I Forget.

Forgive me that I forget.  As life becomes routine and miracles become scientific I have forgotten what I really get to do.

While my job feels very task oriented at times...IV's, monitors, surgery, etc. it's easy to forget what I am really a witness too. I've become jaded, as many of us do.  I get caught up in me, my struggles, and my body's desperate cries for sleep.  So sometimes I need to remind myself of the precious moments I get to share with people every day.  I get to see babies take their first breath on a regular basis.  From the beginning of a shift to the end a family of two becomes a family of three.  I get to share these sacred moments with people on a daily basis and sometimes I forget.  It is not always a pretty scene, in fact many times birth can be messy...but so can life. God sets us up for success from the get go.

I had a patient last night who helped me to remember the significance of my job.  Things don't always go as we plan, but in the end it was beautiful to watch the tears stream down her face as she fell deeply in love with her new baby girl.  By the end of the shift I didn't feel like the nurse who started her IV and harassed her all night trying to keep that baby on the monitor, but rather the friend who walked through an unfamiliar place making it a little less scary.  Patients many times say, "I couldn't have done it without you."  People are more than capable of doing it without me, but I'm grateful to share the journey with them.

By next week I will be whining about going to work...but for now I'm going to hold on to the sweetness of the week.

Because I don't like to post anything without a picture, here is a picture of my sweet niece on her birth day.  The day she took her first breath, and the day her parents went from a family of two to a family of three.  It was a sweet day and it is good to remember.