TTC #2

Much like the first time around, there is much anxiety about the "right" time to have # 2.  But as my medical school courses have hammered home, those eggs start aging pretty quickly as you slide towards 40, chromosomal abnormalities and mutation rates increase pretty dramatically and things like premature ovarian failure are not uncommon.  Its really amazing when you study things like embryology, fertility, and reproduction things hit home a little more when you can apply them to oneself.  I had nightmares for a month about dead babies as we learned as I unkindly called it "the hundreds of flavors of dead babies." I had to be calvalier about it as each image of someone's child who died either in utero or shortly post-natally was held up as an example of a disease/disorder/mutation that we were learning.  All I could do was think of the grief-striken parents and imagine myself in their shoes.  Thus the weeks of terrible nightmares.  But I digress (maybe)? So here we are, anxious to get baby #2 in the works, at a happy place in life were DLO #1 is in a good place for a sibling, though honestly in probably a terrible position in my training (though honestly over the next ~10yrs there isn't an awesome time but if I waited I'd be out of luck). DH is pretty excited for round 2 which I find amazingly adorable because its not like our lives are that easy right now and his enthusiasm for adding more chaos is to me a sign of his love. So now we're back in that terrible place (for me) of TTC, where I curse my body every cycle for failing us.  Where I watch every sign and twinge and drop of blood for signs of fertility.  Its too consuming. Its too exhausting. I envy the ladies with the fertile bodies that reproduce with ease.  I'm tired of the rollercoaster of thinking I "might be" pregnant only to be severely disappointed a few days/weeks later.  Case in point, I've finally had my cycle back regularly (which for me is odd so maybe that's issue #1), I've been tracking every sign like crazy, marking every time we "do it," and use all the various calculators to figure out the prime fertility window.  DH has his own plan and has just been making sure to "do it" at least every other night which is nice but is also slightly exhausting and probably unsustainable if this takes us a while.  Two days ago I got light spotting, it fit exactly with when (if I had nailed our fertility window) we'd have implantation! My joy bounded, the issues it will cause with my training didn't matter.  I started daydreaming about scheduling and announcing it adorably to DH after a positive pregnancy test and what our lives would look like early next year.  But then today, with heavier cramps and some more bleeding I can only assume damn ole Aunt Flo is on the way. And I'm sad again for all the effort and energy and high hopes and the months and years ahead of going through it over and over again.  I'm tired and we've only been trying for a few months. Maybe I'm just tired.  Three weeks left of the semester and a slightly needy (read up a lot at night) though independently inclined and stubborn (read, won't do anything without a fight) toddler who has recently made me feel like the "mean mom" has kind of worn me out.  Here's to summer and easy? TTC and all the rest of it.  Oh yeah, and passing the year?  Probably better get back to studying to ensure I won't be repeating anything...that of all my worries, is always the biggest one of all!  SO easy in med school to make one small slip.

