I caved...

As anyone who knows me well knows, I HATE when my hair is at or beyond my shoulders. It drives me nuts. At least yearly I "say" that I'm going to grow it out and inevitably I cave and get it cut on a whim. Well...as is usual for me I had decided to grow my hair out for the wedding. I really intended to do it this time too! I was sure I could and I had no intention of getting a haircut. Well, as I'm sure you've guess now, I caved and got my haircut today. I am SO happy about it too! I really do hate when my hair is long (and it wasn't even really long, but it was just past my shoulders and that is crazy long to me!). I have several justifications for cutting it.

Reason #1: My hair is always short (chin length I mean) so having it long just for the wedding wouldn't be right. I haven't had hair past my shoulders since I was in high school. It just isn't me and I'm supposed to look like me at my wedding, right?

Reason #2: My hair doesn't look really all the good when its long. It looks better short. It is healthier short. It is easier to take car of short. It doesn't take as long to dry when it is short. There is no need for me to spend 4 more months dealing with hair I hate just to have it look cute for one day.

Reason #3: I am extremely impulsive when it comes to my hair (the one area of my life that I don't typically plan ahead) and I just decided yesterday I was gonna get it cut and I did.

I also got my highlights fixed up. As usual, I am having to break in a new stylist, and this one did a pretty good job but the haircut is pretty close to what I wanted and she did just the right amount of reddish highlights but slightly more blonde than I would have liked. Next time it should go better and then I will be due for a haircut/color right before the wedding so by then we'll be all set!

So, there you go. I got a haircut. I love it. Now I have to figure out what I'm going to do with it for my wedding, but I have 4 months still, so I should be able to manage that! Here's a picture.

On a side note, this weekend should be really fun! Theresa is coming to visit on Friday and we're going to go to see Kate Voegele perform in Chicago. She is a really great new singer that got her start on One Tree Hill (I won't hold that against her though, haha). Shawn will be working still so he can't come with us :( Then Saturday morning we're gonna hit up breakfast with Dad, Ana & Niko before the Derby Party at the Poremba's. I am really excited for that! I haven't seen them in such a long time. The Poremba's are my aunt & uncle (+ cousins) from my Dad's second wife's (Sue) family. Plus, Sue and her husband Mike will be in town from Kentucky too! It should be lots of fun and I can't wait. Then, were gonna buy our wedding bands and of course Shawn would kill someone (probably me) if we didn't see the new Wolverine movie this weekend, so that'll be Saturday night. Full weekend ahead, but it should be great fun!

More nursing ramblings...

As seems to be my new thing after working 3 to 4 nights in a row, I have something on my mind from work last night. Every NICU runs things a bit differently and I am still learning things about my current job. Each night that we work, there is one nurse assigned to be in Charge, one to be the Transport nurse (just in case we need to go pick up a baby from another hospital) and one is the Transitional Nurse (TN). The TN's job is to go to all the L&D deliveries that we are called to. We are typically called to any delivery involving multiple births, any fetal distress during labor, all C/S's, etc. Last week I has 2 nights of "orientation" to TN. Both of these nights we got 1 call to L&D and the babies were already born with no issues, so we didnt' really have to do anything. Us being there was more of a formality than a need. Then, after my "orientation" I am expected to go by myself to these deliveries. I am a fairly confident nurse, but I didn't quite feel I was ready, so my first night as TN I made another nurse go with me to my calls. Again, all the babies were fine. I learned the basic procedure though, so now I am on my own as TN.

