Please don't take this as my making light of your situation, but perhaps I can give you a distracting humorous mental image: when I was expecting dd, my supervisor and I planned everything out so I could gracefully fade out of some of the more physical and risky parts of my job as my enormity grew. I forgot one little detail: CPR. I realized time was running out on my cert. I was about 7 months, so, not too bad. Except I came down with H1N1 the week of the class. oops! (that's not the funny bit - not funny at all) Then I signed myself up for the next month. A client had a crisis that pulled me out of THAT session. Fast-forward a month, and I finally managed to waddle into class. So, if you need it tomorrow, feel free to summon up the image of the chubby 9-month-pregnant girl trying to save Rescusa-Annie without triggering labor!

It did occur to me how much of a company legend I'd become if my CPR instructor had to deliver my baby! The only medical professionals in the building were psychiatrists...and I don't think they would have been much help.

Our niece is a psychiatrist and delivered plenty of babies in medical school and during residency shifts in the E.R.

Our niece is a psychiatrist and delivered plenty of babies in medical school and during residency shifts in the E.R.

Good to know! Perhaps I would've been in good hands. If not, they'd at least have had the counseling skills to make me feel better about the situation.

My dh is a psychiatrist and internist and is always having to help on airplanes. I don't know where your niece did residency, GLG but my dh hasn't delivered a baby since med school. He would do it if need be, but HE'D need counseling afterwards...

I once started to anaphylax at a dinner with 10 shrinks and they were oh so helpful with their "how do you feel about impending doom?" Umm, not as funny as they thought. I went to see some real doctors in the ER...

Sara, have you ever encountered abuse and had to make a report? I've made dozens of reports in 3 states. Actual abuse is heartbreaking, but I am not sure what they are showing you that is upsetting?

Videos by perpetrators and victims that were pretty graphic was the hard part. I have actually made a call but it was before I was a teacher and just a concerned family member. Had to call on my own aunt to protect my cousin. I am a bit more sensitive to the stories because I personally know a survivor of incest who never got help. She told us about it like it was normal to do and I didn't know what to do about it so I never told anyone because I was little.

I do appreciate the imagery noone! I do fine except for the videos with people having chest pains. Last time there were only five of us in the room and this time we will all be there. I should be better this time with more people there, I don't like to be upset in public.

SatinSky,

I am sorry that you had that experience as a child. How traumatic. I was so incredibly sheltered in my happy, functional family. School nursing taught me a lot and I thought I had seen it all, but it turns out there is awfulness that one can't contemplate until seeing it that I saw as an inpatient child psych nurse. We had many patients whose parents had pimped out their preschooler/school aged kids (both genders) for drugs and all kinds of other awfulness. Because of dh's work with sex offenders and felons, are night time conversations often revolve around the seedy side of life, so I am always saddened and angry about situations, but never surprised.

I am saying this out of caring, but I am concerned about your grief. I thought I remembered your father died 10 years ago? If I am wrong I am sorry. I totally, totally get the extent of the loss. My own father died 15 years ago this week when I was 25, though in many ways I lost him to Alzheimer's long before that. It is not something one ever gets over, and it sounds as if it were sudden, and you were there, which has got to have been a very traumatic event. Maybe you have a little PTSD from it that it is reactivated when you see the CPR videos? It took me years before I could work with dementia patients easily again, so I do understand, but if you were to be called on to do CPR, would you freeze? I just wonder if it would be helpful to work through your grief with somebody, not to take it away (nothing can or should do that) but to make it easier to bear? I try to focus on happy memories around my dad's birthday, and not focus on the day he died. My stepfather's death is so fresh that I am not there yet, and won't be for some time, but it always takes time. I am sorry that this is going to be a tough week for you, and hope that it goes as well as it can, and that you can remember happy times.

Jeff, isn't delivering a baby like riding a bike? Our niece once thought of being an OB/GYN, so she delivered a lot of babies before going into psychiatry. Or maybe it's because she had three of her own that I think she'd handle it.

Sarah, good luck with with your CPR certification. Try not to focus on the past. If your babies were in trouble, you know that you would put on your Super Mom cape and do anything to save them. So rather than focus on the past, try to think about what a capable woman you are and how you can handle any crisis that has come your way.

GLG said it much better than me!

I hope everything went well today, Sara.

I once started to anaphylax at a dinner with 10 shrinks and they were oh so helpful with their "how do you feel about impending doom?" Umm, not as funny as they thought. I went to see some real doctors in the ER...

I'm sorry but I can't stop snickering at this! It is SO something dh, I or our mental health friends would say. Oh, that dark social services / medical humor. Never if someone was going into serious anaphylaxis, of course. You should have stabbed them with a fork and later claimed you were dis-inhibiting due to a change of consciousness.

The woman running it didn't show all the videos so the video that reminded me of my dad actually wasn't played. Normally I'm ok, I get sad sometimes when I get the thought that my dad would have loved to see or hear something the kids did. Otherwise, I really have gotten through my grief. I have also done the CPR training several times... it was just something last year about watching a video of a man acting out a heart attack that got me. They redid everything a few years ago I guess and I hadn't seen that before. It brought back memories of watching my dad be sick and not being able to help.

Thank goodness the friend who told us about the incest has grown up to be healthy both physically and emotionally. I just don't love sitting through 2 hours of listening about child abuse. It's sad...

The old video (I'm assuming you do Red Cross?) was so very melodramatic as to be downright silly. The new one is more subtle and probably more realistic.

I hear you! We got married three years after my dad died. He didn't get to meet any of our husbands, any grandchildren. It breaks my heart still that his biggest (verbalized) regret was not being able to have grandchildren. I'm glad that you have a loving FIL, dh's father is a jerk who we don't see a lot because their craziness is not something we want the kids exposed to.

The aunt I had to call CPS on is not part of our family visit up North either. Which is so sad for me, we were so close when I was little and now she refuses help for a drug problem.

Hope does things that remind me of my dad, she is named for him. Even walking on the knuckles of her feet which is sooooo gross but he did it when he was little too. It's funny how that happened.