When shared parenting means you are no longer number one

Recently, my daughter went through a period of preferring my partner, her other parent. For about a week, I would come home from work, starved for time with her,  and she would run to my partner and make a big show of hugging her and demanding to go into the kitchen with her. At dinner time, she refused to be fed by me, accepting food only from my partner, her Baba. At bathtime, I would have to pry her from her Baba and endure her bitter tears as we trudged upstairs for what is usually our most joyful time together. I was on a particularly miserable month, working the longest days I've worked all year and feeling resentful, bitter, and guilty almost every waking moment because I was spending so little time with her. When this theater of cruel preference happened for the first time, I went upstairs, turned on the bathroom faucet, sat on the tile floor, and sobbed for fifteen mintues. Then I came downstairs and tried to be as cheerful as possible as I sat next to the high chair and watched dinner progress without my participation. The situation was no fun for my partner either, as my time at home is the rare window of relief when she can check her email and recede into her own mental world for a while. Only E seemed to be having a ball, cocking her head to one side and making flirty toddler eyes at my partner while pushing my hand away from the food on her tray.

A male colleague once complained to me that his son prefers his wife, even to the extent of screaming and pushing him away when he goes to to pick him up in the morning or comfort him at night. As he told me this, I'm ashamed to admit that I thought, "Well she is his mother," as if motherhood is synonymous with being a child's primary go-to, as if a father should be resigned to being second pick. Well, here I was faced with the same situation and I was not resigned. 

I am not my child's primary caregiver. As an intern, I work until 6pm on the best days which are few, 7pm on most days, and 9pm on the worst days which happen at least 1-2 times per week. I have a week each month where I am gone from 6pm - 9am six nights in a row. The rest of the time I leave the house before my child wakes up and then I do bath and bedtime whenever I can, which is 3-4 days per week. Every day I have off, every evening hour that can be squeezed from the stone, every hour I can delay going to sleep post call, I do, but it still doesn't add up to 50%. Not even close. So I am not my child's primary caregiver, but up until the aforementioned week, I was pretty sure I was her go-to, her first draft pick. After all, I carried her and birthed her and nursed her and I am the only one in this family who takes rectal temperatures, let the record show. Prior to this episode, she had always been pretty happy with either or both of us, absorbing the love and care and attention of whichever of us was available at the time, so the assumption I had made about my being somehow more sacred and important had never been tested.

It was not a pleasant situation. In fact "My child will prefer her other parent" is probably number 2 on my list of top fears about being a working mother, right after "My child will be maimed or die while in someone else's care." I googled "My child prefers her other parent" and discovered that this happens to lots of people. Some children prefer their working-outside-the-home parent to their working-in-the-home parent and for some it is the other way around. In families where both parents work, the preference cannot be so easily explained away. Sometimes the preference is temporary and sometimes it is more deeply ingrained. In families with multiple children, one child might prefer one parent while another child prefers the other parent. None of these preferences seem to fall easily along gender lines. It was comforting to read post after post about this problem, but none really addressed my fear which was that by working so much, I was losing the right to be my child's number one. (Of note, I encountered not one post from a man complaining about this. Do men just not post on online parenting forums? Is this something that does not disturb them? It's an interesting question.)

When I was forced to examine my need to be number one, I realized that the whole construct is flawed and not relevant to our family. I was our daughter's primary caregiver for the first six months while my partner finished graduate school, now she is the primary caregiver while I am in residency. We have divided the work of parenting in a way that feels natural to us and that has nothing to do with traditional divisions of labor. My partner cooks. I deal with illnesses and sleep. We both work and make money, though my job is currently more time-intensive and less flexible. I'm good at helping our daughter achieve developmental milestones, my partner is good at structuring her days and giving her the downtime she needs. My daughter has two parents who work cooperatively to meet her needs and I'm very proud of that.

I'm not going to pretend that this transition in my thinking has been seamless or complete. There are still moments of panic and jealousy that my partner is so much more present in my daughter's life, for now. Thankfully, the phase passed and my daughter is back to taking the love from wherever it cometh, but I can't deny that I am secretly pleased and relieved when she leaps ecstatically from my partner's arms to mine when I come home. But I am teaching myself to be just as happy when she leaps from me to my partner, because the net of safety and love that protects her is so much stronger than it would be if she were relying on only one person to meet her needs. If I weren't working so much, things might have played out very differently in the dynamics of our family, so in a way I'm glad that necessity has created the opportunity for a more shared model to evolve. Ok, I'm not glad. But I do think some good has come of it.

Muffin tops, belly jiggles, and other mommy "war scars"

Zo will be 2 years old in a few months. I was very healthy prior to and during pregnancy; I regularly did prenatal yoga videos, walked daily, and even did Zumba until I was 5 months pregnant. Sometime during my 8th month, I developed an abdominal hernia. I knew it needed to be assessed, so 8 weeks post partum, I went to see one of my favorite Professors. He is a round-bellied, wonderfully abrasive Surgeon with a penchant for throwing things in the Operating Room. He’s a no-nonsense type of guy with a plethora of jokes and a desk with an ample candy jar. He is an excellent Surgeon and his patients love him, and I guess at the end of the day that’s the important part.

During my appointment, he examined my hernia and said “just wait until you pop another one out before doing anything with this.” I asked about the extra flub and stretch marks and he said “give yourself a year, things should tighten up by then”.

18 months into the game and although I dropped the baby weight quickly (another perk of nonstop breastfeeding, a healthy diet, and frequent stroller walks), these muffin-top-wiggle-jiggle and hip flub-shakes just does not want to budge. My various corsets and girdles help to camouflage it when I want to appear shapely, but nothing helps when I am naked or even worse when I am at my beloved Zumba class shaking it up in workout gear with all of the skinny-minis.

