striving for happiness...

4:37am - just realized that I am more than halfway finished my first night shift. Up at 8:00 this morning, one 2.5 hour nap this afternoon/evening, and then out to the hospital for 11:00pm. I am doing much better than I thought I would, although it is a very surreal feeling sitting in a dark hallway, knowing that I am surrounded by other nurses and about 20 patients lining the outside of the unit. On night shifts we take one long break (a whole hour and a half) so that nurses can sleep if they would like to. I sat on a couch (and by sat I mean I sprawled out on - ) and read my book for half an hour and then had a very short doze for maybe 10 minutes. A friend of mine told me that whenever she slept during her night shifts, her eyes would feel like sandpaper as soon as she woke up! I had this in the back of my mind and really tried to put off a sleep! So I am back at my desk, looking up medical terms and disorders that I read about, and think about how good it is going to feel at 7:15am when I can finally drag myself back out to my car and slide into bed.

I think tomorrow is going to be the real test - I have told Sal that during the day he is going to have to physically place baby H. onto me to breastfeed her. Either that or hook up the breast pump and let it do its thing.

Isn't that a lovely image to end on...
c.