Something unexpected happened last week. After nine years of absolutely loving my job as a Labor & Delivery RN, I resigned. I say unexpected but we had been discussing the possibility for at least a month prior to making the decision. More on the "why" later. I spoke with my boss on Monday & held up well since we had given much thought to our decision for me to not return. Tuesday was a different story entirely. I filled out the necessary forms online to officially resign & as soon as I hit "submit" the tears started flowing. I was surprised at the emotions wrapped up in my role as an RN & immediately took a trip back in time remembering the years of working to become a nurse followed by a career that taught me much about myself & allowed me to provide care to many families over the years. I loved every second (almost). I process by writing so please join me back in 2001 for quite the lengthy journey....
Looking back at big decisions in my life, I make them quickly & usually pick one option with no back up plan. At the end of my senior year I had applied to only one college which was Texas Tech University. Thankfully I got in (since there was no back up plan) & preparation was in full swing to move 9 hours away from home & begin life as a young adult studying to do something. Cheryl & I were encouraged by a mutual friend to be roomies in the dorms our freshman year. We quickly agreed that although we barely knew each other it would be better to live together than with some strange person. We were approved, did our monumental Ikea trip to furnish our 10 sq. foot room & were excited to move in.
Over the course of high school I had the opportunity to tag along at work with my Aunt who worked in Physical Therapy & cared for many patients in rehab following severe burns. I really enjoyed it & decided that is what I would like to study. Pre-Physical Therapy was listed as my major when my mom & flew to Lubbock for orientation. This next part sounds so immature but I do believe that even in my quick decisions the Lord has brought me along a path he has used to make me more like himself. Cheryl's mom was an RN & one that truly enjoyed her profession. Cheryl had decided to follow in her mothers footsteps. This is the immature part....I had no idea that in order to receive a degree in PT I would have to complete a total of 6 years & obtain a masters degree. I immediately said "I don't want to go to school for 6 years!" Cheryl said "why don't you do pre-nursing?" I said "alright, sign me up!" And that's how it happened. A three second decision literally changed the course of my life in a way I am beyond thankful for.
Once we arrived in August, we were getting settled mostly in silence with a little chit chat until I slipped on a laminated poster & fell flat on my back in the middle of the room. We erupted in laughter & pretty much never stopped laughing through the rest of our time as roommates. Here we are on the first day of class as Red Raiders...
For a pre-nursing major, we took all the regular old classes along with two semesters of Anatomy & Physiology & a couple other science classes. We decided to knock out A&P freshman year & began what we thought was one of most challenging courses we had up to that point. I laugh thinking back to the (what felt like) millions of hours spent writing all of our vocabulary words on note cards. We quickly met the girls across the hall from us, Nikki & Jocelyn. Hilarious that I cannot locate any other picture than this one...and I have NO idea what we were dressed up for but we definitely look like babies & I'm pretty sure we did not have to hunt down a pair of overalls at a thrift store ; )
We all had A&P together & all prepared for tests different ways. I think Nikki studied the most, I was second, Cheryl was third & Jocelyn, I'm not sure she ever really studied ; ) Some pre-test nights Cheryl would decide to be out for the evening & would return to me frantic with hundreds of note cards spread over my bed. She would try to join me but then we would end up throwing them all over the room & saying we didn't even care anymore...more laughter followed. After the tests were complete we would sit in Nikki & Jocelyn's room & debate all the answers. Jocelyn seemed to always know the correct ones & was great at making her case for why they were right, haha that still makes me laugh. I seemed to always score the lowest but never that low. A&P I was actually the only C I had in all of school & it killed me because it was a 79.4. Anyway, who really cares now but that class was a great way to begin our friendships.
Our freshman year Cheryl & I were looking for a volunteer position in the community. We found the Lubbock Rape Crisis Center, completed our training & began our hours. We were responsible for a night a month taking calls at the center when all the staff had gone home along with being on call to meet a victim in the ER. We were usually the "first responders" in caring for the patient while they waited to be seen. We assisted the doctor in collecting evidence & were expected to testify in court if called as a witness which I did one time. I remember working with handicapped women, college students including a friend that called me directly & some children. It was heart breaking but provided one the first opportunities I had to work with women.
Nearly a year & a half flew by & we were applying to the nursing program that would start in summer 2003. This happened to be the spring that Rob & I started dating. My mind was a little wrapped up in love & opportunity & I was thinking I didn't want to go to school in the summers like nursing school required. I thought it would be more fun to join Rob working at a summer camp instead. Cheryl & I received letters the same day in the mail stating that we were not accepted at the current time due to potential budget cuts. They could only take 50 out of 350 & we were within 20 past the cut off. Cheryl was devastated (understandably so) & I felt free as a bird. I began checking out some other majors which I'm sure was making my parents crazy. Cheryl, Nikki & Jocelyn thought I had gone off the deep end. Within a month we received a second set of letters stating that they were able to accept 50 more into the program & we were officially nursing students! After a month of soul searching & having some friends talk some sense into me, I was thrilled. We started that summer & by fall we had our first clinical. My first day....the first time I had left home by 6 am....ever. That was the first time I thought "I don't know if this is for me."
