) Could not have asked for a better one! I love the industry- I love the people, and what they try to do for people, the good ones anyway, the ones for whom health, not convenience, is the primary concern. 

I will be starting at Governor's Village here in the next few weeks. I look forward to helping people live as well as they can the last few years of their lives in Assisted Living. I also started the prerequisites for nursing school at Lakeland Community College, so I am fully immersed in this world. It feels right.

Kiley is 3.5 and every bit of 3. She says funny new things daily. Love her heart! She asked me the other day who is going to hang out with her while I work! She also asked me if she can help with the baby when I have another one. She also tries to help me cook and clean. Such a big helper! I could not have asked for a better child. 

I am looking forward to see what our future holds!

The Waiting Game

It feels like that is all I have been playing for the last year. No, not for a form of transportation as Dr Seuss suggests. Not literally. But I have been waiting to find that destination, the one thing that might make me sit still. Perhaps I have been exercising geographical cures, although not purposefully. I think now it is time to settle down. The people who love me are tired of me wandering about wondering where I belong. I can't say I blame them, especially since I have a 3 year old. I just wish they might exercise more patience with me.

I learn by doing. It is the way I have always been. I hope it is not how I will always be, but I am 24. Don't I get a break at this age? Do people normally react well to the way you treat me, as though I was a hamster needing to turn the other direction on this wheel?

At the moment, I think I may want to go into nursing, although I suppose that might be up for debate. I just don't think I was made for this silly business stuff. I have tried and failed. Isn't that what I always say, though? When does this crap end? Is it because I am young? Or because I just simply cannot make up my mind?

So, I have launched onto a course of vigorous action. I got a job, which I start on September 9. It is a part time restaurant job, but the hours may allow me to search my options with nursing. I met with a nurse midwife who suggested I shadow a midwife or two.. However, now neonatal nursing or ob nursing sounds fun, as does becoming a lactation consultant.

Lord, please send me the answer....

Change of direction, again...

"Onward up many a frightening creek, though your arms may get sore and your sneakers may leak. " ~ Dr Seuss, Oh! The Places You'll Go.

That's right, I am changing direction again. I have been saying that every couple of months the past couple of years. 

When I graduated college, I panicked. It's like I have been sitting in one spot for the past couple of years, afraid to take a step in any direction, for fear that everything will fall out from under me. It is, despite my best efforts to stop it. 

Riding horses is not the direction my life is going to take, but at one time, I thought it might be, so I had to try it out. It was a definite fail, and all that is left for me to do now is pick myself up, dust myself off, and move on. I don't entirely know where I am going, but I do know that now I need to focus on supporting Kiley. It is time to act like a mom, not a little dreamer. 

It's an ego blow. I have spent the past couple of months feeling like I was hit in the face by a mack truck. I'll be okay, though. I am a survivor and a damn good mom. I just wish I hadn't made half the choices I have made since she's been alive... I wish I had stayed with my mom after she was born, gone to OSU....I would have saved so much money. I wish I would have just stayed at DSW up to this point. I would have been making more money, had more people who would give me a positive reference...

But those weren't my choices at the time because I was young and I "knew better." I'm trying not to beat myself up, though. I was young and I became a mom before I meant to. I am tired of struggling, though. So tired. I am ready to start working my way up in a company of some sort, any sort. I am ready to build a life for Kiley, to pay back my student loans...

I want to be a midwife and a researcher now. How's that for a 180? When I told people that was what I wanted, the general response was, well...yeah! Why did that not occur to me earlier?

So goes life, I suppose.... It's been a journey, the whole learning to appreciate the ride thing. I wouldn't trade it. This just might be where I am supposed to be so I don't have to be here again.

Oh, the places you'll go!

Since December, I have made a decision. That decision is not to continue at the University of Findlay. There are a multitude of reasons, but the biggest reason is that I have found my purpose. That was, after all, what that adventure was about, wasn't it?

How did I come to that conclusion? Well, first and foremost, back in December, I was offered a job. It's my dream job. It does not pay much, but it's what I want to be doing, at least for now. I will be managing a barn in Johnstown, OH and also, apprenticing under the trainer there. Also, it's in a discipline that I just did not think I would be involved in. Dressage. I used to have dreams of riding cow horses and reiners, running across the arena to a sliding stop, spinning, running around barrels and poles... 

But that's just not what I want to do, mainly because of the direction the western industry has taken over the past decade. I won't go too deeply into that, but the kind of horse they expect in that industry is a very specific type, and if the horse is not that type, they will put all these gadgets on it to MAKE it that type, resulting in a lot of joint and muscular issues. 

In dressage, they aren't necessarily looking for a specific type of horse, mainly just a horse who moves forward and into the bit and can do the prescribed exercises for their level. In the upper levels, certain types of horses are a little more suitable, but that's just the nature. 

So, end of April/beginning of May, I will be moving to Johnstown to the apartment above the barn, and will be managing the facility. I will also be apprenticing under Renee, who is a remarkable trainer, rider, and all around horse woman. Kiley and Tim will be moving there with me, then Tim and I are planning to start our own little family!

Another reason I am choosing not to continue at Findlay is that the business office has been next to impossible to deal with. Also, the program is going to hell next year.

I will also be working a waitressing (or something similar) job several hours a week to help me pay back loans. I will also be volunteering at CHOICE for several hours a week to start to work towards becoming a doula. That process will probably start sometime next year.

So, here lately, I have been working with this mare, Minnie at Findlay. For weeks, I felt like a total failure. Then, instruction changed, and we have actually worked well together for the past few weeks. This whole suppling a dressage horse thing is a foreign concept to me. In western it's mechanically different and SO much simpler. We are getting there, though. Thursday, she was absolutely amazing. Hopefully, real progress will start to be made, now. 

Why I have been successful, and how my definition of success has changed

My life is not the mainstream picture of success. At the moment, I am a single mother on welfare (which I am totally trying to get off of). I have a horse and two dogs (who were all acquired before I went on welfare). I am a student. I have a full plate. I often feel like I am failing, because I am 23, have a child, and no money. But I am successful.

You see, mainstream society considers "successful" to be someone who has a house, a dog, a two car garage, can go on vacations a couple of times a year, and whose car has all the newest features. I do, too- don't get me wrong. And sometimes, I long to be so mainstream "successful."

I am successful, in matters of the heart, you see, and spiritually. I constantly seek a relationship with God, not perfectly by any means, but the effort says a lot. I am a successful mother, because I care about Kiley's welfare, and I do what I can to make sure she turns out okay. Sometimes, I am too tired to do what I think I should do for her, but amazingly, she keeps growing and developing. Isn't that the basic measure of success by how we measure ourselves- whether our children are being raised to leave the world better than they found it? Or, if we do not have children, if we personally are trying to do the same.

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I would love to live a life based on self- sustainability, to give back to the earth, rather than engaging in the consumerism that everyone seems to hate so much, but no one seems willing to change. That is not a knock on the way others choose to live, at least not an intentional one, it is only a explanation for why I would like to live that way. I cannot right now, however, as the apartment where I am living would not allow for it. What I mean by that is solar or wind energy, growing my own fruits and vegetables, raising my own meat, milk, and cheese. Anything I cannot grow, I would like to buy at Farmer's Markets. I don't know that I could make my own clothes, but I would probably shop for clothing locally. This moving to self- sustainability would certainly be a long process, and one I would have to research thoroughly.