Labor & Delivery Nurse, Christine Daniel

[00:00] Michelle: Have you ever wanted to know what a Labor & Delivery nurse does? Well, in this episode, Christine Daniel, a Labor& Delivery nurse for over two decades, tells us about the highs and lows of this interesting nursing specialty. The lows. I mean, the pace is fast. You can stand for long periods. It's very physical, and there's dealing with loss as well as the social issues surrounding pregnancy. But then there are the highs. The individuality of each delivery experience, the challenge of the operating room, the thrill of learning a new skill, the shared sense of teamwork, and the awareness of just how much joy you give and receive in a day's work. And don't forget about the vagina in the box. I'm not sure if that's a high or a low, but it was the source of a lot of laughs. In the five-minute snippet, I hope that Christine's wish may someday come true, that those little thought bubbles above her head will become visible to all. So watch out. Here is Christine Daniel. You're listening to the conversing nurse podcast. I'm Michelle, your host. And this is where together, we explore the nursing profession, one conversation at a time. Well, hello, Christine. Welcome to the show.
[01:22] Christine: Hi, Michelle. Thanks for having me.
[01:25] Michelle: Today you're here because we are talking about all things Labor & Delivery nursing, and I just thought you would be the perfect person because you have so much experience and when I was working with you, I saw your passion in everything that you did. So that's why I wanted to talk to you today.
[01:50] Christine: Great. Sounds good. I'm happy to be here.
[01:54] Michelle: Okay. So usually what I like to do is just kind of jump right in. And I saw that you went into Labor & Delivery right out of nursing school. And what was it in nursing school that attracted you to this type of nursing?
[02:14] Christine: Well, let's see. I can't say that I had an amazing clinical experience when I was in nursing school for this portion of the nursing program because I don't know if it was a matter of there being so many hospitals in San Francisco that just weren't as busy on the unit where I was set up to do clinical. So I never saw a live birth. I never got to see a c-section. But my instructor was so passionate about what it was that she did and just really made the topic interesting. And I think the fact that I never got to see anything I really wanted to, I don't know, get in there and see what it was like to be in a labor and delivery room. So I think it was my third year in nursing school when I applied at Kaweah hospital to do a student nurse intern, or I think back then, they called it a student nurse aide. And I got the job there in Labor & Delivery. And my very first delivery was just amazing. And so I just knew that that was the type of nurse that I was going to be.
[03:32] Michelle: Wow, that's a great experience. I mean, to go all through nursing school and really not have those kinds of experiences that we always hope to get in nursing school and then having, like you said, a mentor and instructor that you saw, oh, my gosh, she is so passionate about it. That's a blessing in and of itself. And then to have, like, a good delivery for your first delivery, and it wasn't like a train wreck where you're, like, wanting to run away.
[04:07] Christine: Right.
[04:08] Michelle: You were so blessed.
[04:10] Christine: It all worked out perfectly.
[04:12] Michelle: Yeah. So now you're a Labor & Delivery nurse and a new grad, all that stuff. And how long did it take you to really, like, gain confidence in your skills and your assessments? How did that go?
[04:30] Christine: That's a hard one. I would say that I did not gain my confidence until maybe about year five. When I was on orientation as a new nurse, my preceptor had been there. I think she said she had been there for five years at the time, and she seemed so confident and worked really well with the patients, and I kept thinking, I just have to get through this. I need to be just like her. And around that five-year mark, I'd say that I started gaining some confidence in the normal routine of assessments and laboring with patients. And just from there on, I feel like my confidence just kind of I added to that level of confidence each year.
[05:20] Michelle: There's so much to Labor & Delivery nursing.
[05:23] Christine: Right.
[05:24] Michelle: It's not easy at all. There are layers and layers of things that you need to know. And the field of Labor & Delivery nursing has changed so much over the years with technology, with all the electronic fetal monitoring and the amnioinfusion, and it's just like, there's always something new to learn. So five years, I'd be like, okay, cool, I'm getting it. So, you know, during that time when you were learning, and hopefully we're always learning, but who do you go to for help? If you need help on a certain skill or whatever it is, who do you go to for help?