I don't remember much from this day other than the first room we went into. It had that distinct nursing home smell, I was shadowing a nurse & must have locked my knees. You can guess what happened next. I made it to the wall just outside the room where I slowly slid down & closed my eyes. When I had come to I remember the nurse taking me to the break room where she gave me some juice & told me to find her when I felt better. That was the second time I thought " I don't know if this is for me." Haha!
The second year we learned to start IVs & who better to learn on than your classmates? Cheryl & I took some angiocaths home & went to town at the coffee table. I'm sure our three new roommates who were not nursing majors thought about kicking us out. I have more than a few pictures of our time that night but have decided not to include them due to the graphic nature ; ) I'm not sure we succeeded because there was a lot of blood. What a process it was to learn to do that well! At this point I think we would both start them in our sleep.
Starting in summer 2004, I landed a position as a Nurse Tech in the float pool at University Medical Center. I worked in every area in the entire hospital including Adult & Pediatric ICU, Burn ICU, NICU, Mother Baby & regular medical surgery floors. It definitely helped me figure out what I did not want to do. I also took an elective course in High Risk Obstetrics which started my interest in Labor & Delivery. I was flagged as a nurse tech requesting to be in L&D if they were short. On July 3, 2004 I saw my very first delivery. I was helping an incredible nurse that cared for a 15 year old young lady who was terrified along with her mother & a boyfriend that was even younger than her. This evening revealed three things to me. One, there can be extremely complicated situations leading up to & following the birth of a baby whether planned or unexpected & I wanted to be a part of helping these families through a life changing moment. Two, from the moment that I saw that baby boy be delivered & placed in the arms of his mother I knew that labor & delivery was the only place I wanted to be. Three, I no longer needed to wonder "I don't know if this is for me." In the mean time, I still got to learn about all sorts of things & in hindsight I see that labor & delivery patients show up with all sorts of medical problems so the continued education was helpful : )
One fun day our senior year we practiced a scenario where our "hospital" was flooded by trauma patients. We were assigned different roles & it looks like Nikki might have been a doctor, Cheryl & I were nurses & Jocelyn must have been involved in the "trauma." Thankfully she had a fake arm someone had to start an IV on.
I am not sure where we were this day but I love that I have kept up with all these girls over the years whether in person or via Facebook. The only clue is that 5 out of the 6 became L&D nurses. Melissa who is next to me, ended up moving to Orlando & we worked together there before I moved.
Before we knew it, graduation had arrived. All of our hard work rewarded with a cap & gown, some flowers & cheers from a crowd when they announced my name "Laureen Mechelle Valenteen." We were headed our separate ways but the memories over four years built deep friendships that would extend beyond our time out in West Texas.
Over Spring Break while I was still in school I traveled to Dallas to interview for a Labor & Delivery position at Parkland Hospital. It was a plan with no back up plan yet again. I LOVED it & accepted a position immediately. At that time Parkland was #2 in the nation for highest number of deliveries at 16,000 a year. I thought "what better place to get started?" Six of us from Tech & one from Seattle Pacific University started in a September residency that carried us through 16 weeks of classroom work & tests, working on the unit paired with a nurse followed by weeks of having a go to nurse if we needed assistance. It was an intense learning experience due to the vast number of deliveries, many doctors in residency & learning alongside us &but the biggest challenge was that 90% of our patients were Spanish speaking only!
I grabbed an intake form & had a Spanish speaking fellow employee write down the correct way to ask each questions with possible answers. Robby's parents still talk about how over dinner I would pretend Robby was a patient who I would "check in" to the unit & then talk him through how to push a baby out or prepare for a cesarean delivery. Practice made perfect (not really perfect but somewhat proficient) & soon enough I was talking the talk with all my sweet Spanish ladies. I loved the girls I worked with. Many of us were brand new nurses who valued the experienced ones that stuck it out through the insanity of working at Parkland. Here are some of those hard working women...
Catherine, on the right was my first orientee I had when I had been there one year. I tell you what, the motto there was "see one, do one, teach one!" There was supervision though & always someone at your side if you called out for help. Over the two years that Catherine & I worked together we served on a committee we loved & I connected her with a pregnancy center where I had volunteered. She began there soon after I left. In the middle is Beth, a friend from nursing school that I absolutely loved talking to while working.
