I know

It's been six years since I've updated.

Things have been busy.

We had a new niece last night! Yay! I don't know her name yet, but she's 6lb 3oz, and blonde. I'm so excited to meet her!

I graduated from nursing school, and got my RN pin. I'm actually sitting here with only a couple minutes to write while I wait for my NCLEX review class to begin. That's pretty much what I'm doing for the next 6 weeks, studying for my boards and exercising.

Oh! we got a new car! It's a 2007 Atomic Metalic Blue Honda Civic. It's pretty :)

That's just about all that's going on...

I'll try to be better about keeping up :)

Ridiculously Proud

of myself.

I'm on a diet (weight watchers - which I'd recommend to anyone trying to lose weight), and doing pretty well. I'm getting ready for my weigh in today, but in the last month I've lost almost 10 pounds. But that isn't what I'm so proud of.

I'm proud that I called my mother-in-law before shabbos and said, "Hey, I'm kind of worried about staying on my diet," because I know you made a lot of unbelievably fattening foods, "so could I bring a veggie platter?"

I'm proud because it's really hard to say to your mother in law, "hey, I don't trust you to make food I can eat, so I'm gonna bring my own." But I did it, and I basically stayed on program. So I'm proud of myself for making the call, and I'm proud that I was pretty good.

Yay me!

Time Warner Cable is sponsoring first books for children.

Maybe I'm cynical, but it sounds to me like Philip Morris sponsoring anti-smoking ads.

I had a great day today at clinical. It was my day at antepartum - so I spent a couple hours with a pregnant woman, sat in on her genetic counselling session (which, by the way, was really interesting) and saw an ultrasound - which was cool, but kind of makes me feel like a moron, because all I could see was the hands and the spine. There was lotsa other stuff to look at, and the tech kept trying to show us what stuff was, but she could have been making it up for all I could see. Well, I guess that one of those things you have to see a really lot of before you can recognize what's what.

Also, I came up with an awesome Chanukah present for Tzvi tonight, so I'm really excited.

I spent Monday and Tuesday in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit). It was boring, and kinda sad - except for when a new mom and dad came in and got to touch their babies, and the dad (a big BIG) man was so sweet.

We discussed something interesting in class yesterday that I didn't even know about. Apparently, Orthodox Jews wait longer before going to the hospital. I mean, I always new to wait as long as you can before you go, but apparently it's a Jewish thing... Italians will go at the first sign of labor. My teacher was saying that when she practiced as an L&D nurse she would look around and see who to care for first. She was like, "You know, if a woman's still smiling I knew that it wasn't such a rush. But if there was an orthodox Jewish woman, sitting there with a smile on her face like all is well, I knew this woman needs a room right away, she's gonna have a baby really soon."

One is not more right then the other - Jews would rather be relatively comfortable at home and be in and out of Labor and Delivery, whereas Italians would rather settle in to their L&D room. Who knew?

Crocs Rocks

Today was spent in post partum. It was interesting, but didn't speak to me like L&D and the nursery. I mean, it was nice taking care of the mom, and all, but not nearly as exciting or as cute.

In other news, I got pink crocs, which I am TOTALLY obsessed with. For all those who don't own a pair, make the investment. They're kinda ugly, but they are the most comfortable pair of shoes I have ever owned. I'm tempted to buy the boots too. And the scrub shoes. In every color. Buy crocs.

Maternity Today

I spent today in the nursery, which was so much fun. I got to give a baby his first bath, and get him dressed and bundle him up. It was a real bonding experience.

Then I had my maternity test, which I aced. And after class, I was the last one in my room, and my teacher actually sat down in the desk next to me and talked. Just chatted, about stuff. We talked about Weight Watchers (We ended up in the same meeting) and about how much I'm loving maternity, and can't wait to do it. It was so great. I feel a little bad, because a lot of my class really dislikes her, because she's a tough cookie. She's very strict, and very hard, and has really high expectations, but I love her. I feel like she could be my friend, my mentor.

Then I had my psych test, which I barely studied for, but I'm pretty sure I did well. And then I cut the rest of class, because she wanted us to sit around for an hour before class, and I'm just sooo tired from studying.

Thats all for now. Layla tov.