[06:07] Christine: So at the beginning, when I was a new grad, new nurse, I would always go to my preceptor or the Charge nurse that was on the unit. And I have to say, 20 years ago, when I was new on the unit, we had a great team of Charge nurses. And my preceptor, who still works there with me now, was just a wealth of knowledge. And she was so calm, you could ask her anything. And she would just guide me in the direction and let me know what it was that I was doing. Okay, you're fine. It's fine. It's all going to be okay. You just need to go and do this. And if I still didn't get it. She would basically hold my hand through the entire process. Never got to start an IV on a real live patient in nursing school. And so that was a big hurdle to get over when I was a new nurse on the floor, because, you know, these patients are real, and they have feelings, and they have pain. And so I was scared to death to poke somebody with a needle for the first time. But here I am 20 years later, and when there's a difficult IV start, they're like, go find Christine. She can get it. So that is definitely something that I enjoy. I enjoy being the person that they come to for the help that they need. But back to your question about who do I go to? Even 20 years in, I still have areas where it's new or something new comes up that I haven't encountered. And I just look to my colleagues, even a newer nurse fresh out of school might have an answer for me, because, like you said, we're always learning. There's always something new. And sometimes that fresh mind straight out of nursing school might have that answer for me.
[08:04] Michelle: Yeah, that is a really important message. Our colleagues, I just have the philosophy that we can always learn from somebody, and we can always teach somebody. So there's just always somebody that has maybe a skill that we don't have or we have a resource that they're not aware of. And so to share that with your colleagues is really amazing. I was listening to your story about IVs, and it just brought a story to my mind about, you know, I started in pediatrics and then went to NICU. So I had never started an IV on an adult, a grown-up person. So I got really good at starting IVs on babies and, you know, really tiny babies. And then when I did postpartum for a little bit, well, it was like Flex. And I had to start an IV with those huge gauges, the 18. And for, like, months, I just blew every IV, and everybody was laughing at me because they're like, oh, my gosh, you're so good at IVs. And I'm like, yeah, give me a 24 gauge, and I can get it in basically a thread. But you give me this huge water hose, and I can't find anything.
[09:24] Christine: Right.
[09:25] Michelle: That's crazy. It's a skill. Yeah. Along those lines, you talked about who you go to for help. So what do people ask for your help with?
[09:37] Christine: I think the most asked questions are the fetal monitoring tracing and the baby's heart rate. What kind of do decel? Does this baby look good? Should I continue with Pitocin? Even my colleagues that have been doing it just as long as I have, are always asking each other, can you look at my tracing? Does it look okay to you? You know, just a second opinion. Even though you're pretty confident that it looks good, you always get a checker, a double checker, just because you want to make sure that before you take them off the monitor or before you're sending them off back home, you want to make sure their baby looks good.
[10:23] Michelle: I think that's so important in our profession, too, before we jump to a conclusion. Even if, like you said, you have years and years of experience to bounce it off somebody, that's just so important. So from a NICU nurse working with you for many years and going to deliveries and C-sections and all that, you know, when I would walk in the room and I would see you or one of your colleagues, like, doing a vag exam, and you're like, she's minus three station, she's this much dilatation. She's effaced this much. I saw, like, this halo around you guys, and I felt like you guys were just, like, magicians.
[10:24] Christine: I mean, it does seem very mysterious, I guess you could say. It's definitely a skill that took a lot of practice in the beginning because it's hard to learn, and it is hard to teach it because you obviously both can't be checking at the same time. And so it's a blind skill that.
[11:48] Michelle: You have to figure out, what do you guys practice on other than I know you get real practice as you examine the patient, but do you have, like, simulations or how does that work?
[12:04] Christine: We do. I think we have always had a vagina in a box.
[12:11] Michelle: And wow, that paints the picture, right?
