Randomosity

It's 4:24pm and I have one day under my belt of being a big baby being sick. I don't like to be sick. Of course, on my busiest of days, I long to have *nothing* to do but drown myself in a great book. But tell me that's what I HAVE to do...suddenly I want to jump off the pier and swim to Wisconsin, learn how to snowboard down a sand dune, anything but doing nothing and waiting for my immune system to do what it does best.

Don't know what form of the flu I have...

SOAP BOX ALERT! SOAP BOX ALERT!

I interrupt this musing to clunk up on my soapbox. When I say "the flu," I mean seasonal inFLUenza. As in, fever, body aches, headache, general grossness. "The flu" is NOT typically characterized by throwing up and poop soup. Sometimes symptoms of a more projectile nature are thrown in the mix, but typically throwing up and poop soup in and of themselves are evidences of a gastrointestinal upset, NOT the flu virus. It just drives me barking nuts when people equate this with influenza, because they are totally different. Sorry to be kind of fussy about it. It kind of falls under the category of people thinking that newborn babies whose hands are clenched in a fist are "gonna be greedy." No, that's a neurologically appropriate thing for a baby to do, not an evidence of a character flaw. Seriously.

Wow. No idea where THAT soap box came from!! Sorry 'bout that.

Anyway, it's been a while since I last posted, and I have a few random thoughts in my head. Sorry if they're boring!

#1. Do you ever wonder what Heaven will actually be like?

Cuz I do. Like, will there be amazing musicians everywhere? Symphonies, praise bands, hymns, voices? You know how when you're at church and the next song comes up on the screen and you're like, "YES!! I LOVE this song!"? Will it be like that ALL THE TIME??

And what if we get to pick where we live? I mean, Jesus said that He's preparing a place for us, and His Father's house has many rooms. Do we get to dream about what that'll look like? If you could pick out your house in heaven, what would it look like? A log cabin surrounded by trees next to a shimmering lake? A grand Victorian with hidden staircases and a huge front porch with rocking chairs? A simple cottage by the beach?

Here's my "heaven house..."


Can you imagine eating breakfast and reading every day in that cupola thing up on top?? This house is spitting distance from the beach, right next to the channel, and would be only more perfect if it were right ON the beach.

And when we're in heaven, you know what I think would be SO COOL? Imagine if we could all pile in this huge heavenly amphitheater (with unlimited amounts of movie-theater popcorn, of course), and there would be this eNORmous screen, and then this eNORmous voice would say, "Okay, THIS is how it all REALLY happened..." and we'd get to watch how Creation unfolded from the very beginning. How exactly He made the sun and moon and stars and all the animals and us, how history unfolded, how the landscape changed, every storm, every disaster, every detail. All the weird things we STILL don't know exist at the very bottom of the ocean. I mean, would that not be THE coolest thing?? We wouldn't even need those head-pinching 3D glasses, because it would all be SO THERE.

#2. I think I scared the bejeebers out of some Hope freshmen yesterday.

So I'm at work yesterday tending to a very edible little 35-week small-for-gestational age baby. One of the nurses I work with comes and tells me that some Hope student just called and asked if she could come to the unit for a tour and to interview an OB nurse. Well, the OB nurses were quite swamped out on the floor, so she asked if I could do it (and I'm sure she knows that my veins DO course with blue and orange Flying Dutchman blood). Well, around 6:15 these two kids show up who look like they're easily about 15 years old. Turns out one of them needs to write a paper for her Freshman English class about something she's interested in, and she wanted to interview an OB-GYN, but it was a little more feasible to tour the unit and interview an OB nurse. I'm not technically an OB nurse per se, but I guess I would have to do.

The other 15-year-old/college freshman was there for moral support, as the interviewer was way too afraid to come to the hospital alone.

So Freshman has her little half-sheet of paper with some questions that she had typed up. I was about rolling at her questions, they were just so cute. Like, "What's the difference between a normal delivery and a c-section?" (Me: "Ummmm....WELLLLL....in one, the baby comes out of _______. In the other, they cut a hole in mom and pull it out of THERE." *crickets* Seriously? You didn't know this??) Her other questions involved things such as 'Why do people get induced?' and 'What are the reasons people get a c-section?' and stuff like that. Then she asked one of the million-dollar questions: "What are the risks of having a normal (ie, vaginal) delivery?"

This is where the buck kind of stops. Childbirth is amazing. Absolutely amazing. I LOVE going to deliveries. LOVE them! But there's a reason that for EVERY delivery I attend, no matter how easy that pregnancy was and no matter how beautifully labor progressed, I have to have a full regalia of resuscitation equipment at the ready (yes, it's there, tucked away in a homey cupboard). Because you NEVER KNOW. I've been to "those" deliveries. Everything was cool, and suddenly it wasn't. It happens. Not very often, but it happens. And people don't like that. Why would they? People don't like to know that working with "BAY-beez" isn't always, well, a walk in the park. Childbirth is a miracle for a reason. It's hard work. There are a LOT of variables. Do you REALLY want to know, sweet freshman?

But she did, and so while she and Moral Support fiddled with their expensive phones to figure out how to record me, I jotted down a quick list of the first things that came to mind.

Hemorrhage.
Shoulder dystocia.
Failure to progress.
Placental abruption.
Meconium aspiration.

To name a few. Exceptions rather than the norm, but risks nonetheless.

Freshman and Moral Support had eyes the size of saucers. I'm quite convinced that they will never, EVER bear children. And they thought they were going to talk to someone who fluffs pillows and gives backrubs for 12 hours!!

Then she asked an even better question: "What is the most memorable delivery you've ever been to?"

Ummmmm....should I tell her about the c-section for 26-week triplets that only I showed up to, until the very last second, when Baby A was pulled out, only then did the doors burst open and the rest of the NICU team showed up?

Or....the mom whose epidural paralyzed her diaphragm and she stopped breathing and they almost sectioned the baby IN the L&D room?

Or.....never mind.

"Do you want a good story or a not-so-good story?," I ask.

Freshman: "How about one of each!"

So I told her a really sweet story, and then I told her a not-very-sweet story.

Freshman and Moral Support are speechless. I'm pretty sure I saw Freshman mentally changing her major to art history. You could hear a pin drop. She says, "Well, I think that's all the questions I had! Thanks!" and after taking a quick look at my edible 35-weeker, scrams.

Oh my word, that was probably the best form of birth control those girls are going to have for a LONG TIME. They didn't even realize that some people deliver babies WITHOUT pain medicine. Moral Support about fell off her chair.

So that's my story about the end of my shift yesterday. I mean, OB is totally cool. 99% of deliveries are amazing and go beautifully. But if you're gonna probe about the other 1%, you gotta be prepared for the answers.

#3. I'm missing out on burrito night with my friends.

Bezoar (that's my best friend, Kristin, in case you didn't know who "Bezoar" is!) makes a mean burrito. Weeks ago, she invited us accountability girls over for a burrito night, pajamas and fuzzy slippers required. So that's tonight, and I'm missing it, and it's NO FAIR!

I guess that's about it. Hope you enjoyed my randomosities!! I have some new recipes I need to post soon, so stay tuned!