There are SO many absurd situations I remember that had my heart racing & sometimes my legs racing as we ran with stretchers to the OR for emergency c-sections. It was great exposure to just about every pregnancy complication you can imagine & just the opportunity I desired to care for families in crisis. I wouldn't trade my time there for anything.
Back to the special friendships that were started there...Amanda in the turquoise jacket also worked with me in Orlando as a travel RN & I ended up being the matron of honor in her wedding in 2010. She is on the fast train (like us) to mothering & has had three babies in three years : )
One of the most memorable things I was a part of while working at Parkland was taking the reigns for the Labor & Delivery Bereavement Committee. This committee focused on preparing staff to provide care for the families experiencing the loss of a baby. On our unit we handled every loss from conception to term & it was ALOT. Catherine & I along with others knew that policy & procedure in & out. We loved presenting the information to fellow nurses & more so caring for these patients ourselves. We had a prayer translated to Spanish to better equip us to care for these families & were privileged to be a part of planning a yearly memorial service to honor the babies lost. There were families I had cared for that returned & hugged me as we muddled through our language barrier. We had lovely & meaningful services & released butterflies following our time of celebration.
After three exciting years, Robby & I made the move to Orlando & left dear friends behind like the one pictured below. Halie & I worked together all three years but became close friends in the last months I was working at Parkland. I am thankful for the way God deepened our friendship over the six years we spent apart that were seasoned with phone dates, texting & visits. I always love how quickly she gets into serious conversations & asks questions that really make me think about myself in light of who God is. She continued on in the nursing realm with becoming a Lactation Consultant. She was one of my biggest supporters while I was breastfeeding the twins & I can honestly say that I would have never made it past the 5 month mark without her. When I traveled to Texas for my interview last April, I was watching her son while she went to her first ultrasound. She joined me on the couch upon her return & showed me a picture of TWO babies! What a joy it has been to walk through this season of becoming mommies (to singletons & multiples) together while we were miles apart. So between the two of us we have seven little munchkins that can join us for our "dates" & we are thankful for each of them & the racket they make ; ) She along with many other friends threw a going away party before I left & reminded me how much I loved the people I worked with.
A few memories of Parkland
- Delivering a good 15 babies over my three year stay...most during July & August when residents would stand next to me staring at someone pushing without gloves on.
- The first shoulder dystocia which was my first day off orientation & happened to be the first shoulder dystocia for the first year resident as well....lots of firsts ; ) I still remember the terrified look we shared when she called it. I was so panicked I could barely hit the right number to call out for help. Thankfully help arrived & the baby was fine & I got to practice some suprapubic pressure (that's for you fellow L&D nurses)
- One Christmas Day that there was a C-Section called on L&D West at the same time one was called on L&D East. The East OR had not yet been cleaned so they were flying through the doors at the end of a hall on West just as we exited a room near the door...It was a near stretcher collision & slightly funny in the moment.
- Another Christmas Day where L&D West had NO patients. We celebrated with sparkling cider & playing Hangman on our beautiful empty board.
- In providing bereavement care I saw a baby at nearly every week of development & was amazed at how God "knits us together." I held many a baby while they died when the parents were not interested in doing so. I learned how to be comfortable just being quiet with someone in their grief. I cried with many families & rejoiced with many as they welcomed a healthy baby after a previous loss.
When I knew we were leaving Dallas I started clicking around online & talking to some new acquaintances in Orlando. One recommended that I check out Celebration Hospital which was right down the street from where we would be meeting for our church services. I looked into it to find that they did 250-300 deliveries a month. I was used to at least quadruple that & I wasn't ready to slow down yet so I crossed that off the list. The other hospital I came across was Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women & Babies. I had NO idea it existed & at the time was 3rd in the nation for number of deliveries coming in around 14,000 per year....much more my speed. A new hospital had been built just the year before & I was in awe when I interviewed. Only interview (no back up plan). It was beautiful & the staff seemed well equipped, professional & welcoming. I was offered a job on the spot & acceptedt.
I arrived in June & was paired with a RN to get the hang of things. I was new to computer charting & centralized fetal monitoring which were both great changes. Another major change was that all kinds of people spoke English...something I was definitely not used to! It is funny to say this but those English speaking people were a bit more needy ; ) I did get to put my Spanish to work with the population of Central & South American families but they would ask me "Where did you learn that Spanish? In Texas?" I guess I only knew some Tex-Mex but it got me by just fine! French Creole was new to me & I never learned a lick of it. It took me awhile to really enjoy working there since it was vastly different from Parkland, the place I knew & loved. After 4-5 months it began to feel more like home once I made some friends & got to know the medical staff. When October hit I had a little bitty bun in the oven & that greatly changed my outlook knowing that I would welcome the long awaited first baby in one of the rooms I delivered other babies in.
