Bad Days

Generally, the response I receive when I reveal my job to new people is one of 3 things:

1."Ooooh babies!"

2."Oh my _____  just had a baby"

                    3."Wow, what a happy place to work."

I'd say about 90% of the time, #3 is correct. And then there's that other 10% that nobody ever talks about. The cases that went bad. The baby that went bad. The baby that passed away. Very few people understand that while we have some great highs in Labor & Delivery, we also have some really really low times as well, lower  (in my opinion) than other departments. 

Saturday was one of those low days. It seems like we have waves of fetal demise or IUFD patients. Some months we'll have zero, and then, like this past week, we'll have 6 deaths in 2 days. I was witness to 2 fetal deaths on Saturday, one of which was  22 weeks, born alive, but too immature to perform any life-prolonging measures. This sweet little girl, barely bigger than my hand, lived for about an hour and died in her daddy's arms. Who had to tell the family that the baby's heart stopped beating? 

Me.

Our second death was of a patient who did not speak english and was under the assumption that her baby was perfectly healthy.  She had come to the hospital having contractions, and a heartbeat was never found. She was 39 weeks and 5 days pregnant. I was there for that delivery as well, and this patient's sobs, her guttural wailing, her cries to God I can still hear in my head. 

Postmortem care? Me again. 

What a difficult day. After long hours and little relief and little recognition, the entire unit is in a very low place right now. I love the girls I work with and it's what gets me up in the morning. We work so very hard for our patients and there seems to be little changing to ease the burden we're all carrying. So yesterday afternoon, in a "secret/anonymous" meeting with our hospital directors, we all cried out together. An hour and a half of venting and crying, cursing and screaming and I think they got the picture of what was really going on. The problems that aren't going further than our immediate supervisors and managers, and the underhanded things they've been doing to keep the unit looking perfect.  Our directors cried with us and gained a lot of respect from the nurses in attendance. I will be more hopeful when changes start occuring. I don't know one person that I work with who is not worked to the bone and ready to throw in the towel. We all expected things to be crazy and chaotic in the beginning, but now we've been open and operating for over 3 months and had well over 1,000 babies. Things should no longer be crazy and chaotic.  

And my mouth hurts.  And my eyes still itch. 

I just had to throw those last 2 in for good measure. As if I werent already feeling bad enough for myself! 

On a positive... We leave in 3 days for sunny California.

Current song stuck in my head: I kissed a girl by Katy Perry

The countdown has begun

10 Days Left!!!

Current song stuck in my head: Feels Like Home by Chantal Kreviazuk

7th Inning Stretch

Rangers Ballpark

Gooooooooo Braves!!!!

Braves Win 5-2!!!

The Boys (minus Greg... or Shannon)

We had so much fun on Jordan's birthday! Of course, it always helps when the hometown boys win the game :) It was my first Rangers game, and it was great (and hot! 100+ degrees! Yikes!!!). We loved getting to love on our friends- some newer than others, but still wonderful! And what tops the evening off better than a cookie cake, ice cream and lots of Wii playing?!! We had a few friends over after the game for a while to continue our celebrating. I think we were the only Braves fans in the group, but our Rangers friends were pretty good losers :) But then again, who's going to argue with the birthday boy???

Birthdays for Jordan are always more fun than my own birthday- and more meaningful too. He makes a big deal about his birthdays, but instead of chiding him for acting childish, it humbles me. Nobody expected him to live past 15, much less 25. So every birthday is a celebration- for real!

Current song stuck in my head: the What Not to Wear theme music (it's on now)

It's Official!!!

Yay!!!!!!!!!!

Countdown to sunny, beautiful, fun, exciting, beachy San Diego California: 18 days!

We successfully booked our flights, hotel, and rental car on Monday afternoon- it was so wonderful! We did end up spending a little extra money here and there, but we both agreed that we really wanted this vacation! We were fortunate enough to catch the flights we'd be responsible for On Sale! They were over $100 cheaper than what we'd seen just the night before! Praise God! And THEN (as if spending $200 less wasnt good enough...) our hotel was on sale too!!! What a blessing! Isnt it funny how God even works out the small things? I mean, a vacation is a pleasure, something entirely unnecessary, but Jordan and I both are just too excited and thankful for these little breaks!

