I don't know if it's good or bad that I kept my hands off it yesterday. It was SO close - but I held myself back.
I'm dreaming of them; driving to work and clinical, I fantasize about how to get one. How to excuse myself out of the office, for that very reason... In the office, I do anything I can (within reason, of course!) to "help" make it more likely...
(Is this bad?)
All right, all right... the good news is, if nothing else - we have two inductions scheduled Friday morning so I WILL get my hands on one of those long-sought guilty pleasures then. If the multip - who has been so desperately waiting for labor for the past three weeks, and whose membranes I "stripped" a few days ago, hoping it might nudge labor on - hasn't naturally kicked in by then, I think hers will be the first lustily-crying babe I'll get my hands on. I think he'll (we don't know if it's a boy or girl, but I'm banking on boy parts) be a pretty good size kiddo, but she'll do well: her heart will fill with a new love for her child that she allows my hands to catch - such an awesome feeling!
Otherwise, besides the dreams and intense desire to catch one --- no jitters or other symptoms, so I guess my withdrawal isn't as severe as it initially seems. But - just in case... send some baby-vibes this way, please!
~*~*~*~*~*~
The Cost of CNEP Clinicals
So, I finally decided to pop out a calculator and figure out just how much in lost wages this whole clinical thing is costing me. Between clinging, sad kiddos and a dwindling checkbook, I finally admitted to myself that I was having some pretty severe withdrawal from my life as well as the slippery babes. I was shocked, though, to realize just how much we've 'lost' since I cut waaaay back on working to try to plow through clinicals... see below (I won't tell you exactly how much I make, I'm just going to toss out $25/hr as an "average" rate for a newer RN working in a hospital setting in a low cost-of-living area... sound fair?) . So - CNEP program length is 675 hours total...
675 x $25 = $16,875
Holy Bejesus Batman! I knew it would be a lot... but I wasn't expecting that much (I really, really suck at math). Yikes!
And, of course, this nice chunk of change doesn't include mileage/gas costs - I am commuting right around an hour each way to my clinical site, usually 4 days a week, so averaging probably $80-90/wk in gas - or tuition/schooling costs (I want to say this is about $2800 each term, or around $8400 total, give or take, for the three terms of clinical that I will have). Last - and definitely not least - there is the time away from my family and "life"... there is no way to put a price on this, but hopefully, will be a small sacrifice that will be forgiven once time passes.