I started working out again (ie, getting in a once a week Zumba class or some core strengthening training on Youtube while Zo is asleep) a few months ago. I looked at my bulging belly and hips and cringed. O is happy that I no longer look as malnourished as I did between 4 to 6 months of nursing, but neither of us loves the extra jiggles and low self esteem that come with them. I began to understand how folks slowly become overweight and out of shape. It’s like a slow decay creeping in. One day you skip a workout and then a few weeks later you realize you haven’t worked out since God-knows-when. You see your morphing shape and think (through my Pediatrician’s lens), I am soo tired, who has time to work out when I am trying to feed my family and cuddle my baby before going back into the NICU to keep really sick babies alive?!?

But it is important. And I do have to make time. I realized during undergrad that I need to work out. My body, mind, and spirit need it. When I am in shape and feeling good about my body, it is amazing. When I don’t exercise I feel downright yucky. Add replacing my beloved six-pack abs with this stretch-marked-middle-jiggle and you get the picture. Folks (my mother) who have seen the immediate post-partum belly and what I have now say it’s not soo bad, but to me it is.

I have vowed to continue to shake my mommy-bulge at Zumba and try to step up my efforts. I am planning on tightening up what I have so that I can feel better about the new mommy-me. These are my war scars. I’m in the trenches. Mommy-pouch boot camp begins now!!!

MiM Mail: Didn't see this coming

Dear MiM,

I've been following your posts since before I began Medical school!  I'm currently an M3, my journey has been far from traditional.  I put my medical school dreams aside after college to help out at home and take care of my mother.  Fast forward many years and I began my medical school career at 33 as a daughter, wife and mother of two gorgeous little girls (5 and 2 at the time).  It has been a lonnnnnng road needless to say.  Just three years later, I face M4 year and residency as a single mother of two living back home with my mother.  The ex's insecurities (non-medical) and later infidelity became too much to bear.  Although, he is a phenomenal father - very hands on and picks up a lot of the slack.

So, to my current state! I'm two clerkships shy of completing 3rd year and have yet to find my "calling."  I absolutely loved OB and I keep saying if I were single and 10 years younger, I would totally do it.  I love EM, but do I really want to put the girls through not having their mom so much at nights, weekends and holidays? I felt as if FM didn't get the respect that they deserved, and going through one more day of rounds in IM would have been the end of me! Psych, so help me God, if I fell for one more drug addict's story, I was going to institutionalize myself.  Peds left a sour taste in my mouth due to the company....

So now what!? I apologize if I offend anyone, I'm just trying to be honest and show you a glimpse of the million things in my brain.  I need to be moving, I love variety, and I'm a hard worker! But let me be honest to myself! I'm 36 and I'll be almost 500K in debt when we graduate! What's going to pay the bills, provide my daughters with a mother, and allow me to be a great physician?

After residency is over, my oldest will be 12 and youngest 10. So much time they and I have sacrificed and for what!? For their mother to have no clue how she's going to move forward alone and completely in debt? Did I mention the divorce lawyer said I'm confined to my state for residency or risk losing the girls? As if finding a residency wasn't hard enough.

I just need advice. I have no idea what to do.  I've kept it together this long and now the pressure to make a decision on a career seems to be putting me over the edge.  I just didn't know the amount of sacrifice medical school would entail.  I know there is always light at the end of the tunnel...but at this point I would have never done this had I known. Obviously my love for the field was more than my love for my marriage because I chose medicine over it. The question now is: how do I make all the sacrifice pay off?   I need direction and I can't talk to my 26 yo single friends who make it seem so simple.  For them with no responsibilities, it is!  At this point I just feel like I've been a completely selfish person having decided to ever pursue this and I feel obligated to pick a field that will help me start repaying my time lost with the girls.  Is that even possible?

Sincerely,
Selfish Mommy

Part-time Residency

Apparently, some residency programs lately, notably in pediatrics, have been offering the opportunity to do residency part-time. According to a Newsweek story, about a quarter of pediatrics programs nationally offer this option. It sounds like the programs may offer reduced call schedule and months off, all with a prorated salary.

If anyone who has done a part-time residency wants to weigh in on this option and what it's been like for you, then that would be great. But according to the article, hardly anyone does it.

Considering a lot of pediatrics residents have children during residency and then choose to work part-time after graduation, it seems like this would be an option more people would choose. Granted, it does extend residency about about 15 months and who wants to be a resident for an extra year? Still, what's an extra year, really?

The article hypothesizes that women don't choose this option because they want to be taken seriously. We don't want to be labeled as the part-timer and have that follow us our entire career. I've noticed a general theme in medicine that women often don't want to be granted exceptions because we want to be equals. Yet.... do we wanted to be treated as equals? Yes, we want to be treated with an equal amount of respect, but I personally feel like we're not equal. So I'm not sure if I want to be treated just like a man.

If there had been a part-time option in my residency, I don't think I would have taken it. It probably depends what it would have entailed. We didn't have a heavy call schedule and the days weren't long, so the only thing they could have offered me would have been blocks of time off, and I'm not sure how much that would have helped me.

Motherhood changes you: cooking and hair braiding

This is not a story of the profound and amazing ways that motherhood changes you.  Its about two simple ways that it has changed me.

Before I had my daughter I had NO domestic capabilities.  I could read directions from a cookbook but my husband was the adventurous one in the kitchen.  Also, despite having a lot of hair, I was completely incapable of controlling it!  When my family members found out I was having a girl, after the congratulations many of them laughed at me and said they felt sorry for my future child and the ridiculous hair she was bound to have!  However, on this almost last day of my vacation I find myself cleaning the kitchen to prepare for tonights culinary adventure and tonight I will engage in a hair-braiding adventure with my beautiful girl in order to be ready for church tomorrow.