Last night was a very quiet night. I didn't get paged at all until around 5am. The call is for a C/S because the mom wasn't "progressing" - which is L&D code for it is almost change of shift and they want to get the baby delivered - and because the baby was have some decels. I had been feeding a baby, so I put the baby back in his bed and headed oer to the OR. When I walked in to the OR, putting my gloves on, the baby is already born. The nurse places the baby on the warmer and then walks away. This baby is not crying, not breathing, and blue. I don't even have my gloves on yet and she walked away! The neonatologist wasn't even there yet and at this hospital no respiratory therapists come to the deliveries! I was completely freaked out! I had to ask 2 different nurses to get over there and stimulate the baby while I got my gloves on before a 3rd finally came over to help me! She starts stimulating while I try to get oxygen ready (because they had it all there but nothing was open or turned on!). Long story short, the baby is ok, but those nurses are unbelievable! What kind of nurse can put a blue, not crying, no breathing baby down and then just walk away! By the time the doctor arrived I had the baby stabilized, but holy cow! I was scared out of my mind and those nurses were useless! When I first walked up to the bedside one of the nurses is standing beside me trying to tell me the mom's history while this baby is crashing right in front of us! I had to tell her to shut up and help me. I know that probably sounds mean, but goodness! What is wrong with people!

Ok...I am done now. The baby ending up being fine and apparently I have officially been initiated into the TN position. My charge nurse said is did well and the neonatologist said I did what I was supposed to do. So, now I can go to sleep after 4 long nights at work and not have to go back to that place for 2 whole days! Yipee!

Ummm...

So I basically have had absolutely nothing going one latey, hence the lack of blog postings. I've been working and the days that I've been off Shawn has been working, so not doing a whole lot. Basically I've been doing wedding planning things (I have gotten a lot of that stuff accomplished this week) and I've starting planning the honeymoon. The more planning I do the more excited I get. For the wedding and the honeymoon, but I'm super super excited for the honeymoon. Ireland is going to be so amazing! I bought a small travel book about Dublin and one about Ireland and the Ireland one came with a map! In case you didn't know, I LOVE maps! Anyway, I'll be off work for the next couple of days so maybe I'll actually do something fun (and worthy of a blog!)

Engagement Pics

We had our second engagement session this weekend and the pictures are posted. If you'd like to check them out, here is the website.

www.babygracephotography.com

Client Page

Lisa & Shawn's Engagement Pics

Login: pisa9923@yahoo.com

Password: lach

Our photographer is based in Indianapolis and they are wonderful! If you need pictures for anything, give them a call!

Friends!

As people who were at Brad & Shannon's Wedding have started posting pictures online, I have discovered a few that I really like and wanted to share!

This is me and Sarah Smither. She's Shannon's best friend from grad school and she's really cool! We had a ton of fun at the bachelorette party together and then someone took this super cute picture of us! Love it!

I thought this was a great picture of the Hart family. Shannon and her twin brother Shawn are the ones on the ends. Ryan and Erin are in the center. This is an extremely fun group - then when you throw Mom and Dad into the mix it gets really crazy!

This is such a great group of people! These are a bunch of my great friends from Ball State! We always have so much fun together, but unfortunately we don't all get together very often now. We all had such a great time at the wedding...I can't wait for the next one!

Hart-Fuelling Wedding

This past Saturday Shawn and I took a weekend trip back to Indy. My old roommate Shannon was getting married! Her husband Brad is also a great friend and I couldn't be more happy for them! Shannon just finished grad school, she got her master's in Speech Pathology, and Brad has an MBA, such a great accountant. They decided to live in Georgia and just moved last week to a suburb of Atlanta. Shannon has a job lined up but Brad is still looking. The wedding was beatiful and I'm so glad that Shawn and I were able to get down there for the weekend to enjoy it!

Me with the beautiful bride! I love my Shannie! I'm going to miss her so much!

Besides the fact that it was a beautiful wedding, it was also great to catch up with some old friends. Since everyone has graduated from college and moved to all different place we really enjoy weddings because it is a chance for all of us to get together again! Mike was in town from Law School in D.C. He'll be graduating from GW Law in May and then he's going to doing Navy JAG! So awesome...except that he won't be able to come to my wedding because of these plans :( Boo. I also got to see Jon & Kelly Wassner and Brian Rodick - 3 people that I absolutely love and don't get to see nearly enough. Jon & Kelly bought a house recently and I'm so excited to get a chance to see it...hopefully soon! The bad thing about seeing everyone is that it makes me miss them all even more when they leave! I forgot how much I enjoy talking to Brian! I wish he wasn't such a recluse - I hope he reads this! RECLUSE! haha! As always, Sarah Ruble is hilarious to be around. I will always remember her yelling at the waiter at the bar after the wedding for her "nachos!" She really really wanted those Nachos! After the wedding was over, Shawn and I picked up Theresa and met Chris, Mike, Shane, Jennifer, Sarah and Corey at a bar near our hotel. It is always great to get to sit and talk with people we don't see much, and I am SO glad that we did! Interesting conversation...that's for sure! My favorite picture from the night is this one of Erin March. It was getting close to ending time and she discovered the chair tie on the chair. She couldn't believe no one had done this yet, and I'm glad that she did. Great times!

