Self-induced premature quarter life crisis...

...which I fully realize means that I am apparently intending to live to be 104.

For me, so far, the quarter life crisis has been fantastic (it was mentioned to me that it cannot technically be a crisis then..) but I moved into my own place, I pop about 12 vitamins, minerals and supplements a day, including nutrient-rich alfalfa infused drinks--the chlorophyll I brought back from Bali. I exercise and dance to my heart's content and, oh yeah, had my nostril studded with a rhinestone. Not too bad really.

Then, for the clincher; this year I went to Miami for Spring Break, South Beach baby! I went to visit a girlfriend of mine, one I've known since we were 6 and 7 years old. She is a pastry chef at an uber swank hotel in Miami Beach. Miami has got to be one of the most fascinating cities in this world. It is so colorful, everything is pastel or flourescent, all is bright, which is perky and great, but then there are the Miamese..

People are amazing. I honestly felt like a naive farm girl. Miami is only-one-article-of-clothing-necessary if not clothing-optional entirely; your choice article can be namely a longish top, OR bottoms. Simply the bikini or speedo will do just fine as well. And anything that offers full view and leaves nothing to the imagination as far as shape, size, color or otherwise of any normally covered part of the body, is perfectly acceptable. I've witnessed many lifestyles, and I can appreciate the naked human form like no other, but I was caught gawking! I'm convinced that no where else are the '80's so alive and vibrantly celebrated as South Beach Miami during the Spring Break season. For full effect, Pflueg's husby Craig repeatedly sang me "Joey" by Concrete Blonde--a classic '80's jingle that was music to my ears this week in all this pastel and cheesy class (oh yes, cheesy class, apparently is not an oxymoron). Sadly, my fanny pack didn't actually fit the bill, where is that old black and hot pink nylon number anyway??

My first encounter with Miami folk was walking down the street with coffees and chocolates from Pflueg's pastry shop where an older babushka woman linked arms with a young woman wearing trendy scrubs, she swerves her body in front of us and says in a thick Slavic accent: Hyou dvinking Vodka??!! Ah the beauty and sadness of dementia, I'm sure she's not allowed, but would absolutely feel divine after a swig!

In light of the "crisis" I had been seriously considering a tattoo, which I figured Lynette would fully support as she has made a beautiful canvas of her own rad self. But, Lynette, being the all practical one, told me to try a pseudo tat first that would last one month. I wanted it on the back of my neck, but couldn't decide what to get. After contemplating getting just any old thing put there just to see what having something there was really like, I freaked out. Ohmysoul, thank goodness, but no thank you.

I haven't dolled up with another girly for a night out in a while, last time Nette and I did, I believe we were 18 and in Bali.

Ms. Lynette Louise and I had a proper catching up not to mention I finally met her husband of nearly two years! A charmer to be sure. I'm hoping they move closer someday, but not before I can pop back over for another guilty pleasure* visit to the wonder that is Miami...

*Next time I'm schlepping my white trousers and any and all pastels and flourescents I may possibly own! When in Miami wear blue eyeshadow and pink lipstick, huge earrings and your bikini for a bra with the best of 'em!

Wish I could pull off orange shades, hot pink bikini and blue eyeshadow in Seattle... Thanks for the make-over babe!

Undercover Doula

Disclaimer: I am a HIPAA-Happy provider, don't fret, details have been changed to protect privacy, or permission has been granted.

I am totally freaked out by L&D [labor and delivery] nursing.

I just finished my last clinical during this quarters' OB rotation. When the quarter started, the first thing I did was make an announcement on the doula community boards to warn them that there would be purple scrubbed nursing students roaming the halls of three major obstetrical units in the Seattle area, and to tell their clients to request that there be no students present for their births. To our credit, the nursing students were told it was an observational clinical only, and the most we could do was offer support, like be a doula!!

So the weeks ensued, and I attended a few births at the baby factory that is Swedish First Hill Hospital, where upwards of 800 births occur each month--holy crap--you know that means they put mama's on a ticking clock to make room for the next labor, at absolutely all costs. But I made the most of it, and resorted to my tried-and-true doula alter ego. I successfully avoided doing the charting and administration of procedures and injections and ordering of interventions. Phew. Ethically, I cannot phathom the role of the labor and delivery nurse [incidentally, pizzas are delivered and babies are born]. You leave a labor when your shift is up, not when the baby is born, and you meet the family in the throws of labor, not prentally where you have time to develop a trusting relationship and bond. So I'm just not on board with the whole concept.

A recent repeat doula client's newest babe--also photographed above holding dad's finger.

So on my last clinical day I attended a high risk birth, and morphed again into their doula and not the nursing student. I, alone, coached her through three hours of second stage pushing, with an epidrual, which requires a little coaching as you can't freakin' tell when you're contracting! And the nurse preceptor later tells me, "thanks for doing the pushing--I hate that part" Yikes. And ahem, I did no such thing, that mama pushed her baby out! The baby was called Joseph Michael, tribute is due here to a certain unaware namesake :)

I was later taken into a small hallway room where they keep "memory box" supplies and there was a nurse carrying what looked like just a baby blanket as if she were carrying a baby; nestled into the crux of her arm. She placed the blanket down and unwrapped it on the counter. A teeny less than 1 pound, 21 weeker baby girl was unveiled. She had just been born, after inducing her death because of spina bifida, a spinal cord deformity that is sometimes incapatible with life, as they say. Her tiny finger pads and toes looked like little tadpole digits. Her skin was sticky and transparent so that you could see the intense red of her vascular system barely beneath it. She had perfect ears and nose and eyebrows and even fingernails. She looked like a little tiny alien creature, and she was beautiful in her miniscule human way. The two nurses in the room with me were chatting amongst themselves about their various judgements they had toward the family. I listened, perturbed to the core at their very nerve, and softly touched this little being and sent her soul some reiki. I couldn't help it. Back out on the unit, I thanked my nurse for showing me the "fetal demise" and she said, "oh no problem, we get a lot of those here"...

I was then reading up on incoming patient's charts in the nurses' station, when I saw out of the corner of my eye a familiar face. A doula! I went out into the patient waiting room and chatted with long time doula, Jennifer Mendleson, we attended a birth together, ages ago now, my first home birth actually, the sixth time mom who labored for an hour and with a single push caught her own son and brought him straight out of her home jacuzzi onto her breast. It was so fun to see Jennifer there. She was waiting for her client to come out of surgery for an abdominal birth (sectioned as the L&D nurses affectionately call the cesarean). She asked me if I felt like I was undercover. I laughed. I absolutely do. I love it.

I love birth, and was happy to be a part of the one's I was assigned to, during this rotation, but now I know with conviction that I could never be a labor and delivery nurse, and that I will be a midwife. I think I could make a good birth nurse if I had to, a doula-esque nurse, but it would be ethically challenging for me to do so.

This is one of my doula babies, an awesome birth from 2007. I nanny for her twice a week now. We play, and she teaches me Mandarin. The other day she was playing on the fake phone and apparently having a conference call between my mom, President Obama, and her baby girlfiend. "Hi C. Lee, hi c lee hi clee Obama, Zoe, Obama, Maumi, (Mandarin for Kitty), Zoe, hi c lee, Obama" I love her to pieces!

Next quarter is my last in the nursing program, and my senior practicum placement is the Harborview Psych Emergency Department. Get ready to be spit on, pinned and swung at... says a few knowing colleagues. I'm totally stoked.