Change

Where to start. A lot has happened in the past 13 days! Job searching, family coming into town, Christmas, and starting a new job. I will have to break it up into a few posts due to lack of time, but since I know my mother-in-law is dying to know about my first day at my new job, I will start with that.

I knew when I left my last job in October that I would want to take off a full 12 weeks after Lauryn was born to be with her. So I decided I would start applying for jobs in November in hopes of starting something mid-January. As some of you may or may not know, I am an RN (a new one!) I graduated from nursing school in May and passed my state boards in July. Obviously in July I was 7 months pregnant, so I knew no one would want to hire me. Here in Jacksonville everyone wants an experienced RN... so I KNEW no one would hire an inexperienced, heavily pregnant RN! Taking 12 weeks off work would be difficult financially, but I knew the pros would outweigh the cons.

I started applying for jobs end of November. After a couple weeks I started to get nervous because I wasn't getting ANY call backs. So, I started asking some friends from nursing school who had found jobs to see if their place of employment was hiring. One of my friends works for a home health agency and she said they needed PRN nurses. So, I called and the director wanted to interview me right away... so I interviewed last Thursday! After a 10 minute interview she offered me the job. I was shocked. Not only was it a quick, easy interview, but the pay is WAY more than I thought I would make starting out... almost double what I had predicted.

My first day was today, but all we did was go over policies and procedures, and discuss the PDA that we would use to document and access patient records. It was a very tedious and exhausting day, but I am so excited! Tomorrow I start training with one of the experienced home health nurses. I will be going around with her all day tomorrow. I think I will only train for a couple weeks before I am on my own.

The other great thing is that there will be two full-time positions opening up after the 1st of the year. Great pay, great benefits. I couldn't ask for more. Hopefully the nursing director will consider me for one of the full-time positions.

In the end, I am sad to have given up my last two weeks with Lauryn, but I know it is for a good cause. I told her tonight as I rocked her to sleep, "Please don't forget me. I won't be around as much, but I will be thinking about you all day long. I love you so much, and I'm only gone so that I can make sure you have everything you need." I bawled my eyes out as I watched her fall asleep.

Change... it's tough.