It wouldn't have been a normal night out for Shawn and I if we didn't get a picture of ourselves! We certainly are cheesy when there is a camera around and we're all dressed up! We had a great time at the wedding too. Made us talk a little more about our own wedding details, but I think we're getting close to have all major decisions made (just got to get the tux situation resolved now!) If nothing else, the wedding made us both even more excited for our wedding than we already were. We can't wait!

Before the wedding, we met our photographer at the Indianapolis Museum of Art to do some additional engagement photos. She came up to Chicago to do our engagement session back in February and it turned out to be a terrible day! Raining and cold and VERY windy! She felt bad about that so she asked if we wanted to do some additional pictures and since we were both in Indy this time (usually I come down myself to wedding stuff) we met her. I think these pictures are going to turn out really well! The first ones turned out surprisingly well for such a crappy day, but Saturday was beautiful this time! Plus, the grounds at the IMA are gorgeous! Once we get the pictures all posted, I'll give you all the link to check them out!

Work Ramblings...

As anyone who knows me should know, I love my job. I love being a nurse. Taking care of people that are sick is truly my calling, and from the moment I started working in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) I have never for a day doubted that I had found a professional that I never want to leave. I take care of these babies because I genuinely care about their welfare. I want to see them grow big and strong and leave our hospital to become strong, healthy children and one day adults. Sometimes my nights at work are boring, babies that are almost ready to go home do not require a ton of care. They just want to be fed and then left alone to sleep. Some nights I get new babies that are really sick or just really early and need so much from me that I find myself running around all night. Regardless of that my night brings, I always leave knowing that I have done all that I can to help that baby and to help the families deal with a situation that most often they were not expecting to be in. For those of you that have any experience with health care, you will know that not all nurses are caring. They all should be, but for whatever reason, some do not seem to have any empathy for their patients and their families. The most difficulty families and patients are the ones that typically need the most kindness, as there is usually some sort of underlying reason for the anger or distrust. I treat every single patient and familiy member with the same level of kindness and respect, and it really pains me when I see other nurses not extending that same courtesy to patients and families. There are have been many times that I have been almost brought to tears by the rudeness and insensitivity of nurses. I'm not going to pretend that it doesn't make me sick sometimes when I have to be kind to a new mother that has used cocaine throughout her pregnancy and then wonders why her baby was born so early and with so many problems. I'm not going to try to say that I can't believe the parents that are allowed to take home children after treating their own bodies with such blantant disregard during pregnancy. It makes me sick. But all I can do is try to teach those parents to care for their child and hope that some of my kindness will rub them the right way during their babies stay in our NICU. I also just make sure to try to love each of those babies as much as I can while they are in our NICU, just in case they don't get that kind of love and affection after they go home. So many NICU nurses don't get attached to the babies, and I can understand sometimes why it is difficult to form attachments, but I know that some fo the bonds I have made with my NICU babies have been so rewarding! I love caring for those babies and I think that my sensitivity to them and their families makes me a stronger nurse. I wish more nurses would realize that their actions toward families is often just as important as their interactions with patients. I don't know if anyone who is reading this will care, but I just have heard some things are work during my years as a nurse that have disgusted me, and those things came from nurses (not random people visiting). To any nurses who are reading this, please try to remember to treat all of your patients and their families the way you would want to be treated as patient and remember how you would feel if a nurse was talking to you about one of your family members.