Love

I know its clique, it irritated me every time parents would get this faraway look in their eyes and say "you never know what love is until you have a kid." But as every parent can attest, its the truth.  When a picture of your kid or a goofy antic or their peals of giggles makes your breath catch and your heart hurt you know what they meant.  You are now living the clique.  And its more than the fact that they can make you deliriously happy at the drop of a hat, its also their little arms curled around your neck as they learn how great hugs are, or their attempts at kisses, or the way you rock them to sleep and they are curled up on you, just about to be too big to fit on your lap but never too big to fit on your lap.  Or the way your heart just melts in smolders when you hear about kids getting abused or  when they are unloved and try to fathom how anyone could allow that to happen to their kid.  Its when you realize what true evil must be and that it does exist.  Anytime someone chooses to hurt a child or allow them to exist without love.  That is evil.  I cannot be a pediatrician because I can not handle working with children and their parents because it would hurt too much sometimes.  I have long pondered what may differentiate those who love their kids so much it can be physically painful versus those who can cause physical or emotional pain to their child.  One thing that always really touches deep to my core is when I listen to Andrew Solomon who is one of my most favorite and probably one of the greatest authors of all times talk about his love for his family.  One of the things he says is that he just never expected to be a father, never expected to be a husband, never expected to have love like this.  And for me at least, that is probably part of why even when parenting is exhausting (and let me tell you as a parent, in medical school to boot, of a kid that thinks sleep is enemy #1, it is exhausting often), I am still gloriously, annoyingly in love with being a parent because I didn't think I would get this.  I never expected to find a man who made my heart skip a literal beat, I thought that was just for the fairytales.  My parents definitely weren't the model of happily ever after and realistically with a divorce rate of 50% and finding a good man being like being struck by lightening, I just didn't really expect it for myself.  And I knew I would have challenges getting pregnant so my life's plans in my mind never included all of that.  And then my life did go that route and the unexpected became possible and treasured because it is never taken for granted.  It always feels like a gift that might get taken away because who gets to be this happy?  And so, like Andrew Solomon, I am cautiously optimistic about the permanence of my happiness but it makes me revel in each and every moment, to appreciate the baby wisps of hair, the fleeting days of breastfeeding, the too short weekends and holidays, the grains of sand that pour too quickly through the clock of life.  Love.  It is what makes life rich beyond words, its what colors the days and makes them seem bright.  Thank you to DH and DLO for making my life richer beyond my greatest expectations.  Love.

The Conundrum of Medical School

As I reflect on the first semester of medical school gone by, I can in retrospect say that it was a good semester and that I'm glad I'm in medical school.  However, as the first week of the second semester begins I have already started semi-wishing I was not here.  There's an odd franticness to medical school material.  There is way more material than should normally be distributed to an individual to learn in the time allotment they gave us.  It is critical to figure out exactly how much you need to go through (because there are masses of additional readings that just sidetrack you from the material you need to know and would just cause consternation) and additionally critical to never fall behind.  At least, in my life, with the very few hours of study time available on evenings and weekends falling behind during the week would be catastrophic.  I also really miss my "free time." With my commute and my daughter, all my free time is used up in those two buckets with studying always being a bucket not as full as it should.  I miss my daily runs, getting to read books for leisure, and watching a movie every once in a while with DH. 
As I read some posts from residents about how stressful their lives are, it causes me to pause.  Part of me wants to rant against this crazy journey I have set out on.  I hate the commute, I hate the endless amounts of insane information, I hate the millions of hoops you just have to jump through.  I hate that this is a very long training path that stretches out into the far future.  But then I try look at it from a more objective perspective; no matter what path I choose, I would most likely be working and always frustrated about the time away from DLO.  In a lot of other jobs, I would hate the brain stagnation that would occur.  I will have the whole summer off this year, 4th year is just chock full of time off, and at some point I will have a career where I can help others, make a good paycheck, and hopefully be a good role model to my children.  See, that's what some sunshine and a rare run does for my mood, it brightens it and puts it into perspective.  While I am strapped into this ride and sometimes hate every minute, its hard to know if any other path would have been much different.  So on we go.  Grateful that one biochem exam is past (though still dreading getting me score), dreading the cumulative biochem exam in a few weeks but also looking forward to spring break and a while week with DLO.  We can do this!!!! Right?