[12:12] Christine: And so it's just this, like, square little box that has this rubbery I don't know, it's even hard to describe, but it gives you that feel for where the cervix is at. And then based on what you're feeling there, we have a little plastic chart, I guess, and that you have all these little circles from 1 cm, kind of compare as you're doing the exam on the practice vagina. It's kind of a feel-and-look type of teaching at the beginning, but still, it's very subjective. Everyone's two centimeters, three-centimeter is slightly different than the next person. But, yeah, you have a vagina in a box that you get to put your fingers in and try to figure out what they're dilated to.
[13:12] Michelle: Wow. I'm just chuckling here. Just every time I hear you say vagina in a box, that's totally an accurate description because my fingers are big, and so then the person next to me might have very tiny hands and very slim fingers, and so a two to her would be him or her would be different than a two to me, I guess, right? Wow. So interesting. Okay, so tell our listeners a little bit about triage, like, what goes on in triage, and how much experience do I need as a labor and delivery nurse before I can be a triage nurse?
[14:03] Christine: Okay. So triage is basically our little labor and delivery emergency department. So once you're 20 weeks gestation and above, you would come up to triage if you had any issues. I mean, you could have anything from labor signs and symptoms to your head hurting or your ankle hurting. The emergency department for the main hospital is like, oh, they see you, you're pregnant. You got to go up to labor and delivery. So in triage, we see anything from a stubbed toe to a patient who is 10 pushing and needs to have a baby. So once you get up to the triage department, we basically just do a quick head-to-toe assessment, do an evaluation, and we are able to call the doctor with our assessment. And if they're in labor, then we put them out on the labor and delivery floor. If they're not, then we make sure their baby looks good. We'll do a vag exam maybe to see if they're dilated, and then they'll get sent home if it's early labor. The nurses that work in labor triage should have at least three years of experience in the labor and delivery unit, and they need to have their nurse inpatient obstetric certification. And so that's your RNC. You can take a test after a few I think it's three years of being in that department, you can take that test. And so that's one of the requirements to be a labor nurse or a triage.
[15:44] Michelle: I'm sorry.
[15:45] Christine: Okay.
[15:46] Michelle: Yeah. Okay. So I was going to ask you that, about the NICU certification is the RNC-NIC. And you've got to have three years experience as a labor and delivery nurse, and you have to be certified in your specialty.
[15:59] Christine: Yes.
[16:01] Michelle: Right off the top of your head, tell me about just a crazy experience you had in triage. Well, you're like, just one?
[16:11] Christine: Let's see, which one could be the best? I would have to say the craziest experience is getting a patient who is not pregnant and got sent up from the emergency department because she came in and said she was having contractions or that her water broke. And she came up to our floor and they're huffing and puffing and saying they have to push and she might appear to be pregnant of some gestational age. And we do a vag exam, can't really find a cervix, not sure what's going on. We can't get heart tones. So we get an ultrasound on this patient, and it turns out there is no baby inside her uterus. She's not pregnant. So that turned into further assessing the patient when we realized we're not going to be having a baby in the next couple of minutes turns into a mental health issue. And so now we have a mental health patient that we need to get help for. And so that's what we did. So you end up sending them back down to the emergency department and then they'll further assess for the help and treatment that they need.
[17:37] Michelle: Wow. Well, I'm going to be talking to a maternal child social worker in the next coming weeks. And so I just wanted since we're on the topic, how much do you work with social workers in your department?
[17:54] Christine: I would say that is definitely on a weekly basis. They usually give me as a charge nurse now. They'll call me each shift just to touch base and see if there's any needs that we have on the unit for them to come and talk to. But we do have our patients that have drug problems, and so we get social services involved with that. We have adoptions, we have surrogacy that requires a social worker with the paperwork and the planning care. And we also have our unfortunate events when we have babies that have passed in utero or have died once they're born. And so the social workers come up and see our patients and help us with the care and treatment plan for those patients.
[18:46] Michelle: Yeah, I would imagine that you guys see the social workers quite frequently. I mean, there's a lot of social problems around pregnancies, and for all those reasons that you listed. So, yeah, I'm going to be grilling her a lot about her experiences with pregnant patients and deliberate patients. So let's talk for a moment about surgery and C-sections. Do you know what the current C-section rate is there at your facility?
