Cold Feet... Or is it Buyer's Remorse?

Ok, so that whole job situation I just posted about (that I wrote a week and a half ago).... Here's the update:

They interviewed two external candidates, and then offered me the job.

Of course they did, but not before wasting multiple people's time and screwing with my emotional state! Not to mention leaving me with a bad taste in my mouth about the whole thing.

When I spoke with my boss last week and she told me about the nurse manager wanting to bring in additional candidates, and she wasn't able to give me any sort of feedback about WTF was going on with the situation, she suggested I go directly to the source and email the nurse manager herself. So I did. I explained that I wanted to make it a learning opportunity, and I was hoping she could give me some feedback about my interviews that led to her wanting to bring in other candidates. I also said that I was still very interested in the job, could see myself fitting in well with the patients and families and staff on the unit, and offered to speak with her further if she had any other questions for me, etc.

She never responded to my email, and yes, I was expecting her to. She owed me that. Plus, it's the respectful thing to do to respond to a professional email asking for feedback. Even if she didn't answer my questions directly, she could have sent a quick, one-sentence email just acknowledging mine. But, no.

So today, when I got the call from HR offering me the job, and was asked immediately if I was going to accept it (WTF? Do I really not even get 24 hours to think about it??), I was flustered. I didn't know what to do. I'd been thinking about what I was going to do, but hadn't figured it out yet. And here I was, having to make a split-second decision!

Actually, I didn't make a split-second decision. When I got the call, I was finishing up giving an orientation to some new nurses in the ED. I shouldn't have answered the phone, but I didn't recognize the name of the person calling, and I thought it may be important, so I did. But when I realized who it was and what the call was about, I wished I hadn't! After she asked if I was going to accept the job, I said this may be highly unusual, but would it be possible for me to call her back in a few minutes, since I was giving a presentation. I quickly finished up with the nurses, and called my boss. I told her I was having a little bit of a hard time with this, since between the external candidates thing and then not responding to my email, I wasn't sure how to read the nurse manager, and that I just wasn't feeling totally good about taking the job. She said the nurse manager respects and values child life, and has always been easy to work with, flexible, and fair. She just wanted to be able to see what/who was out there, but that she feels "really good about the decision" to offer the job to me. That helped.

Then I called my dad, and asked him if it was crazy to go down to part-time and have a decrease in pay plus a ridiculously huge increase in health insurance costs. He was able to reassure me that for a couple of reasons, I don't need to worry about it too much, and that my finances will be ok. That also helped.

Then I called L, the other child life specialist who works in dialysis and with whom I'd be job-sharing. She's great, very laid-back, and I think we'll work well together (even though once I'm oriented we'll never actually work at the same time). She said she doesn't have problems working for/with the nurse manager, and that there have been some issues on the unit recently (a nurse left, a current dialysis patient passed away at home in her sleep unexpectedly), that may have led to the nurse manager being stressed and not responding to my email, but that she usually does respond to them. That also helped.

So, then I finally called the HR woman back and accepted the job. The whole time thinking, "OMG, what am I doing?, this is crazy!" and then hung up and immediately thought, "OMG, what have I done?!". Total panic attack ensued!

Well, not a literal panic attack. But I was really freaked out, and kept thinking "What have I done? What have I done?" over and over, and had all kinds of thoughts about why would I leave the ED, I love it here, I'm good at it, what if I don't like the new job, what if it's boring, what if I regret this decision...

Ah, fear of change! Yeah, I'm not so good with change. Can you tell?! Although, I don't even remember being this freaked out while I was pregnant! I had brief moments of "this is crazy, am I really doing this?" but nothing this panic-y feeling. I wonder what that means. Have I really made a bad decision?

But I'll finally have some normalcy, some consistency in my life. And in Jordyn's life. I'm doing this for her, for me, for us as a family. These "baby days" don't last too long, and I'm going to love being able to look back and know that I spent as much time as I possibly could with her (and maybe someday her sibling??) while she was young.

A few conversations with friends helped me calm down and remember why I'm doing this, and I'm going to just keep reminding myself of those reasons. They're good ones, I know they are. And I think once I have some time to process all of this, I'll remember why I chose to interview for this job in the first place. And seeing Jordyn's little face in the morning... Oh yeah, that'll cement it!