Your Mentors: SB Journaling Blog Challenge 2.04.06

Mentors........

• People in your life that have changed your course.. made you think in new ways.

• People that have been/are there for you, no matter what.

• People who are wise.

• People you learn from, everytime you are in their presence.

Who is/are your mentors?

Write about these special people in your life.... and how they changed your life, or moulded you into the person you are today.

Wow........ Takes me back a little.....

The first mentor I can remember would have to be my Seventh Grade Math Teacher - Mrs. Smelzer. HATED her. I would be so sick to my stomach entering her classroom every day. Math was something I struggled with ALOT. One day she had me stand up in front of the class and by the time I was sitting down I was sobbing. She called my mom and all I remember is getting tested one day after school. Then - I would spend literally an hour after school with her three days a week. I had tested positive for tendencies towards dyslexia. After they tested me more - they rearranged my ciriculium and my grades soared as well as my relationship with my math teacher. I ended up LOVING her and LOVING math. If it wasn't for her pushing me and then sitting down with me showing me her passion for math I may never had figured out why I struggled so much.....

Then - while in college not knowning what I wanted to be when I grew up - I met this nurse who was AWESOME. Judy! She was amazing in her care of babies and moms. I had a negative idea of nurses when I met her but she totally changed my mind. She was caring, spunky, independent, proactive and intelligent. (Disclaimer - this was QUITE A WHILE AGO!!!) She encouraged me and helped me to make career choices to finish Nursing School and go into Pediatrics!

Currently - as a wife, mom and nurse - I have many different mentors in minor ways. I always look to people who are doing well in whatever I am looking at (parenting, nursing, being a wife, spiritual walk, scrapbooking, etc.) I tend to watch them and observe how they are doing things, their reactions to situations, innovative things they do, thought processes, prioritizing and other misc things. I tend to seek out people that will bring me up as opposed to keeping me at my level of status quo. There are many of them and some are for a moment in time impacting a particular step of my life's journey. One in particular that stands out was my Midwife when I had Rowan. She took me on as a patient at 20 weeks when my OB moved back to Texas. I LOVED my OB and was very upset when he left. He allowed water births, minimal interventions and was as natural of an MD as you could get. Tracey was a PERFECT match. She was GREAT. Without her - I do not think I could have made it thru Rowan's labor. She mentored me antepartum, labor and post partum for quite a while. I still use many of the things she shared with me to my new moms I meet in the ED who are having difficult times nursing or with new baby care.

As I previously stated - there are so many day to day mentors in my life - and I feel bad that I am not able to acknowledge them both here and in my life. But - they have molded me and made me who I am today!