[19:27] Christine: Off the top of my head, I don't.
[19:30] Michelle: Okay.
[19:30] Christine: I want to say that it was somewhere in the, like, 30%.
[19:37] Michelle: Right on. That's what I was thinking, too. And last year I was thinking it was around 31%, which I think is pretty high. What do you think are some of the reasons for the high C-section rate in our particular area?
[19:55] Christine: I think that one of the issues is our population, I think, is very unhealthy in the terms of our diets. You know, there's fast food. We are so busy. We have so many kids most of the time. Most families have several that are doing school, sports, whatever, activities. So you're always cruising through that drive-through for a quick dinner. And so I think one of our biggest issues with these sections is because they are growing just a gigantic baby in there and they just can't push it out. And so I think the obesity in our population plays a role in those C-section rates.
[20:39] Michelle: Lots of gestational diabetes, lots of hypertension, primary hypertension, and then pregnancy-related hypertension, lots of drug use, all those things. And then because a lot of C-sections are done because the patient had a prior C-section. And so a lot of providers feel like once you have a C-section, then every birth after that is going to be a C-section. When I left last year, I was finally starting to see that kind of turn around where they were doing more like is it called a TOLAC?
[21:23] Christine: Yes.
[21:24] Michelle: And more vax and all of that, which I was happy to see. But what's your take on that? What do you think? Should we do more of that? Should we stick with the once a C-section, always a C-section? Talk to me about that.
[21:42] Christine: I think it is definitely a different situation for each patient. What was the reason for her first C-section? Was she in labor and we had felt distressed, so it was an emergency C-section? Then she comes back with her second pregnancy and wants to try to do a vaginal birth. I think that is 100% appropriate as long as there aren't any other risk factors, either with her health or with this pregnancy. Did she have a C-section the first time because she pushed for 3 hours and couldn't deliver vaginally? And then we do a C-section and she delivers a six-pound baby. And here we are at second pregnancy and this baby is weighing about the same. Her size hasn't changed. She's still 4'11" and 200lbs. And we're probably going to do another C-section. And I think that a C-section for her second one is 100% appropriate. There are some patients that feel like they just have to experience that normal vaginal delivery after a C-section, and it's not appropriate for every patient. It can be dangerous and scary for the nursing staff to have to monitor that and just know the risks involved. So to answer your question, I think it's great for some people to have a repeat C-section. And I think it's also great for some people to be able to desire to have that vaginal birth and be able to do that successfully.
[23:15] Michelle: Yeah. So individualized.
[23:17] Christine: Right.
[23:18] Michelle: Have you ever circulated a case?
[23:20] Christine: Yes.
[23:21] Michelle: And do you think that's a skill that labor and delivery nurses should have, like in their toolbox?
[23:29] Christine: Absolutely, I think that the C-sections, given that we said our rate is about we do anywhere from one C-section to seven C-sections in a day.
[23:44] Michelle: That's in a twelve-hour shift, right?
[23:47] Christine: Correct. It is definitely something that you will learn as a labor and delivery nurse. You might not have the experience of being a surgery nurse, and that's okay. You will learn it along with your orientation process for labor and delivery.
[24:05] Michelle: Okay. Talk to me a little bit about your experiences of working with midwives on your unit.
[24:14] Christine: Midwives' experiences are a little bit different than the traditional medical doctor path for labor and delivery. Midwives are more hands-off. We do intermittent monitoring and we don't have all the spotlights on and the bright lights at delivery. And it's just a more, I don't know, it's just a more personal I feel like a more personal and intimate moment for that patient and delivery just because it's not so medical. But again, those patients need to be very healthy without any complications so that we can be able to do that stuff. But midwives, they get that nursing experience beforehand, so they usually have amazing bedside manner and, you know, they work with you as kind of like your teammate in this labor process. So it's nice. It's nice to have a nice midwife labor and delivery.
[25:14] Michelle: Yeah, I remember the midwife on your unit and going to deliveries, and man, I echo exactly what you said. There's something really different about one of those deliveries. Quiet, the lights are down, and people are whispering. Really nice experience for the family.