My daughter LOVES food.  She is the smallest child in her daycare class but requires two breakfasts in addition to the one dad gives her on the way to school, gets a double portion of lunch and eats two snacks and an adult portion of dinner.  She is a rail thin ball of energy.  She devours everything I make. She smiles and licks her lips and yells things like "SO GOOD MOMMIE!!!!  YUMMY IN MY TUMMY" and my favorite, "I LUB IT!!!!!!"  She loves all the different cuisines I try, Spanish food, Indian dishes, Caribbean dishes, attempts at French cuisine - and it just fuels me to cook more and more.  Thanks to the Pioneer Woman and my Le Creuset pot (a gift because there's no way I could afford one), I am a cooking machine.  My mom gave me a recipe book of family dishes at my bridal shower, I had barely touched it before my daughter was born, and now I use it once a week and I've added a few dishes of my own.  With my busy schedule its something I enjoy and can share with my daughter and provides her with meals even when I'm away from home.  Motherhood made cooking about love.

My baby girl was born with a head FULL of hair.  At two she has a beautiful head full of soft curly hair that stretches down her back.  My husbands hair wrangling abilities are measly at best so I needed a way for her to get to daycare looking un-hobo-ish in my absence.  So with the help of wikipedia and my dads response to my mom mentioning my hair braiding insufficiencies that "She can do anything she wants to do, no reason it will be any different with hair braiding" - I decided to figure it out!  Now each night after bathtime, we sit and watch Dora and I braid like crazy.  I treasure this time with my baby and when I'm done I tell her to go show daddy her "princess hair" (everything must be princess something right now).  She smiles so big and touches her hair and runs to the mirror.  All love.

What Would You Do: An Encounter At The Playground

So I had some free time on a lovely Saturday morning a few weeks ago. I wasn't on call, and I had no major errands to do. Babygirl was due for her nap, so I left her with her dad, and took Babyboy out in the jogger stroller, to the playground.

The playground is very large, with a baseball field, a grassy stretch, and several sets of gym equipment, slides, swings, and a sandbox. Babyboy always aims right for the sandbox.

There was a dad there, with two kids, a boy about 4 years old, and a toddler girl. The boy was doing his own thing, digging under the swings, and the dad was following the toddler around. We didn't interact really, except when Babyboy ran over and grabbed one of the boy's shovels and took it back to the sandbox. The boy didn't seem to notice; I apologised; and the dad nodded that that was fine.

I was sort of playing with Babyboy and sort of spacing out for awhile. It was a clear, sunny day. I heard the Dad say something like, "Son, your sister needs a diaper change, so I'm going to go do that, alright?" I figured he must have brought a diaper bag.

Some time later, I idly turned towards where they had all been, and there was only the boy, still digging under the swings. The dad was off in the distance, carrying the toddler girl,  probably a good football field's length of distance away. I watched as he kept going, down the road, up the stairs to a house, inside, and shut the door. He never even looked back.

Now, this is a big playground, with parallel fences on two sides, and parallel roads on two sides. The road entrances are not gated, they are open to traffic. One of the roads is heavily traveled. It would never occur to me in a million years to leave any age child unattended there.

Though the little boy didn't seem worried that his dad had taken off, he did suddenly seem to notice us. He saw me watching him and smiled. I felt terrible for him, being left alone like that. I felt responsible. I smiled back and called over to him: "Hey, want to play in the sandbox too?"

He got up and ran to us, happily, and both boys dug in the sand, not really interacting. Then he hopped up and ran to the slide, and went down a few times, running around it and giggling. Babyboy was taken by this. Babyboy doesn't seem to like slides much, but is fascinated when other people go down them. The kid kept running around and Babyboy watched.

I thought about this dad leaving his kid alone in the playground. He didn't even ask me if I was willing/ able to watch his kid for a few minutes. What if he had? I would have said yes, but I would have felt a bit put out. We weren't planning on staying there forever. Also, he didn't even know aything about me. He didn't know I was a responsible physician. I could be a kidnapper. Or just irresponsible, and leave the kid totally alone.

I thought all of this, and wondered if I would say anything when (and if) the dad ever got back.

Then, after a total of about ten minutes, the dad reappeared at the far edge of the playground, with the daughter. But they didn't come right back to where they had been. They dawdled way on the other side, while she toddled around on the grassy area.

Meantime I was kind of annoyed. Babyboy and the abandoned boy were sort of digging in tandem. Babyboy kept grabbing things from him though, and he was getting feisty. I kind of needed the dad to moderate.

As soon as he came close enough I planned to pack it up. He did walk over, calling to his son that it was time to go.

I didn't say anything.

What would you do?

1 step foward, 2 steps back

My husband and I went on our first vacation sans bebe. It was magical. Nestled in the hills of a Midwestern state, we drank lots of wine, watched tons of movies, got a couples’ massage, and even managed to do some work.

At 2am the day before heading home, we received a frantic phone call from Zo’s grandfather (my father) and our babysitter while we were gone. Zo had a fever, to 102! Granddad was ready to head to the ER. Vacation-mode-mama put her momma-doctor hat back on. Triage mode: he was indeed fine (eating, drinking, pooping, peeing) and most likely just had viral upper respiratory symptoms. Watch and wait I told Granddad. We okayed foregoing fitful sleeping in his pack-and-play for cosleeping and Zo happily snuggled with Granddad until breakfast.

Flash forward to our return. Zo was a febrile, coughing, sneezing, whining fussy-fuss-face with 2 molars and 4 teeth coming in. We returned to purgatory and Granddad went guiltily back to Grandma. Our week went like this: waking 5 times a night for cuddling because self settling just would not do, alternating ibuprofen and acetaminophen, a trip to the Pediatrician for an ear, throat, and lung check, and finally the dreaded call from daycare “Zo is fussy and has a fever, please come get him.”

