Clinical

I was supposed to have a clinical day in the Pediatric OR today, but there were no kids scheduled for surgery. I was a little disappointed, but my instructor had me come to the postpartum ward to see if there were any moms and babes there.

There was one mom with her beautiful baby girl. Honestly, this little girl had so much hair you could have put it in a ponytail! It was unreal! Sadly (for me), they were discharged at 8:00am so I did not get to spend too much time with them. I just did a quick assessment of the mom and the babe and then they were off.

I sat around for the next few hours reading whatever articles were around the ward. The girl I carpool with was in labor and deliver so I went over there and read up on some things there as well. I picked the nurse's brains for a while and helped out around the ward. There was only one woman in labor, but a few came in for non-stress tests so that was kind of fun. The test itself was boring, but I love talking to women about their pregnancies, expectations, past labors etc. In my limited experience most of them are quite eager to chat. Oh, I also saw some pelvic exams. Now that looks VERY uncomfortable. Thankfully I couldn't do much to participate in those.

The laboring woman was pretty close to pushing so our instructor stayed overtime with us. We were supposed to be off the ward at 1:00 today, but we stayed until 3:00. There were already 12 people in the delivery room (mama, papa, 4 support people, 3 nurses, doctor, resident, nursing student) so I hung out with my instructor at the nurses station during most of the active labor. After the first couple pushes one of the nurses came out and told me to come into the room. So, I did... and it was AMAZING!

Birth astounds me. The mother did such a fabulous job!! I felt sorry for her because throughout her labor she wanted everyone to be quiet so she could focus, but she had her four support people yelling at her while she was trying to push. The first couple pushes were pretty ineffective, but everyone eventually they calmed down and she just listened to the nurse and the doctor as they told her what she needed to do. It felt so surreal to stand there and watch one of the most intimate experiences someone can have. I felt like I didn't belong there, but the dad gave me permission (mom was kind of busy) so I stayed. Wow. It was incredible. I don't even know what to say about it right now. It was amazing to see that little head slowly emerge and then slip back a couple time and then all of the sudden the baby was crowning. Mom pushed one more time in that same contraction and out popped the baby's head. It literally popped out. I was surprised by how quickly the rest of her was delivered - the little girl honestly seemed to fall out with the next contraction. She immediately let out this robust wail and mama had a sigh of relief. It was beautiful.

Just beautiful.

Jumbled Thoughts

I am fascinated by labour and birth. Fascinated.

I spent the day with a midwife today. We mainly did initial visits with Mom's who were ~14 weeks pregnant so it wasn't too exciting, but I loved picking the midwife's brain in between visits. She was awesome. So knowledgeable and so excited to share the information she knew. I forgot most of the questions I wanted to ask her (should have written them down!! Doh!), but I came up with some in our visits.

I noticed that a lot of mothers asked no questions. I don't know if this was because they were early on in their pregnancy, but I am the type of person who loves knowing EVERYTHING. Especially if it was happening to my own body. I cannot wait! Well, I can definitely can wait, but I am pretty excited for when/if we do get to experience childbirth etc for ourselves.

I have seriously been considering pursuing midwifery down the road in my career. At first I thought it was because I love babies, but the truth is, I am more excited to spend time with mothers. I want to teach them, learn from them, and make their birth experience the best thing possible. If I don't become a midwife then I want to become a second attendant (accompany the midwife) or a doula.

The midwife and I were talking about supporting women. I went to a labour support workshop last week and I found the teacher lady to be very adamant that natural home birth was the ONLY way to have a wonderful birth experience. I was quite uncomfortable with this approach. I've thought about the possibility of a home birth (as much as you can consider something that is a few years away) and I think it is wonderful to educate women and to provide that option for them. I do not think, however, that this is the only way to have a positive experience. In fact, I think a home birth would be the exact opposite for some people. As a nurse/labour support person/midwife or whatever I become, I want to support women where they are at. I want to provide them with the options, but make them feel confident in what they choose. A woman needs to be comfortable and to feel safe in order to have a positive experience and if she does not feel safe at home, then that isn't where she should be.

