some people have the best jobs in the world. they can travel places for free, meet lots of interesting people in different social circles, get loads of freebies — the perks! when i think about my job in comparison to those jobs, i oftentimes think that mine is just a regular day job that, in time, people take for granted. sure, being in the field of health care is boring enough as it is with your time spent mostly in the whitewashed corners of the hospital. among the different areas, the ER is probably the most, um, fun, next to surgery. Nursery/NICU would probably rank last in the “fun” category, as the job is deemed monotonous, even boring. from a bird’s eye view, it seems that way, especially when feeding babies and changing nappies become the highlights of your career.  and truth be told, i have come to realize that same fact but today i had an epiphany.

as boring as the Nursery/NICU may be to other people, i have learned to love my job. how many people are given the opportunity to welcome hundreds of babies into this world? how many people are given the chance to give them their first feeding? their first bath? their first diaper change? their first everything? these are innocent souls placed under our care. we were there the first time they breathed. the first time they cried. the first time they smiled. we were there at the very start of their journey.

so when people say that working in the nursery is a piece of cake, i seriously wanna shove them inside the room with all the babies and let them do all the work that we do. come to think of it, most mothers are even scared of holding their own babies! we have to teach them how and they start getting all amazed at how good we are at it. well, we got better in time. all of us did. and the first time was never a breeze for any of us but we learned. but still, the learning process didn’t happen overnight. so it wasn’t exactly a walk in the park, either.

and then we had babies under intensive care. those who had to be intubated and attached to a mechanical ventilator just so they would survive. some of them did, some of them didn’t. but still, we were there during their very short stint at life.

now that i think about all this, i guess it’s safe to say that this job has a higher meaning. a sense of purpose. ‘coz when i got this job, i never really wanted it. but my dad told me that there must be a reason why my first area of assignment was exactly in the same place where i was born. there must be some sort of connection to all that. and i believed him. everything happens for a reason, after all.