And every day he kept having fevers so he ended up out of daycare for an entire week. The gains O and I had made in sleep and patience quickly evaporated and now we are back to a little one who wakes up multiple times throughout the night to be consoled. What is this behavior?!? Who is this tyrant? Not to mention we ended up in the Emergency Room at 3am (post to come). Our week was one of my most difficult of Intern Year in spite of being after a 5 day vacation while on an elective; 1 step forward, many many many steps back.

I start a week of nights tonight and O will be on his own. Fingers crossed and prayers uttered that Zo gets with the program and begins sleeping through the night again. We are soo very tired but Zo has made it successfully through his first day back at daycare.

**** Shout out to Fizzy for your timely post entitled “Need a Vacation”. Vacations are work and I’m not sure if they are worth it at this point either ****

MiM Mail: Delay fellowship?

Hello! Longtime reader here! I am a third year Medicine resident at a notoriously grueling program in the southwest (which I love and would choose a thousand times over if I had to do my Match again...) on the brink of finishing my residency. I am heading into a Chief Resident year which should be a nice break - at my program we are junior faculty, paid as such but only attend for two months and have 10 months of administrative and educational work. I am mom to one lovely 9 week old baby girl. My husband is not in medicine and is currently a stay-at-home dad. I'm struggling in my decision of when and whether to pursue fellowship, and here's why...

As an intern I fell in love with critical care. I loved the fast pace, the gratification of seeing a septic shock patient turn around in hours, loved working with a big team of folks to bring someone back to health. I even liked the end of life issues and family discussions. I liked the idea that even when I had nothing in the way of medical treatments to offer I could still help the patient (and more often, the intubated/sedated patient's family) come to terms with the end of life. I did a block of Pulmonary Consult at our large tertiary referral center and found the physiology and multisystem diseases that involve the lungs very interesting as well.

I'm not sure what happened this year - if I just got tired and burned out (we have 4 ICU blocks a year, still have 30h resident call q4, minimal outpatient stuff) - but I grew tired of the same old thing in the ICU. I got annoyed when families wanted their 85 year old grandfather with two primary cancers and septic shock to be a full code. I got tired of the overdoses and alcoholics in DTs we see at our county hospital coming in night after night, their self destructive behavior the reason for thousands of our taxpayer dollars being spent to dry them out, extubate them, and discharge them to homeless shelters or broken homes to continue their substance abuse. Even some of the pulmonary sub-specialty patients started to annoy me; most of them are in and out of the hospital frequently and have been sick all their lives with congenital heart and/or lung disease and have the "sick person" mentality.

After slogging through months of call while pregnant and finally having my baby girl here with me - the thought of heading into fellowship after my Chief year makes my stomach turn. I am so tired of being a resident! The toddler inside me is stomping her feet and wants to be the BOSS already and stop having to run everything by an attending all the time. I'm tired of 80 hour work weeks. I'm exhausted.

I am considering taking a year to work as a hospitalist and consider my options. On one hand - hospital medicine pays enough for us to live comfortably, in my opinion (I did not grow up with much and neither did my husband) and the moonlighting opportunities in my area would enable me to very easily make an extra $50K by working three very easy nights a month. Scraping along on $50K as a fellow for three more years makes me feel sick...and we want more kids - it would be way easier to do that as a hospitalist than a fellow in a program with 3 or 4 fellows per year.

On the other hand - in my heart of hearts I fear general hospital medicine will not be enough for me. I want to be a specialist - someone who is consulted to assist with a sick and complicated patient. I like pulmonary medicine and while I would probably not do critical care full time or even half time, I wouldn't mind keeping a toe in the water in an academic Pulm/CC position - a few consult months, a few inpatient ICU months, etc. I can't imagine doing any other fellowship really...so if I do specialize, I think Pulm/CC is it for me. And I fear if I go the hospitalist route I will never go back to do my fellowship.

Any ideas? Is it better to do fellowship now when my kid(s) are young? Should I just gut it out a few more years and get through it? If I wait to do fellowship, my kid(s) will be older - won't they miss me more? But I can't stomach the thought of doing a fellowship now. Would love to hear the perspective of you brilliant ladies :)

Things Aren't Always As They Seem

I saw a thoracic surgeon in the doctor’s lounge today.  I have read his cases and frozens for a year or so, but never introduced myself.  I still get intimidated in that man’s world of the doctor’s lounge.  It's not just me, my female partner was urged by her male recruiter to eat with him every morning in the lounge when she started seven years ago, and chit chat with the men.  She said although she realized he was trying to be nice, it was excruciating and she bowed out politely after a few weeks.  Walking in there is like walking into an all male club room.  The thoracic surgeon was sitting around the table with a cardiologist, an OB/GYN, a surgeon, and a hospital administrator.  All men I knew individually, but I’m a silent parasite in the lounge, at least during the morning rush.  I breeze in, grab my coffee, smile and wave occasionally, and breeze out.  I wanted to talk to the surgeon about a case, so I waited until he finished regaling an entertaining story about his son’s report on a holiday for school, took a deep breath after grabbing a couple of hard boiled eggs for my lunch in a few hours, and walked over to the table. 

“Hi, I’m Gizabeth Shyder.  I don’t think I’ve met you before.”

A couple of hours earlier I had read a frozen for him.  I called him on the OR bat phone.  Gave him my diagnosis.  “Abnormal lung.”

He countered me sarcastically from the OR.  “Um, abnormal lung?  Is it benign or malignant?  Do you see signs of DAD (Diffuse Alveolar Damage)?”

I took a deep breath.  We use the words Abnormal Lung as a catch all for interstitial lung diseases, which are notoriously difficult to diagnose on frozen section.  Of course I had combed the patient history and knew that cancer wasn't high on his differential.  He wanted more, however.  I gave it to him.