These are just some things I've been thinking about. I didn't think this would come out so incoherently, but I have to be in Penticton at 6:30am tomorrow so I am going to bed. Goodnight.

Best Practice Assignment

Health care professionals are charged with providing clinically effective care, or "best practice", for all patients and clients. In order to do this the policies, procedures, and guidelines used to direct nursing practice need to be evidence based. This means that nursing practice needs to de-emphasize ritualistic and ungrounded traditions and instead emphasize the use of research findings, quality improvement data, and the consensus of recognized experts in order to provide the best care possible.

For one of my classes we are asked to explore in further detail an aspect of "best practice" in maternal health nursing that interests us. I thought I would throw it out to you mothers to see if there is anything that you thought about in your own experience that you would maybe like more information on. Some examples given in class were formula vs. breastfeeding and continuous fetal monitoring during labor vs. intermittent monitoring.

My group has been throwing around ideas, but it would be wonderful to do it about something that actually matters to mothers. If there is anything you have been wondering about I would love to hear about it and maybe we could work it into a "best practice" research project. Or even if you know of something that you have researched and found interesting, I'd love to hear about that too.

We even get (have) to present our papers to our classmates at the end of the semester.... can't wait!

Pediatrics.

I had my first of two days on the pediatric unit at Penticton Regional Hospital today. I had only two patients today.

Both were over 85.

There were NO kids on the unit. Zip. Zero. Zilch.

I was very disappointed. I'd been looking forward to playing with toddlers and holding babies. One baby was admitted 30 minutes before I left. He was 3 weeks old and weighed 4 pounds. He was beautiful and I got to snuggle with him for those precious 30 minutes. It was wonderful.

Sprouted Brown Rice

I am trying to sprout rice. For those of you who don't know, sprouted brown rice is rice that is allowed to germinate before cooking.

The following is pulled from this blog:

Sprouted brown rice, known as hatsuga genmai in Japanese, is brown rice that is allowed to germinate by soaking the rice before cooking.

The process of germination enhances the bio-availability of nutrients by neutralizing phytic acid, the enzyme inhibitor in all grains, seeds and beans, that bind nutrients within the grain until the conditions are right for the grain to sprout. Consumption of unsprouted grains can lead to poor absorption of the nutrients in the grain. The incompletely digested proteins can irritate the intestines, leading to inflammation and allergic reactions. Neutralizing the phytic acid, releases the protein, vitamins and enzymes, allowing these important nutrients to be absorbed during digestion.

Traditionally, grains have almost always been soaked, sprouted or fermented before eaten. In Europe, bread was carefully cultured and fermented over a long period of time before being baked. In Africa, the staple grain millet has traditionally been soaked and fermented before being cooked into a porridge. In Scotland and Ireland, whole oats were always soaked overnight before cooking into a breakfast porridge, although we have lost that tradition in modern times with our instant oatmeal. In Asia, brown rice and millet traditionally were rinsed, then soaked overnight before cooking. Even today, the typical Japanese housewife knows to soak her rice before cooking.

There has recently been renewed interest in sprouted rice thanks to a number of recent scientific studies done on gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), a naturally occurring amino acid created during the germination process. The consumption of GABA is credited with important health benefits that range from lowering cholesterol and blood pressure, boosting the immune system, improving sleep, and inhibition of cancer cells.

So it makes good sense to soak and sprout your rice. Both from the perspective of tradition and science.

And so, I am sprouting my rice. I'm trying to at least. I don't know if it will work, but I'm hoping it does. The website above has the directions for how it's done if you are interested. I am over 24 hours in so something should happen soon. I'll keep you posted.

Proposition

I just started my semester in maternity/pediatrics. I was wondering if any of you mothers (new or experienced) would be open to responding to questions I may have as the course unfolds. I'm interested in everything from cesarean to home births, caring for your newborn, adjusting to life postpartum, etc. I always find it helpful to ask people who have first hand experience as text-books only convey so much. I also find that labor and delivery is medicalized more than it needs to be in some cases. I am greatly interested in the personal experience as it varies so much from mother to mother as well as from one delivery to the next.
So leave a little note if you don't mind me asking you and then I will send an email with questions as they arise.

