New Beginnings, Etc.

I was looking forward to January for several months. I thought, "Oh, January. The deep, cold, heart of winter. It will be the perfect time to relax, hunker down, and stop running around all the time like a damn crazy person." Yeah, not so much. January has been hectic as all hell. This hasn't been an entirely bad thing, but it has not been relaxing in any way, shape, or form.

First off, I am not pregnant. This is okay, for now. In all honesty, the timing ended up not being great for a pregnancy (more on that in a minute) and we're going to give it a few months before trying again. I'm not going to lie, we were a little sad about it, but I think we'll be in a better place later on in the spring. Plus, if I wait a couple of months, I'll qualify for paid maternity leave, an awesome fringe benefit of my wonderful new job.

And thus begins the tale of why January has been so hectic. Last Monday, I started my new job as Maternal-Child Health Nurse at the tribal health clinic where I interned the summer of 2009. This has truly been a dream come true, and I still can't quite believe I got this job. During my internship, the MCH Nurse at the time was my mentor, and I fell in love with the work as well as the community. She was leaving her position that fall, but I had another year of school left. We briefly talked about me applying as a LPN, but it wouldn't really have been workable with school, even if the clinic had been willing to hire a LPN for the position. Someone else, someone with a really great resume and background, got the job, and I told myself I would just have to try to come back once I finished a midwifery program. There generally isn't a lot of turnover for that position, so I figured it wouldn't open up again for quite some time.

My internship mentor and I had become very good friends, and we always talked about how great it would be to work together again someday. She finished up her own school this spring and is now a nurse-midwife, and had gone back to the clinic to head up a new MCH department. I thought and hoped that maybe someday we could work together in a midwifery practice for the tribe. Then she called me at the end of November and said that the MCH Nurse had submitted her resignation. I got my application in as soon as I could, and wrote the most gushing cover letter I have every written. I knew that I didn't have the work experience to wow anyone, but I did have the passion and desire to be doing that work specifically, in that community specifically, and I told them so. I interviewed on January 3rd and was offered the position the next day.

So I've been there a week, and I could not be happier. I still don't have a phone or a computer, but I'm also still orienting, so that's okay. The staff is wonderful and I share an office with my friend, who is also now my supervisor (and I realize that's not always ideal, but we are both talkers with a similar vision for the program, and I am more than aware that she's a brilliant person with a lot of respect in the community and many years of experience doing my job, so I'm happy to take direction from her). It's a 40-minute commute, but I'm not exactly sitting on I-94--my drive to work takes me up the Bayfield peninsula and it's gorgeous. I get to go to trainings and conferences--I'm going to the International Conference on Indigenous Children's Health in Vancouver in March--and meet all kinds of intelligent people doing incredible work. Like I said, I still can't quite believe I got this job.

Several years ago, I went a long time struggling to find any job that I could actually live on, let alone one I actually wanted. I liked my job at the Cancer Center, but it wasn't my dream. If anyone had told me four years ago that I would be in this position, I would have found it hard to believe. I don't know that I'll ever be able to take this for granted now. I hope not.