June 2024
The bright lights in the hospital never turned off. I was so tired. My feet hurt in my old shoes. I felt like I smelled like cleaning stuff all the time. I’m a nurse. I used to love my job, helping people. But now? I felt trapped. I worked too many hours. I didn’t get paid enough. My student loan bills were huge. And then… I found out I was pregnant.

My husband teaches school. He started working extra late, grading papers. I saw him looking worried about money. That hurt. Bad. Here I was, helping other people have babies, but I was scared I couldn’t even afford things for my own baby. Every time I helped a new mom, I almost cried.

I tried to find a better job. Hospitals, clinics… everywhere. No one called me back. Just “no” emails. One really bad night, after I couldn’t save a patient, I broke down. I hid in the stairwell and cried like I’d never cried before. I felt completely broken.

Then my phone buzzed. My sister: “Hey, are you okay? You seem quiet.”
I called her right then. I told her everything – how hopeless I felt, how scared, how ashamed that I couldn’t be a good provider. She listened. Then she said something hard but true:

“Listen. The world doesn’t care if you’re drowning. It won’t save you. Only you can pull yourself up. Stop telling yourself you’re stuck. Start believing you deserve better. Pray hard. Fight hard. Your chance is coming. I know it. I love you.”

Her words shocked me. They weren’t soft, but they woke me up. That night, I found an old notebook from nursing school. On the first page, I’d written years ago: “Heal with heart.” I cried again. I watched that movie The Pursuit of Happyness – the part where the dad and son have nowhere to sleep. It broke my heart, but this time, it also made me feel strong.

The next morning, I went to the river before the sun came up. I took off my shoes. I tore pages out of my work notepad and wrote down what I wanted:

“I WILL work with new moms and babies.”
“I WILL hold my baby without being scared about money.”
“I WILL remember why I wanted to be a nurse.”

A week later, I was at my own doctor’s checkup. Sitting alone in the room, sunlight came through the window. I closed my eyes, put my hands on my belly, and saw it clearly in my mind:

• Me, helping new moms bring their babies into the world in a happy place.
• My husband smiling because we paid a bill.
• Our baby’s room, warm and safe.
  I believed it, deep down, with everything I had.

Three days later, I was leaving another tough shift. Walking to my car in the parking garage, Dr. Evans stopped me. She was a famous baby doctor I learned from years ago.
“I heard you might want a change,” she said. “My new birthing center needs a lead nurse. Someone tough. Someone who… hasn’t forgotten why we do this.”

I was stunned. How did she know?
She smiled. *”Your sister called me. But what really mattered? How much you cared when we lost Mrs. Riley last year. *That’s* the nurse I need.”*

The “interview” was just us talking – about helping moms, about why nursing matters. When she gave me the job offer, the pay was… good. Really good. Enough.

Yesterday, I parked our new (used) SUV outside the birthing center. I touched the folded papers in my pocket – the ones I wrote my dreams on by the river.
Every single thing I wrote down?
It happened.