Now I Can Sleep.

I just killed a big spider in my bedroom.
When I say "big"... I mean BIG.
It was bigger than a toonie.
Easily bigger.
I hate spiders.
I always make Erik kill them.
He would rather free them.
Not me.
I like them dead.
They just come running back inside once "freed".
Erik's not home so I killed the spider.
I was shaking the whole time.
I had to throw the book three times to actually hit the thing.
I'm embarrassed.
A. I had to throw a book.
B. I missed three times.

Now I can sleep.

Canning

Erik and I canned tomato sauce this weekend - it made me think of my family. Canning was always a family affair for the Jansens. Mom would line us up and give us each a job and away we would go. We had quite a sophisticated system going on - we worked like a well-oiled machine. As much as I hated it at the time, I now have very fond memories of those days in my parent's backyard.

Our friends were out of town and were gracious enough to let us use their suite. Canning was not as romantic as my memories of it are, but we set up our own assembly line and made many phone calls to Mom. Our friends have a juicer/pulpifier that we used to make all of our vegetables into a pulp. Super handy to have around. I'm a bit nervous as the recipe I used called for cinnamon. The whole pot smelled strongly of cinnamon which threw me off a bit - we'll have to wait and see how it tastes. I think I'll give it a while to stew before I crack one of these open. And I sadly put all the sauce away before I took a picture so here they are lined up in our closet. We got a dozen quart jars of sauce and three of juice. Not bad for 30lbs of romas. I wasn't planning on doing tomatoes until later in the season, but I was at a farm and asked about "seconds". They gave me the 30 lbs for $12.00. Not bad.

Knit Happens

I have been working a lot of night shifts lately and have, therefore, had plenty of time to knit. My patient slept through the night on 3 of those nights (hallelujah!) so those provided some prime-time knitting. I was worried about knitting in the hospital, especially baby items, but I talked to a nurse who knits and she said that she dry-cleans everything when it's done. While at work, she grabs some clean linen and knits with it on her lap so the knitting has a clean surface and she obviously washes her hands frequently. This was comforting.
I've been keeping my projects simple. Things most knitters could do with their eyes closed, but it is helping me learn to keep my tension even etc. etc. All good practice. I thought I'd share some of the things I've been working on.

On the Needles.

1. This right here is going to be a baby blanket. I hope. It's the most complicated thing I have done. The first thing I made after dish clothes. It's only complicated because I knit the blanket and then I had to pick up the stitches all the way around it and knit on the border. It is almost finished! Almost. I really have no idea how it will look. I don't even know if it will be square. I don't even know if all the sides will have the same number of stitches because I had no idea what "pick up stitches" meant. Everything looked the same to me so I made that part up. I also didn't know how to increase stitches, so I made that up too. I also "learned" how to add another ball of yarn when I ran out of the previous one. I watched a confusing online video and then, you guessed it, made that up too. I think it will look ok though... maybe I'm just hopeful. Anyway, here it is.
2. This is a scarf that I have been working on. It's made out of beautiful yarn that I got on sale!!! I love getting things on sale. You can hardly see it, but the yarn weaves in orange, pruple, red, green, yellow, and different tones of blue. It is just lovely.
3. Another baby blanket that I just started. I couldn't get the picture to turn sideways. I am practicing a different stitch. This is called the moss stitch. It is a knit, purl, knit, purl pattern. That may mean nothing to you, but to me it means that I have to switch the yarn from the front of my needle to the back of my needle on one stitch and then back to the front of my needle on the next stitch. Repeat. Repeat 110 times for each row. Very time consuming, but pretty and I'm told it doesn't stretch out as much.
4. And of course, dish clothes. They are a nice little project that only takes a couple hours and can be done while watching TV. Perfect.

Future Project.

• I have the perfect little project for this yarn here. You will..... well you might have to wait until next summer as school is starting soon... but I will keep you updated.