Med School, Baby!

My last post was April 6^th. In it, I said something to the effect that at some point in medical school, God willing, we would have a child.

What I didn’t know as I posted that, with what I thought was a stomach ache from deviled eggs that sat in my mother-in-law's car too long the day before for Easter, was that I would find out in a few hours that God was indeed, willing.

DH was seeing patients that afternoon around the corner from where we live and texted me to tell me he was leaving and would be home in 5 minutes. He didn’t know I was nervously wandering the house and trying to breath. When I heard him open the garage to put his bike away, I went in the kitchen and when he walked in, I told him we needed to talk about Christmas. He was super confused and then I broke down crying and said, “because we are going to have a baby”.

Am I scared of adding a baby into the med school, full-time working mix? Uh, ya! Pregnancy in itself hasn’t been super easy so far. I feel some degree of “not good” every day, even at 16 weeks. Most days that includes a headache, horrible gas pains even though I am still thin, dizziness and shortness of breath. I don’t sleep more than an hour at a time without waking up, at least a little bit. I had a subchorianic bleed for nearly a month with fears of another miscarriage (I got pregnant last fall and found out by having an early, painful miscarriage). I think about 3^rd year which will start around the time our little one is 5 months old and get a bit of anxiety. I don’t want DH to miss out. I don’t want to feel overdone.

We will get through it though, like we do everything, one moment at a time.

Medical school does indeed make a lot of things interesting and different, but I can’t worry about what will/could be, too much. Instead, here is what has been different about pregnancy so far being married to a med student…

·      We found out I was pregnant while he was in the Reproductive Endocrinology block. You’re welcome, DH. Books and diagrams not needed, we got the live act right here.

·      Nothing fazes him. Did he enjoy seeing blood or watching me get the lovely probe? No. Did he even bat an eyelash at it or feel grossed out? No. He would ask to see my spotting at times (TMI?) so he could better monitor if we should contact the doctor, it was getting better, etc. That’s love… and medicine.

·      He palpates my belly for my uterus. He will feel around my belly and tell me right where the uterus is. Handy, especially since you can’t tell I am pregnant at all yet.  Has helped me really discern what is my digestive system revolting and something that could be concerning.

·      He doesn’t let me eat anything I’m not supposed to and I can’t lie about it. His last block taught him about listeria, what pregnant women shouldn’t eat and how it can hurt them. He’s now militant about it with me. Freaking A medical school, I just want a Blizzard and cold cuts!

·      He’s not emotional at ultrasounds. He’s a sappy guy at heart. Way more so than I am. I didn’t cry on our wedding day, he wept like a baby (a manly, tough guy baby). You’d think that seeing his child on ultrasound would get him all sorts of verklempt, but instead he is studying technique, the computer program, the baby’s structure, the placenta, my ovaries, etc. He still gets a little of the “oh look there is my kid!” feeling and reaction, but he still kinda puts his “medical student” hat on when in there. He doesn’t want to look like a total civilian.

      

      Second year will sure be different than first year! Baby is due on December 16^th and the block final is on December 22^nd, which means we better hope baby is very late! Which then puts it being born basically on Christmas, which is its own challenge. At least he will be on break for two weeks to get me back on my feet, or at least a bit, before things ramp up again!