“Well I don’t see any hyaline membranes on frozen section, but they are much easier to see on permanents.  There isn’t much well developed fibrosis in this section.  Or inflammation.  There are a lot of macrophages, I’m wondering about DIP (Desquamative Interstitial Pneumonia).  But that’s not something I would ever diagnose on frozen.  We need to see a lot of tissue to get a good reading on interstitial lung diseases.  I’ll be able to tell you more tomorrow.  I can tell you it is not malignant.  There is no cancer here.”

I think I gained his confidence.  At least his ear.   He replied, “OK, thanks.”  I hung up the phone.

In the lounge, he shook my hand and I struggled briefly to maintain my composure now that I was the center of attention.  I was happy to find that my excitement about the case relaxed my nerves.  “Remember that case we had the other day?  Mediastinal lymph nodes?  The one that was granulomatous inflammation?  All the frozens showed just that, and I reviewed them ad nauseum because you questioned me, thinking there was more, from the OR.  When I got the permanents I found more.  Not on anything you froze, but on your fourth specimen.  D2 to be exact – there were swarms of classic Reed-Sternberg cells.  Not the Owl’s Eye type that's always on the boards, but the mononuclear version.  There were also mummified cells – ones that looked like the nuclei had been squashed by the palm of my hand.  It’s Hodgkin’s.  Hodgkin’s can have granulomas, but I’ve personally never seen them so diffuse and confluent.  They masked the disease entirely in your frozens.  I turfed the case to a lymphoma specialist, and the stains were still pending yesterday, but I’m confident that’s what it is.”

The thoracic surgeon was listening and became energized.  He stood up and walked me to the door – opened it and held it for me.  “I knew there was something more!  Thank goodness it’s lymphoma.  I always tell my patients that’s a much better diagnosis, with a much better prognosis overall, than carcinoma.  Is the report out yet?”

Suddenly I became nervous.  I hadn’t seen the stains, what if my hypothesis hadn’t borne out?  What if it was some sort of rare T-cell lymphoma, with a worse prognosis, that mimics the Hodge (as we affectionately call it)?  I covered up my doubts with confidence.  “I’ll check on it for you.”

Turns out my partner had released the report as Hodgkin’s, just as I suspected, a half hour previous.  Whew.  The surgeon had followed me to the lab and I reported this to him.  We chatted about some other difficult cases he had that week that I had signed out, marveling at the combination of clinical and pathology; patient details he revealed to me matching findings under the scope that I divulged in detail to him.

No matter how far along we get in our careers, it isn’t always easy to handle cases. I’m learning that good communication helps.  Experience and confidence can make a dicey situation more smooth and clear.  But just when you let your confidence allow you to stand up a little too straight, a challenging case will take it down a notch.  This is probably a good thing.  No matter how good we get at diagnosing and treating diseases we will always be reminded that each human is unique and patterns, while helpful, aren't always predictable.  There is a larger design, one that is not in our control, as much as we would like it to be.

The hospital I work at is large.  We no longer have town meetings, we don’t get to know our colleagues easily.  But the extra effort can make a difference.  Now I've got one more person I can speak to informally on the bat phone.  "Hey, this is Giz.  Here's what I see.  Does that fit with what you see?  With the clinical picture?  With what you are thinking?"  The more informal and comfortable we are with our colleagues, the easier and quicker we can diagnose our patients.  There is no room for fear or intimidation in patient care.  Things work best when smart, well-trained people put our heads together to solve the puzzle.  Puzzles aren't single cases necessitating week long work-up, like on TV.  They come hard and fast and in massive daily numbers.  We are all trained intensively over many years to handle it, and we step up to the plate every day.

I got the permanents on the interstitial lung, and was glad I was hedgy on frozen.  With more to look at, without all that nasty frozen artifact, there were loose balls of fibrous tissue filling the alveoli and mild chronic inflammation.  An organizing pneumonia pattern, classically patchy - somewhat nonspecific histology findings that nonetheless direct patient care.  In this case there was a clinical scenario that fit like a glove.  One of the things I love about my specialty is that there is quick satisfaction of closure - 95% of cases are turned around in 24 hours.  99 plus% in 48.  But a first glance, without the clinical and radiographic picture to fill in the gaps, can send you down the tubes if you don't keep an open mind.  Things aren't always as they seem.  A wise clinician holds that thought in the back of his or her mind.

Guest post: Come back when you are ready

Come back when you are ready.

Those are the words that my boss said to me when I called to tell him I was in labor. And he meant them.

My boss is one of the kindest, most generous and supportive people I know. So after 11 weeks I will return to work, not necessarily because I am ready but because it is time. 

Why 11 weeks if I feel I am not completely ready? I work in a small anesthesiology group and know that my coworkers are covering all of the call I normally take. It allows me to start after Easter and start fresh at the beginning of a month. I also took some of my time off unpaid so I could save some of my vacation weeks for later in the year. If only I didn’t have school loans and bills to pay I could have taken more unpaid time off! So 11 weeks it is.

It got me thinking though, when after the birth of a child would I really feel ready, if ever? Would it be when they learned to sleep through the night? Or would it be when they learned to say mama? Would it be after they weaned from breastfeeding? I thought that since this was my second child, I would not have all of the irrational fears of returning to work that I had with my first. My first child in fact did not prefer the nanny over me and is now 3.5 years old and shows no signs of being scared for life because his mom works. I was able to breastfed for 6 months during residency before my supply tanked and I am worried I won’t be able to even get that far this time. So here I sit, one week left of maternity leave having many of those same irrational fears.

I was in my third year of residency when I had my first child. I was blessed to have supportive attendings and an amazing program director. Yet I struggled for a good 5 months before I learned to let go of some of the guilt of being a working mom. I love my profession but I of course love my children and husband more.