Vacation Woes

When the last couple weeks of the semester were oh so stressful and I had to make the effort to devote every second to studying, in my milliseconds of daydreaming I made mental checklists of the fabulous things I would do on my two-week Christmas break and had fantasies of getting things done, spending loads of quality time with DLO, and do extra special Christmas things like bake lots of cookies, cook lots of meals, and revel in family.  Cut to today where I spent over an hour trying to get DLO to take nap and I marveled at the wastefulness of a whole hour devoted to trying to get her to sleep so she wouldn't be a crazy wreck later.  I marveled at all the things I hadn't gotten done or even started, and contemplated how much of a failure I felt.  The house wasn't clean, no cookies were baked, no exercise was getting done, and the worst of it, I didn't even feel like I was getting quality time in with DLO. Trying to do things like cook and clean for guests meant I halfheartedly played with her while simultaneously tried to "get things done" and all those things (like cleaning) got messed again so quickly I hardly had time to appreciate it and all I was left with was frustration, exhaustion, and disappointment in loss of time with DLO.  It seems like if I want to get anything done, I sacrifice DLO time and half the time I can't get that thing done or done properly so I not only don't get anything accomplished but then don't spend time with DLO.  Its such a catch-22 and so frustrating.  I really wanted to catch up on all the things I put off with the craziness of school but trying to get those things done is like building a sand wall against the encroaching sea.  How in the world do stay-at-home mom's get anything done?  I feel like I have more fun with Lydia and appreciate her more when I'm in school because I make sure any moment with her then is truly focused on her.  When I'm home, I feel the expectation to accomplish "something" which means I don't spend as much time focused on her.  Gah, what a depressing post.  I'll have to work on writing again after a fun day with DLO and also use this as a reminder that if the most important thing to me is time with her, than I need to lower my expectations around everything else.

The morning after...

I am quite apolitical.  I hate arguments, I hate feeling anger and angst towards others.  It makes me miserable and unhappy.  I think it started as a kid in a very argumentative family.  I always was the peace-maker.  I wanted people to be happy.  I have found this quality as it followed me into adulthood to be both a positive and negative one.  I don't engage in fights, I am pleasant, I avoid conflict unless it is morally offensive or dangerous.  But the converse side of it, is I don't always take a stand when perhaps I should because of fear of causing dissent.  Now, as we look towards the next several years with a Trump president I wonder, will I be forced to take a stance and be courageous in my views as we fall of the cliff of insanity? Or will I be a sheep?  Like the thousands of kind, well-meaning Germans who went along with Hitler.  Not because they supported him or thought what he was doing was right but because they were gentle kind people who didn't want to cause conflict, dissent, or risk their own lives.  I wonder which I will be.
Today I sobbed over an election result.  Never before have I cared so deeply.  Always before the politicians were a horse a piece.  Who won was not going to change the course of our history all that much (except maybe the exceptional way our country elected our first black president 8years ago!).  But today felt like a million steps backwards.  Instead of shattering a glass ceiling and electing our first woman president.  Instead of electing our only sane choice we let our caveman emotions let us pick not only the most unqualified person perhaps in the history of our country but also a fool and worse a dangerous one.  By appealing to people's biases, Trump won the presidential election.  He made it ok for people to not just be subtly racist and sexist and discriminatory, he allowed them to be proud of it.  I always feared living in a rural area and raising my children there because when you surround yourself with lots of white people it is easy to fear what you do not know.  Instead of appreciating the richness of the cultures of others and perhaps even being envious of their rich traditions compared to the blandness that the melting pot has left many of us with we fear what we do not know.  Instead of learning to share, to take a turn at the table, to appreciate the differences of others and how wide that makes our world view, we instead because close-minded and shallow and insensitive.  Today I learned that being rural is not just the problem, our entire country is the problem.  I will be making sure that my residency applications are all to large states that voted blue because if anyone is going to be able to maintain a tiny sense of what I had hoped for our country it will be these large states that can (hopefully) stand firm.
Be ashamed America.  Be so very ashamed.  We were not electing a contestant for a reality show.  We were electing the leader of what was the greatest country in the world.  We can only pray and hope that somehow these next few years will go quickly and nothing catastrophic will happen but when you let a man with no respect for others or institutions or laws into the White House, the chances we'll get off that easy are dismally slim.  And that is why I cry.  Because not only will I be ashamed that my daughter will have to learn of this man in history classes and know that our country, her parent's generation was unable to make the country a better place for them.  That we let loose the monster that has the potential to collapse our nation.  That perhaps this is truly the end of what was a great nation and the history books will document the folly and the fall.  But I will be ashamed that sexism and racism are so much more alive and well in our country than I thought.  I thought each generation pushed us forward but found that perhaps the desire to go backward was deep in the hearts of so many people.
As a white American I apologize to all the rich diverse people of our nation who must feel so alone and so threatened today.  Courage to all of us as we face the next 4 years.

