You Put Your Hands WHERE?

I am a student. I have been accepted to medical school. While not frequently mentioned, these are the facts.

But I am also a nurse -- that was my original degree, and one that I still use. My background? Labor and Delivery. There is a bit of the rest of OB thrown in - NICU, Nursery, Mother/Baby, but Labor and Delivery is the thing I know best - the part of me that I can't forget...even when there are some days that I want to.

Although I am a nurse, I rarely talk about work, although I am really not sure why -- the stories that I have reach to the sky and back, both good and bad. And I won't lie - labor and delivery can be a highly entertaining place to be. It is stressful and tiring, happy and sad, and every other emotion under the sun, all packaged up to fit in a newborn sized diaper.


I see patients of all different ages, sizes, races, backgrounds. Last night I had a patient who was having her first boy -- she had daughters, although her daughters were grown. Admission, labor, epidural, yada yada yada, delivery. And then there was the look on her face -- the same rush of love an emotion that I see on every face, every time. But this one was different too. Because she had grown children already, she watched that little new person change from as new as it gets to all grown up in about three seconds. There is almost no way to describe that look, but I can promise you this -- when you see it, you will know it. And when you see it, it will be stunning.


Those diapers that look so teeny tiny? They hold more in them than you would ever guess -- an entire lifetime of hopes and dreams and wishes can fit into those little diapers.