This time, my husband is staying home with our two lovely children. He started staying at home with our first as soon as I finished residency. He is making a sacrifice by leaving a job he really enjoyed to stay home for a few years, and I sacrifice by working full-time. It is what works for our family and my sanity.  Like everyone else, I am searching for that perfect life work balance. Depending on the day or week, I think I might have found it. Yet sometimes the mommy guilt rears its ugly head just when I think I have gotten it under control.

So I pose the question to you. When were you ready to return to work after having a baby?

I would like to thank everyone who contributes to this blog. I have been following for over a year now. It has been really supportive to read these posts and see how we are all just trying to be the best moms we can be.  


- an anesthesiologist in a small private practice group with two children under 4.

MiM Mail: An unhappy Match Day

Dear MiM,

I'm looking for some words of encouragement and/or advice.  Match Day was not a happy one here and I am suddenly struggling with the prospect of long distance motherhood.

As a bit of background, I am a single mom of two adolescents.  We currently live in an area where my kids have a strong social and family network.  The kids' dad is in the picture and while he has a spotty track record, he's good to the kids.

I applied to a moderately competitive specialty and tortured myself enough to apply in another specialty as back up.  Originally, I was going to rank the local programs in my specialty followed by the local back up programs. I realized after interviewing, however, that I really really did not like my back up and it was really not for me. I decided to follow my heart and rank my specialty first all the way. I felt that I had a reasonable chance matching in my area.  Well, of course you never know with the match.

Now reality is here. I'm moving. My kids' dad wants them to stay. The kids want to stay. Both sets of grandparents are here.  This is their community. I am going to be working my butt off and don't have much support where I am going. The place is an hour plane ride away.  My heart is so torn.  I would love to take them with me but if I take a step back, I know that would be selfish - not to mention it would cause a huge custody issue.

I am constantly reliving things - should I have framed my application differently? Should I have ranked programs differently? Should I have just sucked it up and ranked my back up higher? A lot of people around me have been giving me the "I told you so" in various forms. My gut feeling is that my program actually fits me very well.  It makes a lot of sense that I matched there, geography aside.  Still, I can't shake how much I've sacrificed for medicine.

In the end, the match is a contract and I am going - at least for the year, if not the next several years.  I have a lot of figuring out to do.  Anyone else have advice or had experience in how to be a long distance mom?

Thanks very much,
Anonymous

Need a vacation?

Last year, I took a couple of weeks off in the summer to go visit my parents.

It was miserable. Two of my family members because very sick, one necessitating a 2AM trip to the ER, another resulting in an urgent doctor's visit that I had to pay for out of pocket. I probably got an hour of sleep the whole trip. My husband and I fought on the drive in both directions. And when I got back, the work that had piled up in my absence was overwhelming.

This year, I refuse to go.

I've been thinking about taking two half-weeks off, so I won't return to such an overwhelming load. But at the same time, I wonder if human beings need a longer vacation?

Like, will I get completely burned out if I go over a year without taking a straight week off? And what about my kids? Do they need a week off as well? Are a few days here and there enough?

Update On Baby Not Sleeping: Baby Is Sleeping!

Alternative title for this post: I Take Back Every Negative Thing I Ever Said Or Felt About The Cry-It-Out Method.

A month or so ago, I had written about our thirteen months of sleep deprivation, as our Babygirl was waking up one, two, three times a night for feedings. It was getting so, so hard for me to get up and get through my clinic. We were perplexed by her behavior, as our two-and-a-half-year-old son has been sleeping through the night since he was about three months old. We were becoming pretty desperate in our quest to get her to sleep through the night.  So, I reached out to all of you!

I had asked for advice, but clearly rejected any remote suggestion to let her cry. I had made a feeble attempt at letting her cry once, and she had not only woken up Babyboy, but also vomited, requiring a two a.m. crib change. Also, I hated letting her cry... It felt awful to me.

I resented my friends who said things like, "Well, when you're desperate enough, you'll try letting her cry again," or, "When you guys are ready to really do it, cry-it-out really works."

I had secret conversations with other moms who were also suffering from frequent baby awakenings, talking about how we couldn't understand those parents who could let their kids cry. "How could they be so callous?" we would wonder, sort of smugly.

Hubby and I soldiered on. We tried stuffing her with food and milk before bedtime, in hope that if she was only full enough, she might sleep. We tried wrapping her really snugly. We tried not wrapping her.

Hubby had a few longer work trips. I was on solo baby duty. And with some of my long afternoon commutes,  I found myself even starting to nod off in traffic.

But what finally changed our minds was the concept that as bad as the disrupted sleep was for us, it was just as bad for Babygirl.

I finally got really serious about the sleep issue and started to read about it. I asked our pediatrician, who was pretty matter-of-fact that Cry-it-out was the only thing that was going to work. I searched online, and did not immediately avoid all advice regarding the Cry-it-out method. I actually read that Weissbluth book, Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child, which is terribly organized, but actually full of good information.

It finally registered with us that we were not doing our toddler any favors by running to her and feeding her multiple times a night. HER sleep was disrupted, too. SHE was not sleeping through the night. SHE was not learning the skill of soothing herself to sleep, which could lead to endless sleep problems, and even anxiety.

THAT did it. I could suffer endlessly if I thought it was for the benefit of my child. But the idea that we were messing her up? No way.

I decided to man up and extinguish these nighttime awakenings.

And so on a random weeknight two weeks ago, after we got her down to sleep, we simply did not go to her when she cried. This was a few days after she had hurt her finger, and she even had stitches. It didn't seem to bother her, so we went ahead with the sleep training.

It wasn't that bad. I thought of it as the same as when she wants something she can't have because it's bad for her, like toddling out into the road, or trying to pet my mom's mean old cat. She cries when we hold her back from those things, but we don't feel bad about it, because we're keeping her safe from harm.