In the meantime, prior to showing a bump, my friend & fellow nurse Jessica was paired with me for one of her orientation days. It happened to be Halloween & we happened to show up like this....
We laughed as we discovered that the Reese's Peanut Butter package matched Wilma's hair perfectly & our patients enjoyed our antics. Once the belly started growing, my friends bellies did too! Nadine welcomed Dylan & Aubrey welcomed Fisher within a month or so of Charlotte's birth. It was so fun to have a fellow new mom with all the same concerns & questions to visit with once we were back at work not to mention a pumping buddy ; ) Aubrey ended up being the nurse for Jenny, my sister in law for Isaac & Olivia's birth. She was amazing.
I had asked my friend Rose if she would take care of me while I was in labor with Charlotte. She said yes & was the person who confirmed my suspicion that having a fabulous RN makes all the difference when welcoming a little one. She worked her tail off all day between me & a patient next door. I was 10cm at shift change & I am sure she thought I would deliver soon so she stayed. Little did she know, she wouldn't head home until close to midnight. Charlotte took her sweet time & wasn't born until three hours later. Any labor & delivery nurse knows that pushing with a patient for 3+ hours hurts almost as much as having a baby ; ) She offered incredible encouragement & tried every trick in the book to get that girlie out. She finally came & I'm pretty sure Rose was as excited as I was! I still look at this picture & think, Rose is the best nurse! She eventually went into management & was my boss before I left....she was great at that too. We were blessed with two other fabulous nurses, Anna & Amy while welcoming the rest of our brood.
Charlotte Grace- July 2009
Eloise Hope- May 2011
Owen Marshall & Anson Ellis- March 2013
Those moments are what made me love that hospital even more than I already did & made it painful to leave. I am positive that being pregnant & welcoming my own babies changed the way I care for my patients. There were six years in Orlando doing what I loved alongside others who felt the same way. My years there tested my skills & critical thinking since I did not have doctors at the bedside like I did previously. I continued to have a sweet spot for offering to take patients who had suffered the loss of their babies. My last shift I worked might have been one of the most painfully sad deliveries I had experienced up until that point. The charge RN said about an hour into the shift that she didn't realize it was my last night to work & she would have not assigned me that patient. She offered to switch my assignment but I said I would love to keep her. I am so glad I did because I left the next morning knowing that God fulfilled my desire to care for women in crisis once again even though I spent a good couple hours crying that morning. It was a great way to finish my time at Winnie.
Dallas began a whole new chapter in my nursing career at Texas Health Dallas L& D working full time nights....something I had never done. It was financially very helpful for our family at the time but challenging to balance with four little ones at home. Over the course of the past 5 & a half years with little Valentine's around we have had some of the kindest women caring for them while I work or recover from working making it slightly easier to be away or sleeping. All four were delighted when I would pull up in the big red truck! I was delighted for the snuggles that followed.
At Texas Health Dallas my years of experience were put to the test. It has been named "Best Place to Have a Baby" on more than one occasion & has a staff that exceeds expectations. There are nurses that have been working for 20 years longer than myself & new nurses receiving excellent training. The management team has created an environment where employees are greatly valued & in turn have nurses that love caring for patients there. I can't believe I only got to work in such an incredible place for six months but I am thankful for those I met, both staff & patients. Again, I feel like a better nurse after my short time there.
Considering my nine plus years in a role I loved, I am thankful. I'm thankful for teachers, fellow nurses, midwives, doctors & patients who have taught me countless things & helped me develop into an experienced nurse. I am thankful for family who has encouraged me on hard days, let me interview them in Spanish & listened to all my gory stories. I am thankful for getting to celebrate with couples excited to welcome a baby & the patients whose life situations God used to open my heart to just be with them & provide the listening ear or encouragement they needed. I am thankful that God used my quick decision making tactics to lead me to a career that he has used to shape my view of Him, of life, grief, motherhood & the gift of children.
Back to present day...The answer to "why" seems so simple. During the past few months of leave following my diagnosis, our family has thrived for the first time in a long time. Being home has provided much stability to the day in & day out routine, rest for me which is vital in taking care of myself to prevent seizures & sweet time with the ones I hold dear. Resigning at this time is to allow me to be more fully committed at home so I don't miss any of this....
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The tears that followed my official resignation were from the sadness of closing a chapter in my life & thankfulness that I am able to be home. I was still crying when I went in to check on the boys who needed to wake up from a really long nap. I scooped up Anson & sat down in the chair. He was so very sleepy that he cuddled on me for a good 10 minutes occasionally wrapping his finger in my hair or patting my back ever so gently. It was in that moment that I knew our decision was right. Someday I hope to return...like when there are college classes or weddings to pay for but for now, The Nest is my new full time place of work & there is no place I would rather be.
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