[25:34] Christine: Right.
[25:35] Michelle: Talk to me a little bit about the physical demands of being a labor and delivery nurse.
[25:41] Christine: The physical demands, well, it's very physically demanding. I will say the older I get, I keep saying, okay, I'm getting too old for this. My body hurts at the end of the day, but it's usually very fast-paced. You never know what's coming through that door and it's very unpredictable sometimes. So lots of moving patients, you're constantly turning them. If you're having fetal distress, one of the things you do is change the patient's position. If they have an epidural, you're having to push and turn them and pull them in a certain way. So you have to be physically able to do that. Pushing with the patient can be 2-3 hours sometimes and you're at the bedside for that entire time of pushing. And so it is definitely a physical job. We work long twelve-hour shifts and so you're on your feet for the majority of that time. So, yeah, you're going to be physical every day.
[26:47] Michelle: I don't see labor nurses just sitting around. Right, you're standing, you're running, you're on top of somebody doing fundal pressure or it's just you're moving them from the gurney to the bed. It's so physical. And I would think after a while that would just be really difficult where maybe some nurses have to leave that type of nursing just because the physicality of it is just like so much.
[27:18] Christine: Right, yeah, definitely. You're pushing with a patient who might be up in stirrups and when you're numb with an epidural, legs are heavy and the patient's tired and they can't hold that weight of their leg themselves and push at the same time. So you're assisting with that. So there are definitely opportunities, I guess, for shoulder injuries to the nurse because of the demands of how much you have to assist your patients during labor and delivery.
[27:49] Michelle: Talk to me a little bit about your CRNA colleagues. I know you guys work really closely with them. Talk a little bit about that.
[27:57] Christine: So our CRNAs are on 24 hours a day and they do our epidurals. They also do the spinal anesthesia for a C-section. Again, like I said about the midwife, they started off as a registered nurse and they've worked in critical care and so they have a nursing bedside manner that you don't always get with a medical doctor or anesthesiologist. So we work very closely with them because a lot of our patients get epidurals, and so we call them, we coordinate epidural placements with them. They interview patients before surgery, and it's definitely a treat, I guess you can say, to have them on the unit 24 hours a day because you call them and they come when you need something and they listen. They listen to what your needs are for your patient, and they're willing to kind of help get the patient comfortable and do what's best for her at whatever stage of her labor she's in.
[29:02] Michelle: I have so much respect for them when I would see them on the unit. It must be so comforting for you as a labor nurse to have that kind of backup and to know that resources are just always available, always there. Are you guys currently working with a laborist?
[29:20] Christine: Yes. So we have laborists 24 hours a day. If they're on, they usually do twelve-hour call schedules. So right now there's just a handful of them that will do it. And they're not restricted, meaning they don't have to stay inside the hospital during the day as long as they are, I think, within a half hour away from the hospital. But at night time, they are restricted. So from 07:00 P.m. Until 07:00 A.m., if they're on call as the labor in-house in the hospital to help with emergency deliveries that we might have to do if the doctor is at home and we can't get them here fast enough so they help us out with some triage patients. Or if we get someone through triage that needs an emergency C-section and the doctors say is at his house, that's 20 minutes away, then we can always get that provider to come in and help us get the C-section started.
[30:20] Michelle: That's a great benefit to the patients and also to the nurses. NICU we love having our Neos right there in the call room. You don't have to call a doctor from home and wait till they get here. That's such an improvement in patient care and nurse satisfaction.
[30:39] Christine: I would say yes, definitely.
[30:41] Michelle: Let's see. We're going to finish this sentence.
[30:44] Christine: Okay.
[30:45] Michelle: If I weren't a labor nurse, I'd__________
[30:48] Christine: Be an OR nurse.
[30:53] Michelle: Oh, I love it. Okay, well, you've done enough. You certainly know how the OR works. That's cool. Okay. I'm a bedside nurse in a different specialty. I want you, Christine, to convince me why I would want to be a labor and delivery nurse.