We're staying at a little hotel in La Jolla (la hoy-a!), bigger than a B&B, but with the same feel. It only has 20-something rooms, and they bring you breakfast to your room, and it's only a block from the beach! We're counting down the days to July 6!!! 18 to go!!!

I finished another book, Baby Proof, by Emily Giffin. I have mixed emotions about it- I was disappointed with the way the story line played out, but I couldn't put it down! And there were no babies- only a lot of people obsessing over babies! I have a book on the way, but after I'm finished with it, I'll need a new book to read.... any suggestions???

Current song on my mind: All at Sea by Jamie Cullum 

Grrr....

Ok, I'm Bummed.

So, I know I said something a few posts ago about our anniversary trip to San Diego this summer. And how we're both really bad about waiting until the last minute to book/plan things. Well, now we've really done ourselves in. We are lucky enough to have 2 free round trip tickets with Southwest due to lots of frequent flier miles. So these 2 tickets are supposed to have no black out dates, etc. but apparently they do, because while we were counting on these to get us to San Diego and back, now we've found that our days are blacked out. What's more, is that we cannot upgrade all 4 one-way regular tickets to 2 one-way premium tickets for some reason or another, which makes no sense at all, because you can change 2 regular round trips for one premium round trip. Stupid. Isn't that like the same thing??? If we could do that, at least they would pay for one leg of the trip, but that's not possible. Plus, I cant donate my rewards tickets to Jordan's account and he can't donate to my account, which is frustrating and stupid. And of course, airplane ticket prices are through the roof now because we waited too long. All surrounding airports are blacked out too. If we change the dates, we may could get the free flights we wanted, but then we'd be paying 3-400 dollars per night for a hotel room, because we'd be staying over July 4. 

And of course, I've already got my work schedule through September and I haven't asked off for any time to go away somewhere (except for the week we were planning to go to SD!) Jordan's talking about trying to go in August, which would mean I would have to switch a few days around and work on both sides of our vacation, which I hate. I always try to schedule myself a day off on both sides of a vacation, because there's always so much to do before we leave, and I'm always really tired when we get back. And of course, jet lag may factor into things, going to California, where there another 2 hours behind us. It'll take us like 2 hours to get there and then like 7 to get back, because of time changes- isnt that funny???

Anyway. I'm just so bummed now. I dont want to have to pay an arm & a leg to go on vacation this year, because we're talking about buying a new car soon and Jordan's almost done with school so we want to start seriously saving for our house and then of course, there's always school to pay for. I thought we had found a way to at least get a big chunk of our vacation paid for, but apparently not! I dont want to have to cut things out of our trip that we wanted to do because it's going to cost us too much to fly. Like, we want to go to the Zoo, and one day we want to drive up to DisneyLand for the day and then of course, we want to go shopping and eat out every day. Haha- now it's like, we can window shop and lay on the beach... those are free! We'll find a hotel with free breakfast and hoard it in our room for lunch and dinner too. Ok, so that's a little melodramatic.

My sweet husband knows how much I want to go and is insistent that we will be going to San Diego sometime this summer to celebrate our 2 great years of marriage. :)

I had this dream last night that I got my hair done and it was mostly this chunky blonde color with a giant braid in the front (a la Lauren Conrad). It didnt look good, and I was glad to wake up and have my dark hair back. :) 

Current song stuck in my head: Fall for You by Secondhand Serenade

New Cards

Happy Father's Day card! 

It's always hard making cards for guys. 

Happy Birthday to Jennifer!!

It's a girl!

I've been really bad lately about taking pictures of the things I make and send out. I went on a crazy card-making binge a few days ago and these are the only pics I got out of like 18 new cards. Crazy right? I'm starting to run low on cardstock, but my fav store for getting great cardstock in any size, shape, or color is in Houston!! I don't plan on going there anytime soon, so I may just have to find some replacements around here. I really really really need to start scrapping things soon- I have 2 empty books and 12 months worth of pictures to do! It seems like all I've done lately is make cards and books for other people, which is fun, but I havent made anything for myself! :)

I hope these cards make it to their destination before someone sees theirs prematurely!! :) 

Current song stuck in my head: Love in this Club by Usher (which, I hate.)

