A glimmer of the new me...

Oh man, was it an interesting weekend.

-- I had a drunk (but non-belligerent) 21-yr-old Loyola student practically follow me home late Friday night because the trains all had alternate routes, and he wasn’t sure how to get back home. I decided he didn’t have any reason to try to hurt me, so I let him follow me to the train. The poor thing was kinda helpless.

-- I got hit on by an African immigrant who asked if I was Polish while out wandering the neighborhood on Saturday, and we chatted for a while. Fine, he was nice & respectful, no big deal. But he wanted to date while he went to med school in Poland. (Long distance was obviously not a problem for him.) Even if that hadn’t been an issue, he thought that “I seem so intelligent, why would you want to be a nurse? I just don’t want to have to take orders all the time, so I will be a physician.” And then, “But when will you start your family? They tell us in school that we will have less and less time for our family as time goes on, we are told we should start one now.” I’m not popping out any babies for you right now, sir. And if you’re going to be the type of physician that takes on so many patients that you can’t find time to actually help them all (let alone finding time for your personal life), you are exactly the kind of doctor that made me want to enter the medical profession as a nurse. Thank you very much, no I will not meet you at the Borders down the street tomorrow, no I will not give you my phone number, have a nice day.


But the best part of the weekend? I was a doula!!! (Yes, multiple explanation points are required. I am that excited.)

I will spare you all the gruesome/emotional details, as I'm sure a summary will be just fine for most of you.

It happened so fast. I heard about the mother-to-be on Thursday afternoon, emailed her, Friday morning I got an email back, called her that afternoon to hear that she was in labor, then headed out to Geneva (WAAAY out in the west burbs) in time for the birth. I had never met her before then, so it was a weird way of bonding with someone to say the least. It was a pretty easy birth (though she didn’t think so), so it was a great first experience for me. It was so fantastic. And I even got to teach the mother to breastfeed (although, as my mother corrected me, I taught myself how to teach someone to breastfeed, seeing as I have neither taught someone to breastfeed nor have I breastfed a child myself). And the mother sent me an email:


Kate,
Thank you so much for being there for me when I was delivering! You were so calm and supportive. You really were extremely helpful to me and I am so happy that you were there. I will email the pic of us soon. If you're comfortable with it, please send me your snail mail address so I can send you an official birth announcement. I still can't believe that I actually gave birth, it was so much hard work it was difficult to maintain a positive attitude during it but you helped so much. You will be a wonderful midwife! My daughter and I thank you immensely!
Thank you SO MUCH!


I feel very warm & fuzzy. :) [sigh]

And for the next few weekends I get to sit in on a childbirth class and rub elbows with a few mothers due in the fall… hopefully I’ll be able to get even more experience! I’m so excited. I’m on my way!


Dream big, everyone.