That's how it was that first night. Sort of, oh well, she's crying, but this is what's good and right for her, and so we can tolerate it.

She only cried for about twenty minutes: hard and angry at first, then sporadically, then just a little occasional yell, and then she was back alseep. She didn't vomit, either. She woke up twice more that night, and cried less and less each time.

The next night hubby was gone, and I was determined to continue the training. Unfortunately, she did vomit on her first awakening, and I had to use great skills to get her out of the bed still sleeping, strap her onto her changing table, change the whole crib, and her, and put her back to bed. That sucked, and she still kind of reeked, but hey, she was asleep. She didn't wake up again, either. Nor the next night. Or the next.

We're solidly into a week of full nights' sleep. TWELVE hours. She's sleeping great! We're so proud, of her and ourselves. I'm on an energy high. I feel like I'm on antidepressants.

Thanks to all the advice you all gave me, and:

I Take Back Every Negative Thing I Ever Said Or Felt About The Cry-It-Out Method.

Next step? We need to clean up the bedtime routine for the both of them. Future post: When Your Kid's Bedtime Routine Takes Two Hours, And You've Got Work To Do. Or something like that... I suspect that it's going to involve more crying-it-out. Any advice welcome....

Guest post: Cardiologist, interrupted

Combining motherhood and medicine is no small challenge. When attaining motherhood itself became the challenge, I felt lost. It seemed as if I was the first MD ever to find herself in this situation. Nobody I knew personally had gone through infertility. Lots of cardio fellows I knew had had pregnancies during their training, and there were even some who had been seriously ill needing frequent medical treatment. But all that just isn’t the same. The overwhelming feeling of loneliness and having no one to turn to for advice in the difficult decisions that needed taking is why I really wanted to do a guest post here. I hope my story can help someone out there navigate the rough seas of infertility and pregnancy loss.

Our story of trying to conceive started when I was 27. I was in residency then, and had just gotten married. I was looking forward to a year of rather cush rotations. I happily tossed my pill in the trash. The first six months were not so bad. We hardly gave it a second thought that I hadn’t gotten pregnant yet. After all, we were both very fit and in excellent health. My cyles were regular as clockwork. It was bound to happen in the next few months. Except that it didn’t.

After a year, we had some very basic testing done. Gynecological exam and ultrasound for me, sperm analysis for my husband. Everything came back stone cold normal. We were back to the drawing board. By then, our marriage was definitely suffering under the strain of TTC (internet messageboard speak for Trying To Conceive). All the temperature charting, ovulation predicting and sex under duress were taking their toll. I was completely micromanaging it all, and my husband told me in no uncertain terms that I was driving him up the wall.

In the meantime, I had finished residency and moved on to a cardio fellowship in a prestigious, somewhat malignant program. In hindsight it was never a good fit. I was the only woman on the service, and the attendings and other fellows were as macho as they come. When I chose to go there, I was completely blinded by the prestige of the place. When I started work, I was told in no uncertain terms that they wouldn’t appreciate me getting pregnant. I just let the remark slide, thinking that it all wouldn’t be so bad if I just worked hard enough.

A few months in, when I least expected it, I realized I was two days late for my period. That had never happened before. I finally unwrapped one of those pregnancy tests we had optimistically bought 18 months before. And yes: pregnant. We were madly happy and naively optimistic. I didn’t announce, because I was afraid of the repercussions. I just double leaded and kept on cathing. I treated myself regularly to sneaking into the echo lab after hours, looking at the tiny flickering heartbeat and dreaming about the future.

When I was seven weeks along, I was rounding the ICU with the whole team when suddenly I felt the worst pain I’d ever had in my life. I ran to the bathroom and collapsed on the floor of the stall. This could not be good. I went over to L&D, where the OB confirmed my worst fear: the little heart had stopped and I was having a miscarriage.

To say that I was devastated is an understatement. I can’t find the words to describe the grief, depression, emptiness and hopelessness of that period. I couldn’t eat. I had horrible nightmares about having to resuscitate my tiny baby. I contemplated suicide to be with my child. I had such overwhelming guilt about staying in the cath lab, thinking my baby died of irradiation. It’s completely irrational, but it took me over a year to shake off that guilt. Physically, I was crippled by anemia after a serious hemorrhage.

When I returned  to the hospital, I was in for a nasty surprise.  Everyone knew what had happened to me through the hospital grapevine. But no one understood. I was expected to pull as much weight as I had before the miscarriage. It didn’t occur to any of my collegues or bosses that I would need an easier time. And I just couldn’t take it, physically and mentally. Another thing that had changed, was that I no longer gave a flying f*ck about anything at the hospital. I lashed out like a wounded animal at anyone who gave me a hard time. Fellows, nurses, attendings, it didn’t matter anymore. I alienated a lot of people during that period.  I wish I could say that I could have done things differently, but I just didn’t have any strength left for diplomacy. My attendings behaved like jerks, and no-one showed the least bit of compassion during the most difficult time of my life. I was so out of it with grief and depression that I couldn’t have done it differently, even if I had realized the consequences at that time.

Several months after the miscarriage, my husband and I had a long talk about the future. We’d been trying to get pregnant again the whole time. It was clear that if we ever wanted to have biological children, we’d need treatment. We consulted with a fertility specialist. He stressed that that the single most important factor determining the chance of success in infertility treatment is the age of the woman. We had no time to waste.

It was very clear at that point what the priorities were. The hospital I was working in didn’t have a  fertility clinic, and taking any amount of time off work for IVF was out of the question. It was time for an organized retreat.