Nothing much seems to be going on as of late. Usually, after a long trip, it takes us a little while to get back into real life, which is only because it's relatively painful to go from having no responsibility to working 40 hours a week again. The housework piles up until finally one day I just go crazy cleaning (that was today, btw.).  I'm now counting down the days until our trip to San Diego! Ok, so we haven't booked a flight or a hotel yet, which is probably not a good sign, but hopefully this year we'll actually end up somewhere nice for our anniversary. We both seem to be last-minute travel planners, which broke us last year when we didn't go anywhere for our anniversary. Now there's no rule that you have to vacation for an anniversary, but we talked about going to San Antonio for months and months and months leading up to, and never actually followed through with anything. Having been to San Antonio this spring, I think it may have been a blessing in disguise. San Antonio in July??? We may have stayed in our air-conditioned hotel room the entire time. Ha! One thing I've learned- Texas doesnt play around with the heat. The thermometer on my dash this afternoon read 103. That's friggin hot.

Jordan's birthday is less than a week away! We're going to a baseball game; Braves (woo!!!) vs. Rangers (boo!!!). I'm certain we'll be the only 2 in our group decked out in Braves apparel. Maybe if we make a big audacious sign and act like fools we'll get on TV. :)

Current song stuck in my head: Bleeding Love by Leona Lewis (when I'm alone in the car, I like to see if I can hit those incredibly high notes. when I'm alone.)

Pictures

The wedding party

Dad & Diane

 

  

Wade, Holly, Jordan & I 

@ The Pizza Joint.

Dinner with Grandmama & Papa Ed @ Bonefish

Spending the evening with our dear friends 

Megan & Jordan

Sitting around the table with the family & some delicious Cherry Yum-Yum

So we did a lot and saw a lot while in Georgia. I just treasure the time we get to spend with our friends and family, seeing as we don't get to see them very often. We spent an evening with Holly at Zaxbys, which isn't necessarily an "Augusta must" anymore since we now have one in Mansfield, but it was still good. We saw our good friends Jeff & Kristy Kertscher and stayed out entirely too late with them one night. It was our "Verdell-ian minute" as Jeff described it. I was delighted to meet their newest little addition, Joshua, who was just falling asleep when we arrived. We spent a lot of time with Grandmama & Papa Ed, who kept us well fed, between home cooked meals and dinners at California Dreaming (an "Augusta must") and Bonefish (also a "must"). Haha, so much of what we do in Augusta is centered around food. We had our ubiquitous lunch with my dad at Goolsby's, which was fun and uncomplicated. We saw Holly and Wade again and had lunch and a movie. The boys saw Indiana Jones and the girls saw Sex & the City.... which I would not recommend to anyone!!! It was awful. I have never seen the show, so I was super surprised at how graphic the movie was! Not a family-centered film by any stretch of the imagination.

Of course, the wedding went off well, which I summed up in the last post. 

We spent an evening with Megan & Jordan, which was full of incredible conversation and laughter. We ate at a new place, Shane's rib shack, which was yummy. We also hit up Bruster's (another "must") for some yum-o ice cream. We had a great talk later about where God was leading us and how important it is to be firmly rooted in the Bible. It's funny, because just this morning in Sunday school, we talked about how every Christian needs to learn how to "do his homework," and search the Scriptures after hearing a sermon or reading a book in order to determine that what has been shown to us is truly God's Word and not man's own ideas. Anyway, we had a fantastic time talking with M & J. It's always so refreshing to participate in a conversation with other believers who are really on fire and who share the same ideals and values as we do. Megan pulled out her Bible and we talked over Scriptures and spent time discussing and laughing and worshipping together. It was really a wonderful time.

