Editor’s note: Elizabeth Havey grew up in Chicago on the south side. Havey taught English at Bloom High School in the late ’60s and early ’70s, helping all her students heal following school race riots. Havey’s latest career move: a nurse in labor and delivery at a Chicago hospital. The experience has made her a passionate advocate for women and women’s health. She also works with the Polk County Health Department in Des Moines, IA, which is where she lives with her husband and three children. To read more about Havey, visit her website or blog. 

If a psychologist analyzed my later-in-life career choice, she might accuse me of trying to trade the sorrow of losing my father for some control over my own life. She might be right on track.

I was only three and my father 45 when he died of a myocardial infarction. As I grew, I pressured my mother with questions, trying to understand why he left me. In my 30s, I finally had some answers: coronary artery disease brought on by genetics, stress and a high cholesterol diet. Some logic entered my life, but I was changed. Medicine would not let me go. I began to understand and appreciate the body’s complicated machinery. At 41, I was seeing a fertility specialist because my husband and I wanted a third child. Our daughters were 13 and 9, but we weren’t finished parenting. To our amazement and joy our son was born when I was 42. I stayed home with him that first important year and then I began the process of reentering the workforce — I enrolled in nursing school. It took me three years to become a labor and delivery RN. 

One night, as I was dragging myself to bed, I stopped to encourage my high-school daughter to clean her bathroom. She argued with me: "You’re not doing what I’m doing," she said, staring at me with tired eyes. I was holding my ten-pound medical-surgical book at the time. Her eyes dropped to it. "Oh," was all she could manage. I just let it go.

Reentering the work force is a momentous decision. A word of advice: Learn to let some things go.

Tell us: Have you recently reentered the workforce? Share your story by e-mailing us at ThinkUp@wowOwow.com, and send us a short description of how you accomplished this. Please include your glamour shot, too. Your story will be reviewed for possible publication on wowOwow.com. Don’t just sit there … Think Up!