I have a 2 year old daughter and a 1 1/2 week old daughter. After I had my first, I was so happy and filled with joy. I spent a lot of time with her just enjoying her company and loving her. I just had my second daughter and granted I am so happy to see her out and safe with me. My problem is that I miss being pregnant. My first pregnancy was great. No morning sickness, not much heartburn, not much weight gain, etc. The second pregnancy was the same, except I ended up with really bad varicose/spider veins that were so painful it was hard to just walk. I had the varicose veins on my legs and actually in my vaginal region so you can just imagine how painful they were.
The problem is that after my first child, I was okay and wanted to wait for the second. Now that I have had my second child, I miss being pregnant a lot. I think about it all the time and keep thinking of ways to get involved in other pregnant women to help them along in the pregnancy (like a doula, labor coach, nurse, etc.). I love being around pregnant women and babies and I seriously thought about being a nurse, but I heard the schooling is very hard and that it takes up a lot of your time just from studying. I cannot be away from my children because I feel the more I am away from their lives, the more I won't be able to see them grow up. Then I started thinking about becoming a doula, but I do have to be certified and I don't believe there are any in our area here. Now one would think that would be good, but I think of it more along the lines that it truly is not a stable career. I want to do something with my life and be involved some way or another with the labor & delivery department at a hospital, but unfortunately all I can think of is becoming a nurse and working awful hours.
Does anybody else have any other ideas of working in the labor & delivery? Do you know of any online schools that do nursing as a career (well other than the clinicals)
I recommend becoming a doula. Contact the organizers for this site: http://www.cincinnatidoulas.org/ and explore some training options. Feel free to PM me for more ideas about how to do this if it sounds of interest to you.
you can volunteer at a hospital first to see if you really like it. you just had a baby and your hormones are all over the place so give yourself some time. Good luck
Off the top of my head:
- You can volunteer in L&D or NICU/PICU.
- Pregnancy massage (massage school is only about 6 months long and you can set your own hours)
- Birthing training (like Lamaze, or Bradley Method)
- Midwifery (but all the best midwives I personally know are nurse-midwives)
- Adoption Services
But as far as the nursing degree goes:
If you want to work with infants, (or even be accepted into a nursing program) I would absolutely recommend NOT doing an "online" school for nursing. Every University and most CC's offer the majority of their required credit courses in an online format. So go with THEIR online classes. (of course, lab classes you have to be there in person). Getting into nursing school is actually the hard part. The average number of accepted students to applicants for many nursing schools is 6%. You need every advantage you can get. Most also require several hundred to several thousand volunteer hours in a hospital or acute care setting.
If you're going for your RN, it will actually take you as long as getting your BSRN, minus 1-2 quarters (2 years of pre reqs, + 1 gap year + 2 years of nursing school vs. 2 year transfer degree + 1 gap year + 2 years of nursing school). But the pay for a BSRN is about 20k upwards as that of an RN. You would also "5th" year in order to specialize as a L&D nurse.
Sooooo.... don't cross nursing off your list. Because if you look at that timeline... you can actually "stretch" it to meet your needs. Take 3 years to do your transfer degree (aka go part time, 1-2 classes per quarter... which equals only being gone from your kids 0-10 hours a week), your "gap" year (filled with volunteer hours, or part time hospital admin hours), and VOILA. By the time you start nursing school your youngest is starting Kindergarten.
This is NOT labor and delivery, but if you are nursing you could see if there is anything you could do with Peer Counselling through a local WIC department. They help support lower income moms when they are pregnant. You could also look into becoming a Certified Lactation Consultant. They often work in conjunction with hospital birth centers and offer follow-up services to moms and work more normal hours most of the time.
I understand the feeling completely, too! In some ways it is sad because, while pregnancy has risks, our children will never be protected in quite the same way as they are in the womb. Now they get hungry, thirsty, tired, cranky, stinky, too hot, too warm, etc. I was sad after having my second because I also had great pregnancies, and really thought it would be my last. I was sad after he weaned thinking we weren't having more children still. That was almost 9 months ago and we are trying for another, so I know the feeling passes. I am looking forward to the next in a different sense now. Look into area MOMs groups or something and see if there is anything that supports women leading up to birth and delivery, because you might not be helping with the medical part but more the emotional/experience/litstening part. Good luck! :)
I'd suggest getting in touch with the local International Cesarean Awareness Network (ICAN) chapter....they have monthly meetings and are quite informational! There are certainly a lot of babies and pregnant women at the meetings! And it's for all birth experiences-I think you'd enjoy the experience!
Nursing school is time consuming but as other people have commented, you can stretch out some of the earlier classes. Getting into nursing programs is difficult because there is a shortage of nursing instructors and there are long wait lists. In Ohio, you do not have to go a 5th year for your BSN or to specialize in L&D and in Ohio, many places will hire you if you have an RN with only an associate's degree. However, I also agree with other posts that you may want to try volunteering. Your city has 2 main hospitals that I am sure have community services for which you can volunteer. I don't really think OH has a lot of doulas (no statistics to back this up, just opinion) which I think is why there aren't a lot of schools that offer this certification.
Give yourself some time to get through these first couple of weeks with the baby and allow you and your family some time to adjust. Then look into volunteer opportunities and then maybe as your children get older you can go to nursing school if you still have the passion!
You don't have to be certified to be a doula, but it is easier to find work if you're certified and listed on the certifier's website (like DONA.org).
I'm not sure about other organizations, but a Dona workshop is $350-400 plus the cost of membership and certification. But I do have a friend who did the workshop and didn't get certified. I don't think she stays as busy as she'd like to and everyone I know who is certified stays quite busy. You have 2 years to certify after buying your packet after doing the workshop, so if you don't have all the money to do it all at once, there is time to work it out. It really isn't very time consuming:)
I miss parts of being pregnant as well, but I remind myself that one day I will get to do it again. Is this your last baby? This may have something to do with it if you have decided that you aren't going to have anymore children. Other than that, if it is truly a passion I say go for it and get involved and become a nurse!
