Working

I graduated from nursing school in June of 2000.  I still remember receiving my RN license in the mail.  I remember bounding across the street from the mailbox back inside the duplex that Shad and I lived in.  I grabbed my landline phone, called Shad first and then called my boss at the hospital.  I had been working at the hospital for 3 years: 2 years as a CNA/unit clerk and the last year as an LPN, working in the float pool.  (I pretty much worked anywhere in the hospital, except the really specialized areas like the emergency room, surgery, and labor and delivery.)  Next, I jumped in my little red sports car and sped over to tell my parents.  I still remember that they were in the front yard of the house I grew up in doing yard work.  They were both very proud of me and very sweaty as they hugged me.

Coolest car I ever owned

I began training in the float pool as an RN immediately.  The nice thing about graduating when I did is that I didn’t have to apply for my new nursing position.  My boss knew I was in school and simply moved me up to the new position.  I know not a lot of new college graduates can’t say that anymore.  I floated around the hospital for four years.  I never knew what unit I was going to work on until I got to work and sometimes I would float to a different unit half way through my shift.  I loved it!

At the very end of my pregnancy with Josh, my boss asked me if I would be willing to train in the endoscopy department and help them recover patients from sedation after their procedures.  I loved doing new things, so I said yes.  (In case you are wondering, this is the department where folks go for doctors to look in their colon, esophagus, stomach and lungs and to have stones removed from their bile ducts, to name a few.)  After Josh was born, when I came back to work, I stayed in endoscopy.  I’ve seen a lot of colons in my day and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  Oh the stories I can tell…

This month it has been 7 years since I worked as a nurse.  It has been 3 1/2 years since my nursing license expired.  When I left my job at the hospital, after working there for 11 years, it was supposed to be temporary.  We moved to the other side of the state for a year and a half so Shad could do a bridge job over there.  We volunteered to go, thinking it would be a great adventure.  It really was an adventure, but not at all what we expected.

Our plan was that I would go back to my job in endoscopy when we returned back home, towards the end of 2009.  While it was a difficult adjustment to be home full time with 2 kids, now ages almost 5 and 3, by the time we moved back home, I was kind of enjoying it. 

After getting settled back into our house, I immediately began working towards going back to the hospital by updating some certifications.  I kept thinking I would get back to work, but I kept finding that it wasn’t time yet.  Josh had started pre-kindergarten and I was driving him back and forth to school 3 days a week.  Shad and I talked and talked about me going back to work and we kept coming to the same conclusion: it didn’t seem to make sense for me to go back to work.

While I agreed that me going back to work didn’t make sense for us, I also felt very disappointed and a little lost.  I graduated from high school with the plan that I would be a nurse.  I went straight to college taking the necessary classes to get me into the nursing program.  I never stopped to think that I would do anything else.  Part of my identity was that I was a nurse.

Yesterday I was watching a movie with a friend about a stay at home mom that was feeling frazzled.  She was telling her husband that she was living her dream, but it didn’t feel like it.  My friend asked me if I ever regretted that I stopped nursing to be home with the kids.  I was able to tell her no.  It was a hard transition, but I wouldn’t change a thing.  Being a nurse for 8 years is definitely a part of me and I will always think like a nurse and enjoy telling gross stories (sorry kids and Shad!).  I have so many fond memories of folks I worked with and some of my best friends date all the way back to nursing school.  I also cherish memories of certain patients that I took care of, patients that I will never forget.  I am so blessed that I got to do that job as long as I did.

15 years later, still BFF’s

But, I know that being home is where I belong right now.  God has used my time at home to make me a better wife to Shad and a better mom to the kids.  Please know that I am not saying that if a mom works outside the home she is not as good a wife or mom as a mom that does not work outside the home.  Not at all!  What I am saying is that, for me and my family, it has been crucial.  I have grown and matured as a woman, as a wife to Shad and as a mom to Josh, Hannah and Bethany.  And because I have matured at home, it spills over into the rest of the relationships in my life.  I would also like to say that if I didn’t lean of God over the last 7 years, I would not be the wife, mom or woman that I am now.  On my own, I am no good at any of those things, but with God’s wisdom, leading and TONS of grace, I am pretty OK.

People ask me all the time if I think I will go back to work as a nurse some day.  Honestly, I have no idea.  If I feel like God is calling me back to nursing some day, I would do it.  When we got home from Haiti in January, I did apply for and interview for a job with Heartline Foundation.  It was a clerical job that I could do from home for 8-16 hours per week.  I had to update my resume that I hadn’t looked at for at least 10 years.  I did not get that position and I was a little relieved.  I haven’t been on someone else’s schedule for 7 years!  That’s not to say that I am not doing work outside of the home.  I am currently on the board for Called to Love Ministries and I just joined the advisory board of Heartline Foundation.  It is an honor to serve on both boards!

My life looks and feels so differently than it did 7 years ago and I love it!  I am so thankful that God has me right where I am.