My belly ripples with the life brewing beneath it, the life that is rolling and squirming and itching to get out. I'm 36 weeks and 4 days along in this journey and although my pregnancy app says I have 3 weeks and 4 days to go (and says that today baby's big toe is the size of an M&M), my OB is fairly well convinced that The Gremlin will want to make its debut before then. Thankfully I haven't yet reached the point where I am utterly done with being pregnant, but I can't deny my eagerness to meet this bundle of cells turned bundle of joy, even if the ultrasound photo makes us wonder if we're actually going to have a baby or a Lizard Potato Man. At least it's a cute Lizard Potato Man! (And let's be honest...don't all newborns kind of look like Lizard Potato Men?) J, for his part, is quite possibly more excited than me about the imminent growth of our little family. This doesn't surprise me in the least; J was ready to have kids long before I was, and I will forever be grateful for his patience as I took my time deciding when I was ready to start trying. Although I knew I would eventually want children, one of the biggest reasons for my reservations was residency and the unfair burden it put on both of us. Residency left him with very little time for family, no predictability in his schedule, and virtually no reserves of energy to speak of. Not even the birth of a child would change the demands on his time, outside of the two personal days he would be allowed to use per his contract for such a momentous event.
As it happened, I did feel ready to start trying before the end of residency, and as the possibility of having a child during that portion of his training increased I reverted to my mantra: "hope for the best, expect the worst." I told myself I had to be okay with the very real possibility that he would not be present for most if any of my doctor's appointments, that he would miss labor or even delivery, that he would not be able to help me at home, that I would basically be a single parent. I didn't for one second doubt how much he would prefer to be there for every single moment of the pregnancy and the baby's first few weeks, but I knew that the inflexibility of residency would stand in the way. Now, fast-forward to fellowship. We didn't really know what to expect going into fellowship. J assured me it would be easier, but my mantra kicked in so I just shrugged and completely ignored what he said. I probably had good reason to be skeptical; when I polled the partners of other surgeons who'd been through any kind of surgical fellowship program, 72% of respondents said fellowship was either equally or more challenging than residency. Naturally, responses varied according to the specialty, the hospital, the city, and other factors, but statistically it probably wouldn't have been wise to assume it would be smoother than residency. In the first couple months I felt like fellowship was, indeed, just as demanding as residency. Although his call schedule was lighter, he went in just as early and came home just as late, typically working from 6 am to at least 8 pm. He was just as busy during the day, just as drained at night. I wasn't fazed, having honed my independence as a surgical spouse for six years. So what if it was more of the same? I hadn't really expected anything else, and after all, we were back home near family! I was perfectly content. Imagine my surprise, then, when J's attendings in his fellowship practically kicked him out of work one day to ensure he would make it to an ultrasound at 24 weeks. "You have no excuse not to be there," they told him. The fact that he was on the schedule, that he was supposed to be at the hospital in the middle of the afternoon, was suddenly inconsequential. "You need to be there," they told him, and he obliged. That marked a turning point for J and his fellowship. Up to that point he had held himself to the standards and rank of a resident - show up early, work hard, stay late, prove yourself. Meanwhile, the attendings in his fellowship program were apparently viewing him less as a subordinate and more as a colleague. In their eyes, J was just as human as them, complete with a life outside the hospital worth recognizing. Throughout residency that kind of respect had been so rare that we soaked up the implicit message about the hospital's rank above our personal lives and minimized our own needs, lest we upset the system. To suddenly be treated as fully human? It was a shock to our systems. When the 36 week OB appointment conflicted with their monthly Journal Club conference attended by everyone in the trauma department and, that particular month, featuring a guest speaker, J's attending fully supported him choosing family over work. When the schedule for January came out, J reminded his attendings about our due date and they basically said "You take off whenever you need to. Don't worry." When the schedule initially had him taking call less than a week after the due date, his attendings said "Nope, your co-fellow will take that. You need to be home with your baby and your wife." As this shift in messaging began to sink in, J also started respecting his own time more and sought a better balance of work and home life. Unlike in residency where there was always a simmering fear of whether or not he was working hard enough, long enough, well enough to appease the attendings, J began to see himself as his attendings did: as a competent surgeon and as someone with a wife and, soon, a child to love at home. Go figure, at the same time that the thing inside me is becoming more human, so is my husband - and I couldn't be happier!
4 Comments
Amy
12/23/2019 11:03:49 pm
I couldn’t be happier for you!!! And for Dr. J as well (and the baby)!
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Nashira
12/26/2019 11:49:15 am
Thank you!
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Patrick
12/24/2019 06:09:20 pm
You are such an elegant writer, combining fact and emotion in such an easily readable way. I'm so proud of you and "J." And when are you going to start using his full name?
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Nashira
12/26/2019 11:48:57 am
Not until he has a real, secure, long-term attending position :)
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AuthorNashira is a music teacher and proud Small-Town Jew who, after surthriving six years in Brooklyn for her husband's surgical residency, is finally back in Wisconsin where she belongs! At least until the end of the two-year surgical fellowship, that is. It's a wild ride, and she's ready to tell you all about it! Archives
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