This is it, the final shift before I become simply a mama.
The last time I’ll step into scrub shoes, the last time I’ll throw on hospital-laundered blue scrubs. I will no longer feel the cotton of a scrub cap fall against my hair as I tie it.
I don’t know if I’ll ever slap an instrument into the hands of waiting surgeons again or if I’ll get to feel the rush of adrenaline racing against the clock. I don’t know if I’ll get to smell the prep agents or count tirelessly, making sure that I have everything I started with.
I can honestly say that I have loved my job. For the last five years, I’ve loved it even more than I imagined I could when I started a decade ago-moving into OB/Labor and Delivery gave my soul something I can never explain. I have given everything I am to this job, this calling.
I have been able to care for and love on people during their most vulnerable moments. Patients trusted me with themselves, families with their loved ones, and mamas with their babies. I’ve seen the highest of highs and lowest of lows; celebrated and mourned, all while doing what this job demands to the best of my ability; giving pieces of myself that I didn’t even realize were being taken. I THRIVED under the immense pressure.
And like Taylor Swift says, it’s the end of a decade, but the start of an age.
But I can’t help thinking who am I without this all-encompassing title, these letters after my name? Who am I other than Rachel Yanan, CST? What does happiness look like when it is up to me?
I’m simply mama.
I get to be this fully to my babies.
I get to see them wake up every day, softly calling out for their mama. To make messes and hear the pitter-patter of feet as they run around our kitchen while I make my coffee. I no longer have the stress of balancing multiple work schedules and praying nothing changes last minute. I get endless snuggles and dinosaurs chomping Cheetos while we watch our favorite movies. I’m the keeper of the boo-boo kisses, even more so now. Dances in the kitchen, hugs around my legs, and laughs filling the air as we explore.
I now have the chance to reclaim myself for myself while stepping into the wild west of being a stay-at-home mom. I get the opportunity to reinvent my life so that I can give my kiddos their best lives.
And I’m immensely grateful, incredibly lucky to simply, mama.
