I'm so blessed....

Well - here's the long story long...

We knew when we moved to Shanghai, Dell did not cover maternity expenses for its local hires of which Will is one. So, say it with me... since I'm anal and a control freak, I wanted to carefully research our options and cost so that when it came time (AND NO THE TIME IS NOT NOW), we'd know where we wanted to go. We were looking into another insurance policy, but I would have to wait 12 months before they would cover anything, blah blah blah. To find out how much it costs to have a baby - I sent email to a couple of the International Hospitals. One in particular, Worldlink, our friend Sarah (and now Jessica) is going to deliver at. I mentioned in my note that I was, uh, AM an L&D nurse and I was impressed by their facilities and with my friend's MD.

The manager sent me back an email with th cost breakdown and also started a little conversation - she is a midwife that received her training in the UK and always likes to talk to other nurses about their practice abroad. I told her I'd love to get together sometime and that if she knew of any job or volunteer opportunities to please let me know.

So, guess what??? I had an interview today and also spoke to the head OB/Gyn MD on staff. They were great. Although I can't practice as an RN, they were interested in having me teach prenatal classes to the expat community, act as a liason between parents and the NICU, and also work with the nurses on staff to help them with their practice standards. Alice said they are trained differently - ie. they do whatever you tell them (I can help fix that for sure!) and are not always considerate to patient privacy, etc... So she would like me to work with them on becoming more autonomous and helping them with their Medical English. Is this the dream job or what? She wanted me to work FULL TIME and I said no! Lets start with 16-20 hours/week. HR is supposed to be in touch so we can talk $$, benefits, start date... I even hooked Patty up too - Alice said PLEASE put her in touch, that way 2 part time people would equal a full time person! So cross your fingers and pray for Patty too!. I never thought it would happen like this - I'm trying to go with the flow and hope that everything works out - it has so far despite a bruise or two here and there.

Shout out to Brack L&D - I got your card today - thank you so much for all your wonderful thoughts and prayers and miss yous, etc - and thank you all for keeping up with the blog. The silly website still won't publish pictures, so we'll see how long that takes to get fixed!