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.