Another one

I saw another delivery today. It was very different from the first. I mean - the idea was the same, but this one had a little trouble getting out. And you know how you know the baby's okay from the cry? Well, he didn't cry for what felt like an eternity, but in real life was probably only a few seconds... but long enough that the mom was like, "why isn't my baby crying" and she was so scared, asking "Is my baby okay?" But, he was okay, and mommy and daddy were so sweet, and so happy (which was another difference from yesterday - yesterday there was no one with the new mom). It's scary down there in labor and delivery, but it's such a wonderful place to be.

I just watched a baby being born

and it was unreal. I watched the birth of a gooey baby boy. When I got to Labor & Delivery she was 7 cm dilated (that was at 10:15) and at 11:45 she gave birth to a boy. It was totally crazy. She pushed out the head in, like, 4 pushes, and then the rest of the baby kinda just fell out. Like - they drs were like "Don't push" (because they were suctioning the baby) and he came out any way.

I didn't get to stay for the stiches afterwards, I had to leave, but I'm so glad I got to see it.

I can go on about the miracle of child birth. But everyone knows it. And I can't possibly put in to words the way it made me feel. This is what I want to do with my life. I hope to see many many more baby's born, and this was the first.

I wonder if this is something I'll remember for the rest of my life. Like, the details. Will I worry about the boy? His mother, who was bipolar, was obviously not very prepared - she had no one planned to pick her up from the hospital, and she didn't have a car seat that would be ready when she goes home. Who will this boy grow up to be? Will he develop normally? Will he grow to be a good guy? Will he be healthy?

I supposed I'll learn not to worry too much.

Readers Beware

I've started my maternity nursing class, as I've mentioned, last week. My warning is this: I went to nursing school so that I could be a midwife. That means that I am already obsessed with my class. So - expect a lot of posts about pregnancy, labor and delivery, post partum, and the newborn.

Today was our first active day of clinical, and it was SO awesome. I was in postpartum, and was lucky enough to spend the whole day with my clinical instructor, who is the clinical nurse specialist and lactation consultant on our floor. We walked around and I felt a couple uteruses, at different stages, which was awesome.

I'm really impressed with the hospital. In most cases, people want to go to the city to go to a great hospital. But the maternity unit at SIUH is unbelievably impressive. One of my patients told me that even if she were to move to the west coast she'd come back to Staten Island to deliver her next child. The doctors are great, the nurses know a TON and are SO sweet.

The only bad part of the day was at the end. And warning - a little gross. Another student did a postpartal assessment of a mother who JUST came up from the delivery room, and she was very swollen - she couldn't close her legs because of the swelling. The student, who is 40-ish said to me, "I'm glad I never had children." Ummm... hello? Swelling goes away. This woman has a child. Get some perspective. I hope she doesn't become a maternity nurse.

Orthodox Jewish Culture

Nursing has gotten really into cultural awareness. However - the textbooks aren't written by people of these different cultures, and so usually the things they write are bastardized form of the truth. At least when it's about Judaism, I can't speak for the other cultures, but I imagine it's true.
I just started my maternity class (which, by the way, is the last one, and the reason I've gone through the others) and, while reading the chapter on cultural awareness, was shocked with the truth, clarity, and conciseness of the Jewish part.

"In Orthodox Judaism, for example, it is a man's responsibility to procreate, but it is a woman's right, not her obligation, to do so. This is because, according to Orthodox Jewish law, the health of the mother, both physically and mentally, is of primary concern, and she should never be obliged to do something that threatens her life."

Impressive, no?

So, I'm sick. And I have no doubt it's because I stressed myself out so much about my psych paper and nursing final that I lowered my immune defenses.

I'm bored. And movement makes my head hurt.

Any fun websites for me to look at?

MIA Partner

Well, it seems her computer crashed. Thursday. And she told me Sunday.

It's hard for me to believe that she couldn't get to any other computer to email me in the meantime. None of her friends have computers? She couldn't get to school? Give me a break.

Either she's a moron, or she thinks I am.

I told her that I'm sorry, and had she emailed from another computer to let me know I would have happily worked it out with her, but since she didn't, I finished me paper. Would she like a copy of the article?

