Midwife Mondays 36: Another busy week!

Ok, first things first, I am aware that today is a Tuesday – oops!
This is the first time since I started this “Midwife Mondays” series that I haven’t got a post out on the actual Monday, and my reason is very simple – it’s been a blooming busy week!

Last Monday I had a night shift – which almost completely wiped me out. I didn’t prep sleep-wise enough and so by about 3am I was really struggling. I keep saying I’m going to write a “night shift survival guide” and then whenever I go to do it, I realise that I haven’t quite worked out the best way to approach a night shift myself yet and so who am I to advise?!?!

I’m getting much more into the routine of the postnatal ward – postnatal checks on mum and baby, baby obs, mum obs, breastfeeding support, hand expression, helping new mums up to NICU to see their babies and all the other things that crop up and fill the day – it’s a busy one!

I also worked Thursday and Friday this week so I definitely needed the weekend when it came around!

We drove down to Bristol for the long weekend to see my parents and catch up with some old friends, and we literally filled every minute from out arrival on Friday night to driving back last night – hence writing this post now – It’s been a busy one.

I realise this is a pretty short post, particularly for such a busy week, but I am finding the postnatal ward to be quite a hard thing to write about – the days are all so different and yet it feels very much like I’m using all the same skills and doing a lot of the same things on this placement – so it’s quite hard to write about in the same way as I have been for previous placements.

I’ve got a couple of the ladies on my caseload coming up to their due dates now so I’ve got my “hospital bag” all packed (with my hospital ID, shoes, hair ties etc all packed and ready to go at a moment’s notice – I’ll keep you guys posted! Eek!

This week I’ve also got to finish and submit another reflective essay – we have to do one for each trimester and the one for this trimester just needs a bit more tweaking and a few more references before I submit it over the weekend.

It feels very much like we are working our way towards the end of first year now, with only a few more weeks on placement and a few in uni and then we are off on our own a little with study leave and exams – it’s all going very quickly now!!!

Image by Irina Murza

To read last week’s  “Midwife Mondays” post, click here