Warning: Longer than I thought!
TxMom-
Congrats!
I'm not an L&D nurse, but I remember my clinicals well, as L&D had been my main interest originally. I had the same fears about how I would handle such a medical environment. I was at a large, academic research hospital. Luckily, my instructor was a CNM (and sorta crunchy to boot!)
This is what I did: After my first clinical, I spoke to my instructor in private and said, simply, that I could not assist with any circs. I didn't make a big deal about it, and I didn't "ask"- I just said I would not do it and I had already cleared it with the director (which I had cleared before I started nursing school). This would include bringing the child to the circ, or doing post-circ care, etc. She was ok with that.
We talked more (over the next several clinicals), and she soon admitted to me that she really didn't like working in the hospital, but she just couldn't handle being a CNM anymore in this state. The hours, practice restrictions, insurance, etc, got to be too much. She was big into natural childbirth, BF, etc. She warned me and gave me a good bit of advice:
"You are going to see things here that will bother you. Learn all you can. Remember,
you need to finish nursing school. Don't go against your prinicples, but don't make a federal case out of something you can't control. You'll be miserable and people will just come to me to complain. Or, God forbid, they'll complain straight to the director. But, you will find many ways to practice what you believe without getting yourself in any boiling water at school. Seize those oppurtunities. Then change the world after you graduate!"
She was right. There were things that bothered me. Some docs putting moms on pitocin so, "I don't want to leave her for the next doc." Some nurses wanting every mom to be on monitoring. Laboring on the back. No food/drinks for mom. Insterting NG's on premies "just in case Mom can't nurse him enough."
But, she was right about the good times. My favorite clincal day ever ever ever
was a new mom who was having a little trouble breastfeeding. My clinical instructor gave me her on purpose because she was afraid the primary RN would have given the baby a bottle. I was able to spend almost 6 hours helping her, without being bothered, and she did great.
I once had a young (16YO) laboring mom who had no support people- foster child with a big history of sex abuse. I was able to be assigned to her and help her labor- we walked and talked, tried lots of different positions, and she was able to have someone with her who didn't have any other patients or responsibilities. Thank goodness!
I hope this makes sense. I did really enjoy L&D, but ending up choosing ICU instead. I don't know if I could ever do hospital L&D. It was hard.
Good luck and let me know if you have any other ?'s!
