Confessions of a Labor Nurse

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I once seriously bought more socks because I was too tired to do laundry.

I once Febreezed my favorite scrubs because I didn’t want to wear the ones that felt tight.

I once signed up for call every single day I knew they were overstaffed so I could get the $36 of call pay :/ p.s. I also signed up for call every other day because we were poor. lol

One time when I was working postpartum I totally did not know I had a patient until the end of the shift.  I mean, I never knew she was even assigned to me. Like I never saw her. Ummm, not even once.  p.s. thank God for small favors…she was supposed to be discharged that day, normal SVD, and I guess she never needed anything… :/

Once I was helping another nurse change a patient’s linens, and she accidently passed gas in the patient’s room.  The nurse looked so embarrassed, so I blamed the patient’s husband, who was still asleep.  Then the mother looked embarrassed, so I told her not to worry about it, that men could sometimes just be gross. lol

One time the call light was stuck and as I was yanking it, it suddenly became untangled and hit the patient in the head.

One time a grandmother missed getting a picture of the dad cutting the umbilical cord, so I made him reenact it on the warmer and then I dropped the camera on the baby.  Thank God it was a cell phone camera!

One time we had a labor nurse who came in to have her baby, and when we went to check her it smelled like cotton candy.  When we questioned this, she said she had used cotton-candy who-ha spray because she wanted it to smell like a circus down there 🙂 Now any time any of us go into labor we buy weird vagina sprays.

We’re not always busy in OB.  Once I made up a game called the Vagina Game.  I say “one, two, three, GO” and everyone says another name for the word ‘vagina.’  What I learned: OB nurses can get creative.

One time a postpartum nurse used a black sharpie to color in my gray hairs.

One time we ordered lunch and the restaurant got a nurse’s order wrong.  She got really angry and threw her taco across the break room, where it hit the wall and slid down, in slow-mo.

When Joint Commission came one year, one of our nurse’s was in labor and that was the day I did STRICT bedside charting.  I didn’t even leave to go to the bathroom.

One time a patient came in barely pregnant to triage to be assessed and couldn’t stop talking about the last time we saw each other.  Of course, I did not remember, so I gave my usual speech…”I never remember mom’s after delivery, because you come in like this (hand out to make a big belly) and now you’re like this (hand in to make a skinny belly).  It wasn’t until later that I realized I had not ever been her nurse before, we had gone to high school together :/

 

 

Until my next delivery ❤

 

 



Categories: For Nurses..., Nursing Humor, Random

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31 replies

  1. I loved the one about the vagina spray. We had a nurse who had a new boyfriend and she was paranoid about having a clean “hoo-ha” if they were going to have sex. She grabbed a washcloth in the bathroom to freshen up…later when there was a comment about her sparkly bits she realized she had wiped herself with the one she had used to clean some glitter off her 3 year old’s hands!

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  2. This made me laugh out loud so much. I love the way you recall your memories.

    I too have bought new socks just because I hadn’t been bothered to do laundry. And also underwear. More than once. High five for laziness!

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  3. One time while bending down to empty a Foley bag I accidentally farted; the epiduralized patient thought it was her. I didn’t correct her.

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  4. Thanks for sharing! This made my day! Just the other night I pulled an scd plug from the wall when I was moving a patient from recovery. The cord flew out of the wall and hit the baby in the head. Of course, it was a beautifully round, perfect, breech baby c-section head. It wouldn’t have ever happened if the baby had one of those bruised up vacuum heads with an fse scrape. 😱
    Glad to know I’m not the only one who does really dumb things sometimes. 🙂
    Jen Atkinson St, Louis, MO
    Sent from my iPhone.
    >

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  5. Cotton candy. I’m dying… That’s hilarious! 🙂

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  6. I was working in our Special Care Unit which had one wall with all windows for viewing by visitors. I somehow tripped and fell headlong, sliding along the floor, in full view, of course, of all visitors!

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  7. When I was a brand new nurse on postpartum, I was trying to vigorously massage a boggy fundus on a patient. She started giggling, and it was then that she told me I was massaging her very large, very pendulous bosom. Yes, her boobs were so big that they hung down to her navel and covered her abdomen (I was trying to protect her modesty by massaging without lifting her gown…). God bless her for having a sense of humor.

