I've made a huge mistake...

Standing in line at the grocery store today, I was sweating.

The couple in front of me were chatting to each other and the checkout woman. "Wow, how about this weather? How's your day going? You must be tired, on your feet all day..."

The lineup behind me was long and the cashier was moving slowly. People behind me were shifting their weight and sighing, jostling their food to get closer to the scanner.

Then, the gentleman ahead noticed a mistake on the screen.

"Oh, that coffee is supposed to be on sale for $6." He turned to me and winked, showing off his teardrop tattoo and missing teeth.
The checkout lady sighed, grabbed the phone next to her.
"Price check for grocery."
The gentleman's companion blushed and looked at the long line behind me.
"I'm so sorry"

The price check came in. That brand of coffee was not on sale, another brand was.

"I'll just go grab the right one," the guy said.
He took off, leaving his dishevelled backpack with his now mortified partner. Half their groceries were scanned and bagged, half were not. The woman stared at her feet, then glanced back at us again.
"I'm so so sorry..." she said.

Now, pause here. In any big city I've lived in, people would be muttering angrily at this point. Some people may even try to push by or glare at the woman waiting for her coffee.

In Kingston, the lady behind me smiled. "Hon, don't worry about it. You're gonna save 6 bucks! That's worth a wait!"

As we stood, waiting, the cashier told us there had been a fight earlier between a teenager and a geriatric man. The old man had come up behind the youth and pulled his hood off his head, telling him he looked like a thug. He then proceeded to punch him until the youth was forced to protect himself by hitting back.

"The police just left..." said the cashier, smacking her gum.

At this point, Mr Tears returned, brandishing the correct coffee. They scanned, they paid and walked out into the sunshine. I went ahead and loaded my groceries onto the conveyer belt, feeling light and easy.

I am going to miss living in this little town. I think we may have made a mistake in leaving.

Lean In?

Yesterday I went to work.

I had an opportunity to complete my mandated practice ultrasounds, there was a slot open in the US rounds and my friend A wanted to try scanning my belly to see the kicking contents. It seemed perfect.

I walked to hospital, feeling self-conscious in my semi-formal maternity attire (work pants no fit any more) but excited to be using my brain. I met our instructor and A and we started wheeling the machine around the ER.

"Hi, I'm Dr G and I'm a resident..." The words sounded totally foreign coming out of my mouth. Am I a doctor at the moment? I am not licensed (on hold during med/mat leave), I'm not really a resident (not working, not attending lectures) and technically I should be at home, barefoot and cooking for my husband. Right?

Anyways, the patients didn't notice my indecision. I scanned 6 ladies of various stages of life. From the 78 year old woman with the tiny atrophied uterus to the 16 weeks pregnant teen, we saw the spectrum. A girl who was there cos she couldn't stop puking (diagnosis: cyclic vomiting, a condition associated with chronic marijuana users. Also pregnant.). A girl who was there cos she was peeing blood (dx: kidney stone, not pregnant). In short, the usual ER pantheon.

I was also petted and prodded by the nurses - I haven't been to work since becoming visibly pregnant. As the desk clerk said, "Oh! I haven't seen you since that last trauma! Remember? The one where you couldn't stop vomiting, then you passed out?" I do remember, oddly.

As we were packing up to leave (I can now teach Ultrasounds to others! Woot!) my instructor grabbed another resident. "Hey! Look at you!" She turns to me. "This girl had a baby about 4 months ago! Doesn't she look great!" This girl did indeed look great. In blue scrubs, clean, fresh, slim and perky. She smiled and asked how far along I was. On hearing 24 weeks, she laughed.

"God! I remember that phase! I was seeing a patient, throwing up in the bin, seeing a patient, throwing up in the bin!"
My instructor laughed too. "I was working ICU at 39 weeks pregnant and my ankles had 3+ pitting edema!"
I laughed, nervously. "Yeah, I was throwing up too much and fainting, so they put me on medical leave until the baby comes..."
Awkward silence.
Then the surg resident said, "Well, I wish I'd known that was an option at the time. Oh well!" and went off to do her job.

Instructor laughed it off and then told me the tale of her own return from mat leave. She took 2 months, worked 2 months, got super depressed and miserable, then took another 6 months off. She's still a resident now, in her 6th year of residency and will be done sometime next year.

