Anyone who was around during my pregnancy and my work dilemma knows that I was very close to leaving UCLA. But I stayed because I had my health insurance through them. When I had the baby we took the opportunity and switched the health insurance to Russell's work, so that I could switch jobs if need. When I was on maternity leave I went back and forth on where I was going to go when I went back to work. (Previous to maternity leave I worked at UCLA and Torrance Memorial.) I liked Torrance Memorial but it just wasn't challenging at all. And I knew it would be a temporary job, not a job I would be happy at. But I was going to go there for my little baby. Torrance Memorial had previously stated that they were going to hire me on full-time after maternity leave. But after a rush of applications during my 5 month leave they didn't have a position open. So I went back to UCLA hoping that the same problems wouldn't happen as during my pregnancy. After about a month stuff started surfacing. But I have stated to everyone that I am staying here till I'm done breastfeeding.
Part of me about a month ago was happy about staying at UCLA. I didn't let having a family change my career. I am becoming a great seasoned nurse.
I felt and still feel that it would be too strong of odds against me to learn a new place and take 20 minute breaks every 3 hours. But a couple of things have happened, first leaving my daughter so darn early in the morning and not getting home till 9:30 at night is just not fun. Nursing is already a long day and I'm tacking on an additional 3 hours. I hold my daughter in my arms and wish I didn't have to let her go. Also I was reflecting to a friend-co worker the other day on all that has happened and went down and how they are regulating my breaks for breastfeeding. And how I had to come into work and fight for the little time I have and show them California laws. And just hear them respond, "you don't want to make yourself look different. People don't like that." It furiates me. (I just found out furiates isn't a word, but you get the point.) People that work the night shift don't have a problem. But they say it is because the unit is more busy during the day. Then slowly people have started coming back to work from maternity leave. (There was 9 of us pregnant.) And some come back on days but only work part-time and no one questions them about their time they take. Part of me wants to say "hey!" but I think that would just give them less time and more hardship pumping and that wouldn't be beneficial to anyone.
So here I am. I got another 6 months of breastfeeding, if I can in this environment. And Russell and I are planning vacations as late as October and if I switch jobs I might not get the time off for vacations. But October seems so far away. I don't want to stay at UCLA now let alone next October.
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2 comments:
oh jenny, im so sorry you are still having the same issues at work.
just remember that if push comes to shove, the law will take care of things :)
It seems to me that when push comes to shove you need to really look and make some hard choices. You need to look at, not only what you want and need, but what your daughter needs.
Do you think she would benefit from you being home more? Isn't that worth the risk of a lost vacation or disrupting the flow of a new job? Can't you get your "challenges" from being the best mom?
The hard thing about women today is that they think they need to do it all, without putting proper weight on the needs of children over their own.
That's my opinion.
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