Nana cooked us up a yummy yummy yummy meal of Beef Bourginon, salad, mac & cheese (a special request!), squash casserole (of which I did not partake...) and my absolute favorite, Cherry Yum-Yum. I've tried making it myself before, and it's never as good as nana can make it. Aunt Keeley was there too, but we missed Jesse, Uncle Jimmy and Josh. We "celebrated" my birthday, even though it was 2 days early and I got to open gifts from Cas & Duane. I ended up getting mostly money from everyone else, except my mom and Jordan, which will probably end up in the bank paying for rent or gas. My overwhelming shopping guilt would fill up an entire other post. Yikes.

Current song stuck in my head: Fidelity by Regina Spektor

Home again.

So we have settled back into the routine  after a wonderful 10 days away from work in beautiful Georgia. It took coming to the flat wasteland known as Fort Worth to realize how gorgeous Augusta is. 

So the question on everyone's mind... how was the wedding?? It went very well. We had a good time at the Higdon House. The ceremony was beautiful. The dresses weren't SO bad. The reception was fun. I got to spend a lot of time with people whom I don't usually see much of when we come visit; my dad and Jennifer. I'm really glad I was able to get in some quality time with both dad & Jenn, it really helped to renew our relationships. I don't know that I'll ever have anything more than a surface relationship with my dad, we just both seem to appreciate laughing together and poking fun at each other. Regretfully, I had grown bitter with Jennifer over the course of this wedding planning, and a bug in my ear always helps to grow bitterness, but hearing things first hand is always good for clearing the air. I rarely ever get to spend extended periods of time with Jennifer, so when we do get to hang out, I really enjoy the fun we have together. I wish for a stronger relationship with Jenn, which is definitely 50% my fault and maybe 14% distance's fault. 

Me, Jenn, Dad & Cas.

There was very little drama between the parents, at least very little that I could see/hear, which makes things definitely bearable. I am quickly learning that spending time with my dad also equals spending time with deadbeat Diane. I am beginning to feel guilty about the playful names I give my parent's new significant others, which can only mean one thing... I am starting to find them slightly tolerable. Diane, for example, is incredibly outgoing and really always seems very interested in other's well-being. I know she works @ Main & Taylor, but I don't know that she's ever worked when we've been in town, and that she enjoys taking my dad's new car out and shopping. This trend has earned her the nickname deadbeat Diane. The blind guy (Denny) doesnt say much of anything, which might be good, because my mom talks a lot. So, he'll continue to be referred to as "The blind guy" (and anyone who hasn't heard the story, no he's not really blind.)

I attempted to post more pictures, but after a few errant keystrokes on my behalf, they disappeared. 

Hopefully sometime in the next couple of days I can recount the rest of our trip and post some cute pictures (If I can gain some patience and get some sleep)!

Current song stuck in my head: Loser by Beck

I love to fly.

Airplanes fascinate me.

I really enjoy flying- well, with a few exceptions. I don't like planes with propellers in the place of jet engines. I don't like incredibly long flights (like >7-8 hours). I don't like how flying makes my tummy rumbly and completely disorients my balance. 

Other than that, I really enjoy flying. There's just something about it, something that makes me feel so small and finite and makes God feel so big and in control. It's a vulnerability and a humility that overwhelms me as I sit in a seat in the middle of nowhere and nothing. I so often find myself singing the praises of Almighty God as I am witness to His incredible works- I mean, what else can you do when you realize that you are a tiny speck that has the love of the Creator of the Universe?

I enjoy looking out and seeing the curve of the Earth below me. The perfectly blue sky is hiding somewhere north of the clouds- a place I'll see soon after taking off. The incredible, overwhelming power and majesty of God's creation is so obvious when I'm soaring way above the world. 

I love seeing the Metroplex at night, especially the Dallas skyline. 

I think it's incredible that we have the ability to hurtle hundreds of tons of metal and navy colored vinyl upholstery tens of thousands of feet into the air at 500 miles per hour- and it's considered the safest mode of transportation! I could sit around the runway all day and just watch planes take off and land... it just seems to defy all notions of gravity (in my non-aeronautical engineer mind).  Like I said, I am completely and totally enamored with airplanes and flying. 

Current song stuck in my head: Gray or Blue by Jay may (Elizabeth Kartchner's blog has the best music!!! I keep it up in the background while I piddle around on here and Facebook) :)

ps. Pics and a long GA post to come soon.