Apparently she doesn't. Or maybe her computer crashed.

FREAKING STRESSED

So my completely annoying psych teacher gave us a paper to do comparing media coverage of a psych report to the original journal article. Fine, right? Right. Except that she's making us do it with partners, who she paired us up with. So the paper's due Monday, and my partner wont FREAKING get back to me. So I've written 4 pages (out of 5) on my own, and if I dont get anything from her I'm going to finish the report on my own and not put her name on, and I'm gonna feel really bad about it, but I shouldn't because she wont help me! We had agreed to have it done by last monday. When it wasn't done then she was all, "well, i want to have it done by wed." Fine, Wed came and went and she didn't send me anything (since I said I'd put our work together because - frankly - I don't trust her to do it well). I told her I abolutely HAVE to have it done thursday night, because I have a final in my nursing class on monday that's worth 40% of my grade, and Thursday night came and went, and nothing. It's now Friday, and I've TOTALLY lost any semblence of patience.

And I'm really a patient person.

Stupid psych!

I'm sorry it's been so long, but things have been kinda busy.
I have a new nephew, Zevi, or "Z-Funk" as my wonderful husband insists on calling him.
He's really cute:



and I made him really cute booties:

Photo Credits: Wonderful Husband

and I'm in the middle of an awesome sweater, for my favorite nephew.

Anyways, they've been living with the in-laws, so I've been busy spending time there, bonding with the beautiful boy.

Alas, they are leaving soon, and back to school work it will be for me.

Well, it was a busy week, but I still managed to do the switch - I am currently blogging from the beta version. They main difference for me is the homepage - it's nicer looking. Also, when you go to "Edit Posts" it also shows how many comments, which I don't think regular blogger does.
You can do a lot of fun stuff with your template, which I tried - the coolest thing is the color shuffling tool - it randomizes the color of different aspects of your blog with the colors that you have already chosen - the only issue is that if you changed your template (like I did), you lose those changes. They keep a copy of your old template so you can go back, which I did, because I couldn't figure out how to keep the things I changed (like the comments opening on the page, or showing only new comments) in the new blogger.

So, my busy week... I had my first pediatric nursing test, and got an A (yay!!) which was really exciting. Today I went to an information session at SUNY Downstate for their RN-BSN program. I was really nervous, but I spoke to the credit/gpa evaluator person, and she said that I was "competitive" - which is really Really exciting.

And, of course, all of my classes decided to give papers due over the chaggim, so that's been fun trying to get done, especially since there are NO MORE SUNDAYS.

So, thats what's been happening. I haven't seen my husband for a week because of classes and studying, and tonight is long slichot, so he's gonna be out for a while... maybe we'll get so spend some time together over Rosh Hashana. That would be nice.

I'm doing it

Okay, After this post, I'm going to take the plunge to try better blogging. So, if I dissappear, you'll know that I'm lost in the world of Betas.

Better Blogging?

So, there's this Blogger in Beta thing, has anyone tried that? I'm always in to trying things in beta, but they said that if you try it you can't go back.
So, please - let me know if you've tried it, and what you think.

School is Cool

So, I'm back at school.

Yay.

No, really -- so far so good. My nursing teacher's great, and my clinical instructor is really sweet. Last year's pediatric nursing class had a terrible teacher, and apparently they weren't so happy with her, so she suddenly took a sabatical, leaving us with a GREAT teacher. I'm also taking History of the Soviet Union, which is actually really interesting. My teacher doesn't seem sweet or anything, but she's really interested in the subject, which makes for great teaching. I'm taking Abnormal Psych, which SHOULD be a good class, but the teacher's REALLY boring. Really, really boring. 3 people got up and left in the middle of the first class, because she's so boring, and it's a night class - once a week, which means that it's from 6:30 to 9:50, which is like FOREVER. And it's forever of my longest day... I start at 8 AM and have only one hour - 5:30-6:30 break. So by the time I get there I'm exhausted, and I have to sit through her monotone, it's not the greatest situation.

Anyways, at least pediatrics is good - that's the most important thing.

More About Israel

Family Time:




Town, on Motzei Shabbos:


Angels for Lunch:


Old City Day:






So, that was our trip in picture form.