I Quit.

I quit my job this week. I'm having a little bit of a hard time with it- I really like my job. I like the contact with other grown-up people and the drama of working at a hospital. I love the stories I get to bring home and all the stuff I have learned about what is important and what is ridiculous and the perspective I have gained by seeing life in one room and death in the room next door. But I think I need to maybe do something different for a while. Or maybe nothing much at all. I'm not sure just yet.

A major reason I decided to work in this particular department in this particular hospital was mainly to force myself into some sort of much-needed therapy. Grace's nightmare of a delivery and subsequent NICU stay really, REALLY affected me and I did not like it. I like to be in control and I was so very not in control of anything in that whole situation. I actually held myself hugely responsible, even though I know that logically that's not the case. I didn't do anything to cause myself to get high blood pressure, or cause her to be delivered early and not-very-alive. Still, I was pretty convinced that if I had tried hard enough, I could've somehow taken control and fixed it, and because everything had gone wrong I had failed. Big time. So when I decided to go back to work, I think that I somehow wanted to get back to the place it had all happened & figure out just where exactly I had screwed up, just to make sure I didn't make that same mistake again. (I was also pregnant with Ella at this point as well, which may have contributed to this fantastic logic. I was also TERRIFIED that I would somehow cause her to be born not breathing, too. So much so that after she was born, I wouldn't even touch her until she had been fully checked out by the doctor.)

My previous work experience- advertising, public relations, marketing. Jobs with business suits and high heels. Perfect candidate for a job in a Maternity Ward. I took a major pay cut, wore scrubs and worked night shift. On the positive side, I only worked weekends, so Eric & the girls would spend every other Saturday and Sunday hanging out in their pajamas. The first day I walked into that building again, I literally had a panic attack & had to hide in an empty room until I could breathe again. The smell of the hand soap freaked me out- in the NICU you had to constantly be washing your hands, and the second I got off the elevator it was all I could smell. It took me months before I didn't notice it so much any more. I had lots and lots of self-imposed "therapy sessions." I had to sit next to the doctor that I'm pretty sure almost killed my daughter. I dealt with the nurses that had been terrible to me and the ones that were practically the only good thing about my delivery. I went to the NICU and looked at other babies on ventilators, hooked up to tubes and wires and stopped being so terrified. I saw lots of other women have perfectly healthy babies in the same room Grace almost died in. Eventually I stopped freaking myself out about everything and re-visiting my experience every time I came to work. And I realized how lucky I had been and how close I almost was to something truly terrible, and I needed to get over it.

And now I'm pretty sure I have. So I quit.

I'm still going to stay on-call. Not for the therapeutic reasons, just because I like to be there. I like to spend money at Target, so it works out well for me. And I do sometimes feel like I do serve a purpose in being there- I have reassured lots of parents that have babies in the NICU that they are getting the best care possible. I know, because I've been there. I have pictures of my fantastically obnoxious healthy child attached to my badge that I can show them.

So now I will have all this crazy time to do more stuff. Those 4 whole days a month I had to be at work were really holding me back (ha). Unfortunately, I will probably get enough rest to prevent crazy late-night, sleep deprived, self-indulgent and mentally unbalanced blog posts. Or not.