Urinary incontinence

During the last couple of weeks, I’ve been on a urology elective, and I have seen soooo many patients with urinary incontinence, so I’ve been thinking about it A LOT.  

I don’t know how many of you had issues with urinary incontinence during your first pregnancy - I definitely did.  I tried to do pelvic floor exercises to strengthen my pelvic muscles, but almost every day in my third trimester, I managed to leak urine when laughing, sneezing, or coughing, and I frequently was running to the bathroom, hunched over, hoping that I would make it.  I know some of you know what I’m talking about ;)

Now, I am pregnant again (I know, I know, I haven’t told you yet - that is for another post), and, although I am just in the early second trimester, I am already having worsening incontinence.  I say, “worsening,” because I continued to have mild stress incontinence even after my first pregnancy.   As someone in my mid-to-late 20s, this has been difficult to accept.

The worst part is that I feel as if there is little that I can do.  Sure, I can do my Kegels every day, I have adopted a voiding schedule that is q2-3 hours (which kind of interrupts work), and I have eliminated caffeine from my diet, but I fear the future.  Based on what I have seen in the urology clinic, it seems that I may be doomed to be incontinent.  Any other mothers with urinary incontinence out there? How do you deal with it?

See you in a month, Itty!

A couple of weeks ago, my husband, N, and I found out that we both started our intern year in the MICU.  We soon realized that this meant that we would almost never be able to pick our daughter up or drop her off at daycare. Considering it would be her first month ever in daycare, we were stressed!  Nanny interviews commenced, and we tried to ignore the impending financial doom that our first month with a paycheck would bring (due to the high cost of nannies). 

Soon thereafter, my mother-in-law suggested that we take our daughter, Itty, back home to spend the month with grandparents, aunts, and uncles.  Just for reference, we moved 15 hours away from “home, home” a month ago, and we have no family nearby.  Initially, I was resistant to the idea, as I couldn’t imagine a month without my Itty, but we eventually decided that it was probably the best idea for everyone.  Itty would get to see her extended family, who previously provided all childcare for her, and N and I would have a month to focus on our new roles at physicians.

She’s been gone for 4 days now.  While I was very sad during the first couple of days, I’m now realizing what a great idea it was.  Grandparents are happy, Itty is happy (at least for now, she doesn’t miss us too much), and we do not have to worry about her at all during a stressful day at the hospital.  I had forgotten what it was like to not have to think about picking her up, feeding her dinner, giving her a bath, getting her ready for bed, and putting her in bed.  Not to mention the middle of the night awakenings that still seem to happen although she is almost two years old.  Once you have a child, it is difficult to remember life without one.  

Part of me almost feels badly that I’m enjoying this “me” time so much.  I miss her tremendously but also feel that a significant burden has been lifted, at least temporarily.  Has anyone ever done anything similar?  This is probably the only time that we will ever send Itty away for a whole month, so does anyone have any childcare tips if we are ever in a similar situation again?  We were so worried about having multiple new caregivers in such a short period of time, especially with the limited amount of time that she would be able to see us anyway.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked myself, “How are we going to do this?  What did we get ourselves into?  Why did we move so far from our families?”.  However, I’m confident we’ll figure it out, little by little, with a lot of help from others (hint, hint!).

On another note, I was a physician today :)  Crazy!

MiM Intro: Anita Knapp

The first thing you should know about me is that my real name is not Anita Knapp.  This was a name that I penned for myself during residency interviews, and it describes how I feel most of the time.  If only my daughter would sleep in once in a while!

This intro has been difficult to write, mostly because I am going through a time of huge transition in my life.  My husband, N, and I just made a 15 hour move from our home state to our new home where we will complete our residencies.  And we made our move just one day after graduating from med school!  My residency will be in radiology, while N's will in ophthalmology.  However, for the time being, we will be interns in the same transitional year program.  Yay for working with my husband!  Sort of :)

If you would have asked us five years ago what we imagined for ourselves in the next five years, becoming parents would not have been on the list.  Nevertheless, we became proud parents to our daughter, A.K.A. Itty, at the very end of our third year of medical school.  Itty has changed our lives, certainly for the better, although the daily stress we feel has been multiplied exponentially!

I am so honored and excited to be an MiM contributor this year.  During the past 2-3 years, I have relied so much on this blog as I have forged my own path as a MiM.  The path has been very difficult at times, and I find myself in my darkest and most difficult place as a mother right now.  The sadness and loneliness I feel over moving so far from my family is great, but the guilt that I feel from moving my daughter so far from her extended family is overwhelming, as mine and N's parents have played such a large role in Itty's life so far.  I am worried about finding childcare, spending time with Itty, and spending time with my husband, all while trying to figure out how to be a physician.

I am looking forward to getting to know all of you this year.  It is sure to be an exciting one for me!  Any encouragement that you could throw my way would be greatly appreciated :)