I came home, exhausted. I threw myself on Mr G's desk (he tries to work from home, despite my best efforts) and started lamenting how weak I am, how lazy, how uncommitted to medicine, how unfit I am to be both doctor and mother. He (gently) swept me to the side and said, "Stop. It's done. The time is taken off, you're done."

And he's right. I may be the worst at being a pregnant doctor, but I sure feel a hell of a lot better now that I'm not working. I'm newly certified in bedside Ultrasound. I have a growing, kicking, hiccuping life inside me. I am tweaking the statistics on my research project. It's not perfect, but it's working for me.

titties!

At 24 weeks, I have now hit the 180lb mark. As such, I am learning fascinating things that 98% of the female population learned at puberty: Did you know that your breasts can "rest" against your rib-cage and form sweaty pockets? Or that they can bounce so much during exercise that it's uncomfortable?

I never knew how lucky I was to be an almost-A cup.

In other news, I am attempting to correlate my medical knowledge of pregnancy with what I'm actually feeling and going through. I, for example, was taught to tell pregnant women to work out regularly, to eat small, regular nutritious meals and to pretty much live life as though they were not pregnant.

I would like my patients to know that I am sorry.

I am lucky to exercise twice a week, and that has to be yoga and gentle cycling, cos the rest of the day becomes a write-off if I push too hard. I need to eat massive, all encompassing meals to feel full, plus snacks, plus litres and litres of water (doubled blood volume, woo!). I sometimes become rage-blackout angry at things in my life, or cry for 45 minutes. As such, I am not living my life like a normal version of me.

On the other hand, pregnancy is still less strenuous than residency. I can sleep as much as I need to. I can eat when I'm hungry (and not force myself to inhale Tim Hortons bagels in the 10 minute windows between OR's), I am getting stretched and walked and massaged and people are so fricking nice to me all the time. (Example: Pickle went missing this weekend. Large search party assembled. I was walking the streets calling her name and developed pain in my belly. All males in search party immediately dropped everything to escort me home and bring me glasses of water. So weird. Nice, but weird.) (We found her. She's fine.) I am getting worried about my waning desire to return to work.

I read too many pregnancy blogs, worry about what I'm eating but can't stop eating and am constantly taking off my clothes cos I'm 30 degrees too hot. I am actually seriously considering copying another prego blog I read and adding my own prego photos and stats to my posts. On the one hand; this is supposed to be a medical experience blog! On the other hand; this is the only record I keep of my life that is free of Mr G, colleagues, etc, and it might be nice to look back when the kid is trying to murder me in my sleep.

So many thoughts. Time for more fancy yoghurt, then perhaps a nap. Pickle has a good sunny spot picked out.

I was wrong.

You've heard of people who, after a lengthy jail sentence, refuse to leave prison when their time is up. They resist the change. The lack of structure. The total, terrifying freedom. The loss of social status that comes from being in a known environment.

I think that was me. For the first 4 weeks of my medical leave, I was terrified. Furious at all the free time, the lack of purpose. Admittedly, I was still spending a fair amount of time with my head in a bucket (old bluey), but when I felt well, I was crazed with anxiety.

Now, at week 8, I've hit my stride. I understand all those people who say they'd like more free time. Everything that needs to be done gets done in a timely fashion. I filed our taxes, early. I've booked our movers, cancelled the bills and found boxes, early. I'm writing my research paper, due next March. All of this is interspersed with long walks in the sunshine, yoga & lots of fancy cooking. I am so happy.

This is trouble, for the following reasons:
1. I'm getting a taste for the housewife lifestyle. Like, starting to think about buying fancy yoga pants.

2. My life/future economic plan has been built on the idea that I will work as much as is humanly possible. If I get comfortable not working, we may never get out of Ontario. This is unacceptable.

3. I'm losing my ability to tolerate shift work/24 hour shifts. This skill has been built up over the last 4 years, and takes serious effort to maintain. When I go back to work in March, I will not be allowed to stop for "first nap" when the going gets tough.

4. I am still in total denial about being pregnant. Notice there is no mention of "buying baby clothes", "refreshing infant CPR skills" or "choosing nursery furniture" on the list of completed errands.

To illustrate #4: I was at yoga this morning and the instructor said, "Now, those ladies who are pregnant should not attempt the following pose". I didn't even pause; flopped onto my (now enormous) belly and pushed into cobra. I got an angry poke from the inside in response.

So. I'm 100% on board with the yummy mummy lifestyle, which is unsustainable.
I'm 100% in denial about the mummy part, which is irreversible.
I think I'm in trouble.