Today has been a rough day.
Nursing school has been busy, to say the least. The program, condensed into 2 yrs instead of 4 for us "previously degreed" folk is known as being notoriously difficult. The reputation was not misleading. Over the past 7 months I have studied more than I ever have before. I have made new friends and rolled my eyes at others. It has been a roller coaster.
The fact that I also have been working part-time to pay for Bee's childcare etc just complicates matters.
In a few weeks our semester changes, and I find myself in the next block of courses: maternity and peds. This is the dream semester of most of my classmates- people are very excited, eager, and fighting over the coveted NICU placements because "babies are so cute". Babies are very cute, of course. Little do they know how bad the NICU can get; how much more there is than "cuteness".
Anyway, today was our last anatomy lab for the semester. Reproduction. I didn't know the topic until I arrived, and I dutifully examined specimens of ovaries, even a placenta. The prof brought out plastic models of babies in various gestations. There was one about Charlotte's size. I winced.
We were paraded to another room to look at the "wet specimens".
And here, there were babies, in all gestations, preserved in formaldehyde in large glass containers. Babies with hair, babies full term, babies with various birth defects.
I did the only thing I could do. I turned and walked out. They were not "wet specimens", these were somebody's children. Each baby represented a grieving family, lost potential, all of the anguish we've seen firsthand.
My classmates didn't say anything; neither did my prof. Perhaps they thought I needed to use the bathroom or the smell of formaldehyde was too strong for me. As far as I know, none of them know about Charlotte. It's not the type of thing that comes up in casual conversation and I know them so well by this point that I almost feel like a traitor for holding onto this huge part of my life like a secret. Over lunch, over a study table, as much as I would like to tell her story, there doesn't seem to be an appropriate time.
Sigh.
There have been many times when something pregnancy related has come up in class and up until today it was fine. Today was the first time that I had to leave. Now I'm worried, so very worried, about my mental state through the summer semester. I will help deliver babies, in the same hospital and same rooms where I had Charlotte and Adam. I will care for sick children, maybe sick babies. I will have flashbacks and emotional moments and somehow, hopefully, get through the day because I need this course to graduate.
In a week and a half, it will be three years. Three years. Feels like forever. Everything, everything has changed since then.
To say I don't share my classmates' enthusiasm about the "cute babies" is an understatement.
