Officially a Nursing Student

I am in week 3 of nursing school and I am already a bit overwhelmed! I had my first official crying melt down last week dealing with the bureacracy of the program and their lack of common sense. Here is the short version: so I am 23wks pregnant and soon to start clinicals in October. We were instructed to get a gait belt (transfer belt), so I asked if I could wait to get mine next block since I cant lift patience (i.e. im pregnant). I hate to play the "race card", but here we go...they look at me like 1. here is another complaining Black woman trying to get out of work. They ask me if I am high risk and I reply, NO IM PREGNANT (i.e. all providers tell clients dont lift heavy objects). They respond with the safety of their patients is most important...blah blah blah. My thought is "i agree, but the safety of your students should be too". Out of frustration and anger I leave with 1. no definitive answer 2. feeling unsupported 3. thinking they expect me to fail and quit. Needless to say I left balling in the school parking lot and called my man for support and advice.

The moral of the story here is that they HAVE NOT heard the last from me, I will be AN EXAMPLE for the next mother coming behind me, and I will not allow them to stop my goals/plans. This is just the beginning of many obstacles for me to face being the non-traditional, non-medicalized nursing student. But this is good practice for me to gain confidence and bring out the Black Panther in me.

How can a field of work based on caring and sympathy treat their students this way. American society refuses to support and uplift pregnant/mothering women...which is what our bodies were created to do PROCREAT and NURTURE. I do not believe the womens liberation movements' goal was to obliterate that which makes women so powerful. We can be mothers and still succeed in our careers, BUT I dont think we should have to sacrifice one for the other. America has some of the poorest outcomes in relation to birth/mothering etc in comparison to the rest of the world. Is this a coincidence? I think not! Maybe we need to sit down and take notes from all of the poorer countries because they must be doing something right.