[31:13] Christine: All right, well, you form this amazing bond with your patient because our patient ratios are a lot less than what you would have on a mentoring unit. So it's usually 1:2 or 1:1. So you get that time to be at the bedside more with that one patient, and you are helping them with this amazing experience of their life to add this new member to their family. Some patients have waited years to be able to even get pregnant, and here we are nine months later, and they are delivering their sweet little bundle of joy into the world. And that moment that that baby is delivered, the tears from dads, the excitement from mom, just being exhausted physically, but so excited to have her newborn is just really a treat to be able to be a part of that experience for them. After delivery, you get this amazing, cute little bundle of joy that you get to actually care for as well for a couple of hours during the recovery phase. And it's definitely a rewarding experience.
[32:38] Michelle: Well, I definitely got the chills listening to you talk about that, because that's why we do it, right? Yeah. Those are the reasons, when it comes right down to it, why we are on our feet all day, why we're running around to form those bonds, to help those families form those bonds. I loved going to deliveries because each one was different, and I loved that each experience was different. And you just bring so much talking about your experience and why you convinced me I want to be an L&D nurse.
[33:26] Christine: Even if it's their fourth or fifth baby, that excitement of that new baby is still, I think, just as exciting for them as it was the first time.
[33:36] Michelle: Exactly.
[33:37] Christine: I just love to be present at those, you know, as a charge nurse, I get to go to every single delivery, and it's great. It's just that experience that always reminds me of why I became a labor and delivery nurse.
[33:51] Michelle: Yeah. And as a NICU nurse, man, I loved seeing the charge nurses at the deliveries. It gave me a lot of satisfaction. It gave me a lot of comfort knowing that you guys are there because you guys are just you're prepared for anything. That's amazing.
[34:12] Christine: And you have to be, because like I said, things change in just the blink of an eye. I don't have to be ready for anything.
[34:21] Michelle: Well, what do you think we're doing well in nursing, and where do you think we can improve?
[34:29] Christine: Doing well in nursing? I think the fact that we continue to have many high school graduates that want to still be a nurse, given the state of our healthcare situation since what was it, 2020, with this whole pandemic and stuff. The fact that I see these groups of clinicals come in with these new nursing students that are excited about wanting to be nurses, I think however we're advertising and whatever it is that we're doing to keep people still wanting to come into this profession, I think is great. I think that nursing is definitely a huge part of what happens in the hospital. Your eyes for that patient, your ears, their advocates, and I think we need a lot more of that as far as what we could do better. That's a hard one. I feel like I have a list of miles long, but you know, that might just be different based on what unit you're on. I think that we have a lot of room to grow with the doctor and nurse relationship. As far as taking care of the patients each day, I don't know. That one is kind of a big one for me. Working relationship with all aspects of your healthcare team?
[35:59] Michelle: Yes. It's not just nurses, right? I mean, just in our short conversation, we've talked about working with CRNAs and working with midwives and it's multidisciplinary and there's no quick fix. I'd like that you touched on physician-nurse relationships and communication. There's going to be an episode coming up that I interviewed Dr. Christine Nelson. She's a pediatric hospitalist and that's what the topic was the physician-nurse relationship and physician-nurse communication. Because we can always do better in that arena, right?
[36:39] Christine:  Right.
[36:41] Michelle: Yeah. Well, you have brought so much to the discussion today for anyone out there that is contemplating what labor and delivery nurses do. You've answered so many of those and I appreciate it. I appreciate all your experience and thank you so much.
[37:04] Christine: Yes, you're welcome. And thank you for having me.
[37:07] Michelle: Yeah, it was my pleasure. Now you're not going to get out of the five-minute snippet. Are you ready for that?
[37:13] Christine:  I think so.
[37:17] Michelle: Let's see, okay, so I know a little bit about you. So that's what these questions are based on. And I'm just going to set the timer and we'll just start.
[37:27] Christine: Okay.
[37:29] Michelle: All right. Finish this sentence. My family is blank: Just from your Instagram, I can tell. Yes. Okay. Vacation, hot environment, or cold?
