Baby K gave me quite a scare last night. Enough to keep me up until 4 AM, which means I am running on less than 4 hours of sleep today, but I feel okay.

It was the end of my shift last night when it crossed my mind that I hadn't felt any movement my entire shift. I ALWAYS feel it when I get home and finally sit down, so I figured I'd just pay more attention then. I came home and ate some sugary stuff (brownie and milk) and nothing. Not even a TINY bit. So I laid on my side. Nothing. I am only 21 weeks, but I always always always feel movement when I am still. It was making me SO nervous. I stole one of Ethan's juice boxes, drank that, and kind of poked around at his/her favorite kicking spot and finally! S/he's been kicking ever since! Don't DO that to me!

Work last night was blissful, and I am not being sarcastic. It has seriously been so chaotic and busy, we've had nurses in tears. It was making me despise my job, and on days I had to work, I'd be in the worst mood. Last night, however, we had EXTRA staff and my group was awesome. I had a night last week where at the end of my shift it occurred to me that I didn't know anything about my patients other than their diagnosis and medications. I didn't get to spend any time with them because I was just too busy. That's when you get the family member who asks you a question and you have no idea and they think you are an idiot, when actually you are just so swamped with stuff to do and you have to prioritize and their questions get bumped to the back of your mind.

I only had 5 patients last night. One of them was an elderly guy who was so adorable, I couldn't get enough of him. He was pleasantly confused and just made me so happy to be around him. He "helped" me out by dumping out a big cup of water, a big cup of pop, and his potassium drink. He told me it needed to "go in the sewer". Instead he dumped it in his lap and on the floor. He was so happy to be "helping" me. Then later he INSISTED on calling his family. When I have a confused patient who wants to call family at 10 o'clock at night, I usually try to distract them so they won't. He insisted. He gets on the phone with his son and says "do you see the STORM? It's awful out there! It's pitch black and I can't even see out my window!" ...remember it's 10 o'clock at night? CUTE!

I had a hospice patient that had no family with her. I spent a TON of time with her. She was so thin and bony and had a ton of wounds. I decided I'd get to work and change all of her dressings. Wounds are not my thing. Not even a little bit. I am good at removing myself from what I am doing, though, and just doing it. Her heels were a mess. It was so bad, the skin was completely black and dead. Doing dressing changes on wounds like that are pointless, but necessary. I knew she had some on her lower back but when I took the dressing off, I was TOTALLY unprepared for what I saw. She had a bed sore on her back that was so huge, I could have put my entire hand IN it. It was gruesome. It took two nurses to fix it up. We got her all clean. Clean wounds, clean dressings, and clean bedding. She looked so much more comfortable after that. Once I was done, I soaked a mouth sponge in water and gave it to her. She really liked that. I hope she is comfortable today.

All in all, it was a good night and it made me remember why I wanted to be a nurse in the first place. I just wish nights like last night weren't so few and far between.

Gotta go get Ethan and then we're running some errands. He'll be absolutely thrilled.

Belly pictures to come later. I took some today. We have definitely decided on our names and we are both happy. A girl will be Allison Jaye and a boy will be Evan Jack. We have a thing for vowels apparently. It wasn't intentional.

(Jackie! E-mail me your work schedule... I wanna do lunch with you!)