The Cake Full of Regret

Exam week was last week and I was ssooo looking forward to this glorious weekend of relaxing, having really quality one-on-one time with DLO and Mr. Wonderful and getting lots and lots done.  Somehow the weekend went way too fast, was way too stressful, nothing got done that was supposed to and I woke up at 4a to head back to school on Monday with a whole bunch of regret.

To preface my stupid cake story, I take time with DLO VERY seriously.  Choosing to go to medical school while she was a baby made me decide I had three priorities in life: DLO, Mr. Wonderful, and school.  Sort of important things like paying bills, chasing down contractors for our "almost" finished house, making doctor's appointments and such come 4th, self-care (ie, the thing that used to be my joyous hobby: running and cycling) a distant 5th.  And cleaning other than when anyone comes to visit a very very distant 6th.  I am ok with a dirty house if I can feel good about the quality and time I spend with DLO around the very consuming studies (and additional burden of driving in my case).  

Sssoooo, that brings us to the stupid cake.  It was Mr. Wonderful's bday smack-dab in the middle of exam week.  Which meant, I wasn't even home for his birthday and I sure didn't have time to celebrate any other day of the week (I did leave him a big goody bag and card the morning I headed to school for exams if that counts!).  So bday celebrations were left for the weekend and I tried to "go big" in my attempt to make up for any potentially perceived neglect.  I brought his favorite take-out home on Friday, we went out on a date Saturday night (only our second since DLO was born...yikes!), I made him breakfast Sunday morning and then made him a lemon curd cake from scratch.

This cake was a thing of beauty.  I made the lemon curd from the eggs laid by our very own flock of hens (very proud about this! love our chickens!), I made the cake from scratch, I made the frosting from scratch...all while trying to juggle DLO for the entire day alone (Mr. W was working on serious new house projects that had to be finished!).  She was being her normal, rambunctious, inquisitive self with a small dose of crankiness because I missed the nap window of opportunity. So there I am, exhausted from the week of exams, a few bad nights of sleep because DLO was sick, trying to make this darn cake, and trying to get DLO to just hang on a minute so I could finish the cake.  Suffice to say, the cake turned out great (at least one small consolation) but I was left feeling a bit sour about the wasted DLO time and the frazzled nerves caused by one little stupid, not worth it bday cake.  I'm sure Mr. W would have loved a box cake just as much.  It's amazing how angry you can get about time wasted when you have so few hours to waste.  And any time I miss the opportunity to spend quality time with DLO makes me unhappiest of all.

And to wrap this rather boring and unexciting tale up: as I'm just arriving at school 3hrs of driving later, Mr. W calls to tell me he's taking the cake to work so we don't over-indulge.  I pretty much wanted to cry.  So much for a wasted day of cake making.  Never again!

Sleeplessness

I am probably one of the "most" un-traditional students in my med school class.  As in most of my peers just can't envision being as old as me and when they do, they envision it as a time when they'll be well into their chosen career.  In a rather large class, I am 1/2 of the mothers, 1/2 of the PhDs, and definitely in the top 5% of the age curve.  It really brought home how ancient some of my 22-year old classmates think I am when I was remarking that it was a bit "age-ist" to only provide the meningitis vaccination free to students 25 and under.  And to that, one said, "you should take it as a compliment that they assume you aren't making out with undergrads at frat parties."  Which, is I suppose true (though one should never assume things!).  It does always make me feel a lot better when I see many of my classmates posting pictures of themselves partying all weekend.  I often get frustrated by the small amount of time I am able to squeeze studying in on the weekends and always envision my single, unattached peers spending the days just killing it in the library all weekend but I just thank my lucky stars that they are getting the same lack of sleep I am.  Me, because I am up all night with a baby.  Them, because they're up all night partying and necking with undergrads.  That curve is real (and viscous) so I appreciate a slight leveling of the playing field!  Oh the competitiveness of medical school, apparently one is never too old to participate ;)