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  8. One day I had a biker babe as a patient. When I started to exam her she had a butterflies wings tattoo on the inside of both her legs along side her vaginal canal. Her pubic hair made up the body of the butterfly…I just could not help but ask, can you make it fly……Not a dry eye in the room after that…..You see some strange things in L&D…..

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  9. As a new nurse, I let a 34 weeker get up to the bathroom without checking her. After a few minutes of waiting and hearing nothing, I knock, open the door, and there she was on the floor with the baby’s head coming out of the vagina. In a panic, I called my charge nurse, and she helped her back to bed as I had my hands at the baby’s ready to catch her. I almost quit that day. I’m glad I didn’t. 😍

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  10. I am not a nurse and have yet to get pregnant or have a child, but when I do, I hope I recall your blog and the funny things I’ve read to remind myself not to take everything so seriously, and that even if everything doesn’t go exactly to plan it’ll probably turn out ok anyway! Thank you for the laughs and the honesty!

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  11. Ha!ha! amazing confessions 😀 Did you really dropped the cell phone on the baby? What was the reason around? I can imagine the situation and don’t know why but it sounds hilarious.. thanks for sharing these confessions, they are real and innocent. Glad reading 🙂

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  12. I LOVE this blog and these confessions are absolutely hilarious!

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  13. I enjoyed reading every single one of these and actually DID laugh out loud at certain ones, especially the call light one and dropping the cell phone. I have done stuff JUST like that, too, and I am just absolutely mortified when it happens…nice to know I am not the only one. Lol!

    Once I was getting ready to set my patient up and get her in position for an epidural. My IV tubing was already taut from the IV fluids to the pump, but I didn’t notice. For some reason, I adjusted the IV pole, maybe to move the epidural pump or something and with the slight adjustment of the IV pole, before I knew it, I had pulled the tubing right out of the bag of fluid and LR was spewing all over my patient’s face and bed, and all over me as I was trying to stop it… that bag seemed to have a mind of its own..lol and my patient was trying to cover her face with her hands and kept saying.. “oh, oh, oh..” The anesthetist, of course, walked in the room at precisely that moment and was so annoyed at the ridiculous scene of it all, I guess..lol ..and the delay…. but I just had to laugh..and I couldn’t stop laughing even with his sour look. It was easily fixable with a little new tubing and fluid..and my patient was a really good sport about it and laughing, too. You just can’t make this stuff up…so many funny things happen on an OB floor.

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  14. Lol those are hilarious!!!

    Once I was helping a mom breastfeed and the baby had a ton of dark hair and I saw a hair that was at least 4 inches long that the baby was about to get in it’s mouth when it latched. I proceeded to move it assuming it was from the baby and then it didn’t budge it was attached to the moms breast!!!!! 🙈😳😂

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  15. Great post and blog, I’m not a nurse but I do tell my daughter about the little brown twin I had when I started pushing just before she was born (I hope u understand this and It’s totally NOT a racist comment) anyhow that might just be too much information we have just met but be sure Ill be back to hear more of your entertaining posts.

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  16. I was a labor nurse and used to encourage my patients to have the enema because it made it more comfortable during labor and decreased the likely hood of bms during the delivery of the head. Also if there is a repair needed post delivery there won’t be a bm for at least 25-48 hours. Making a plan based on personal and professional experience. Patients don’t want to be embarrassed during the delivery, or to gross out their husbands unnecessarily.

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  17. I was in the operating room one night with a preterm delivery. The doctor wasn’t ready to catch and wasn’t looking and she pushed and the baby flew and hit the wall. We all were in shock! We always called it bungee baby

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  18. one time I was being stupid and started to raise the bed with a patient who was about to push but still was intact. As I got it to chest/almost face level she pushed before I knew she was going to and her water broke all over me! Im thinking OMG my bra is soaked and im way too huge chested to go without so I had to work the rest of the shift with that yuck wet feeling. I have never made that mistake again

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  19. After I had my 3rd baby and had come back to work I was still pumping. One night I was in a delivery and hadn’t had time to pump yet. I was so embarrassed when the doctor asked me if I needed to pump and I looked down and I had 2 huge soaked breasts on my shirt!

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