At the end of the clinical year, I continued my training in another hospital. I had rotated there before and knew a lot of people in the staff. Among them were several women, all with families. The group of cardiology fellows was almost 50% female, the atmosphere was pleasant and collegial. This hospital has a large fertility center, and I became a patient there. For the next 8 months we did back-to back cycles. First stimulated IUI, later IVF. The funny thing is that I hardly missed any work time for all this. The other fellows knew what was going on, and they simply covered for me for the duration of whatever test or procedure I had to undergo. In exchange, I took some late shifts for them so they could pick up their kids from daycare. It was a great deal for both sides. Working in this environment made the contrast with my previous place all the sharper. It’s not about working less hard, it’s about not giving people such a hard time about work.

And then, at the second IVF cycle, we got our lucky shot: I got pregnant. I have to admit that I was completely paranoid about miscarrying again. I put the ultrasound probe on my belly for a quick heartbeat check almost every day. I became uneasy when I was away from the ultrasound machine for an entire weekend. I struggled with traumatic memories of my miscarriage. But I’m out of the first trimester now and things are progressing well. Slowly, the sun is coming out again.

The extent of the career damage from my miscarriage-depression didn’t come out until later. I got a lot of bad rep from my previous hospital, and was passed over as a candidate for a job I really wanted because of it. The people I rubbed the wrong way are quite influential. I’ll have to find a new track in my career, where references from those people don’t matter as much. But I don’t worry about it. It’s never too late to reinvent oneself professionally. I’m an excellent cardiologist, and I will land on my feet no matter what. I just had to do the really important things first.      

Women leaders in medicine

Last week, I went straight from the hospital to the Washington DC Convention Center for the AMSA National Convention. I was there to receive the 2013 Women Leaders in Medicine Award, along with 4 other women; part of the award reception was a panel discussion on the significance of women leaders in medicine. We had received some questions to ponder ahead of time that the moderator would ask us, and then it would be open to the floor of mostly women medical students.

The award came as a total surprise. I had no idea who had nominated me (nominations came from medical students across the country), but was excited to hear that we would be each introduced and a brief excerpt shared from the nomination letter. I’ve been really proud of my career so far, but after seeing who my co-award winners were and the list of prior award winners (including Surgeon General Regina Benjamin and former CDC Director Julie Gerberding), I was feeling a tiny bit which-one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-other.

I was up first, alphabetically, and the excerpt mentioned how well I’m able to balance an academic career with motherhood. My internal response: Well, I’m glad it seems I’m balancing it all! I guess it always feels like a work-in-progress to me. It’s always “trying to balance” and not, “Oh yeah! I’m balanced!” But, if I can send a message to others that doing both – having a successful academic career and family life— is achievable, then I’m glad.

The other award winners were Carolyn Clancy, head of the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality; Sophie Currier, the woman who took on the NBME to allow time during the exam for nursing mothers to pump (she won!);  Petra Clark-Dufner, Director of the Urban Track at U Conn; Laura Tosi, orthopedic surgeon and director of bone health at Children's National Medical Center.

We represented a spectrum of ages and stages in our career, and I think this made the panel discussion richer since we complemented each other. We talked about leadership – how there’s not just one style but a range, and how you need to find the style that works for you. Sometimes, it’s about standing up for what you believe in, despite the consequences. Sometimes, it’s being the first and paving the way for those behind you. But, it’s also about caring for those you lead. It’s about being generous with your talent and time, and putting the needs of the people you lead ahead of your own: to help them grow.

We talked about mentors, and how you need to look beyond the traditional 1:1 model of mentorship – those traditional models are rarer today –you may have many mentors, people who can offer you pieces that will help you with the whole. And, great mentors may be actually peers, perhaps within a few years of you. Don’t be afraid to approach someone you admire and ask them for their advice or time. The worst they could say is no – and we need thicker skin than that.

We talked about challenges as women in medicine, and what we did to overcome them. For some, it was being the first, being a rarity: a female orthopedic surgeon starting many years ago. I thought having children was the biggest challenge I had faced – from  the guilt of leaving work at a reasonable time to catch my daughter before bedtime, to the mania of pumping.  My solution: I wrote about it. I also started MiM to form the community I wish I had around me (at the time, none of my colleagues had kids and didn’t really understand).

One question from the audience was, "Do you have any regrets?"  None of us did in terms of what field we chose to go into, and I didn't think I had any until I remembered one incident where I assumed people knew I wanted a certain position. I was too modest to directly voice my interest in the position, but many told me I was a shoo-in for it, and I believed it would happen. I wanted it to happen. However, I didn't get it, and when I finally had the nerve to ask why, I was told, "You wanted that? Why didn't you ever tell me? I thought you weren't interested." I was devastated. And I learned to be vocal about what I want. If people, your supervisor, those in positions of power, don't know what you want, you're unlikely going to get it.

One woman asked what would we tell our younger selves? I couldn't think of an answer to this off the top of my head, but did remember we did a topic day on this way back in 2008! (See here and it starts a few posts down: The advice we wish we had in medical school; just re-read mine and agree 100%.)

Another asked, "What's the one piece of advice would you give you women entering medicine today?"
Answer: Do what you love. We can’t predict the twists and turns our career path will take when starting out, but following what you love is the way to having a fulfilling life and keeps you going. There were several themes along this line. The room got quiet and I, who had been silent for this question, said, "Marry well." The room erupted into laughter. But, I explained that my decision to marry my husband (sitting there in the crowd, now getting slapped on the back) was the best one I had ever made for my career and otherwise. Without someone in your corner who supports you, who is an equal partner in life, it's going to be very difficult to succeed in both spheres. (I'm not the only MiM who has said this!)

Our last charge was to leave the audience with one final piece of advice. I said, "Follow your passion," which fulfilled the pithy criteria I was thinking was most important, but now looking back, I wish I had said:

We women need to stick together. We need to support each other. We need to come together and celebrate what makes being a woman in medicine special. We need to lift each other up.

Thank you for being here, lifting each other up.