[37:50] Christine: Hot environment.
[37:53] Michelle: Well, you're perfect for a San Joaquin Valley vacation.
[37:57] Christine: Yes. No, I definitely need it hot. Anything hot and sunny and beachy is my type of thing.
[38:08] Michelle: Would you rather run 3 miles or do 200 burpees?
[38:13] Christine: Run 3 miles?
[38:16] Michelle: Yeah, it seems a little bit easier.
[38:20] Christine: Neither one of those sounds good, but I run alright.
[38:26] Michelle: Mani- Pedi or a massage?
[38:28] Christine: Mani-Pedi.
[38:29] Michelle: Yeah, I don't get either one of those very often. I'm not very high maintenance. But something about a massage, it's just too close for me.
[38:40] Christine: You know, I 100% agree.
[38:42] Michelle: I don't know what it is.
[38:43] Christine: I just can't lay there long enough to like after 20 minutes, I'm like, I got to go. I got other stuff. The mani-pedi is definitely at least once a month for me. So that is definitely my little self-care routine there.
[38:58] Michelle: Oh, man, you made me feel so not abnormal with your response. Thank you for that. Have you ever had a weird Uber experience?
[39:09] Christine: No, I don't think so. I can count on one hand the times I've used Uber. So no weird experiences.
[39:18] Michelle: Okay. Maybe that will be in your future.
[39:21] Christine: Yeah, maybe.
[39:24] Michelle: What's invisible but you wish people could see?
[39:32] Christine: My thoughts.
[39:34] Michelle: Oh, I love that.
[39:37] Christine: Right?
[39:37] Michelle: If we could see little speech bubbles above everybody's head.
[39:41] Christine: Yeah. I might train my thoughts, though, to tone it down sometimes, so that might also be a bad thing.
[39:48] Michelle: Yeah, you'll have to remove all those curse words. Oh, my gosh, that's great. So we hope your kids are not listening to this, but if they are, what recurring lie did you always tell your parents or teachers?
[40:07] Christine: Recurring lie? I have to say to my parents where I was actually going.
[40:17] Michelle: Okay, and did you tell any lies to your teachers or maybe your friends?
[40:22] Christine: No, I think I was a pretty straight student. I don't think I really lied to them very much.
[40:31] Michelle: All right. Have you ever been bitten or attacked by an animal?
[40:37] Christine: No.
[40:40] Michelle: I hope you don't have that experience in the future. What movie have you seen multiple times?
[40:50] Christine: The Notebook.
[40:53] Michelle: Oh, God, that's such a good one.
[40:55] Christine: So good. I love it.
[40:57] Michelle: Yeah. Maybe I'll have to go back and watch it again. What's the first movie that you remember seeing in the movie theater?
[41:05] Christine: Oh, gosh, I don't know. It was that long ago. I think I'm visualizing these old-school movie theaters that we used to have here in town, and I'm trying to think of the movies that we went to see, and I don't even know.
[41:26] Michelle: Maybe it was like, during the summer. Remember when Fox would do those cartoons and, like, the Disney movies and stuff like that?
[41:38] Christine: Something like that. But I definitely do remember going to the Fox Theater. And do you remember that one that was behind the Sequoia Mall? Cinema 1-2-3. Yes, I definitely remember trips to those theaters, like with friends. We'd meet friends there when we but I do not remember what we watched.
[41:57] Michelle: Blast from the past. Okay, we have 15 seconds.
[42:02] Christine: Okay.
[42:03] Michelle: Are you always early, always late, or always right on time?
[42:08] Christine: I am always right on time.
[42:12] Michelle: Yay. I love it. Oh, man, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much again, Christine. I appreciate all the information and I know our listeners do.  Thank you so much for being here.
[42:24] Christine: You're very welcome. Thanks for thinking of me and picking me as your person for this little segment of your podcast. I love it. I love listening to them. So it's fun.
[42:38] Michelle: Well, thank you. There's nobody better. Well, have a great rest of your day.
[42:43] Christine: Thank you. You too.
[42:45] Michelle: Okay, take care.