Wow, I can’t recall a time in my adulthood where my intestinal system has taken a beating like the one I’ve had this past 36 hours, but I think I’m in the clear now.  I should have known: the first sign was that I wasn’t hungry, hence, something felt “amiss” like when the ocean looks far too calm and there are no seagulls in the sky and the air is too still.  Monday night, I just felt “tired” - maybe daylight savings stole an hour from me, so I went to bed early, only to awake an hour later, grateful that there was actually an emesis basin on the floor next to the bed (don’t ask).  We’ve been taking care of a lot of little patients with some kind of gastrointestinal ailment or another, and all I can say is: sanitize your stethoscope and wash your hands with soap and water - Calstat does not kill the bug!

I’m feeling way better now, but stupid occupational health won’t let me go back to work until I’m symptom-free for 72 hours - 3 whole ridiculous days, which is putting a squeeze on the back-up system, no doubt.  Sorry colleagues!  Now that my intestinal tract is entirely cleared of any and all debris, I can more accurately say that I feel Gully movements.  Even at my last ob appointment, the RN was kind of miffed that I didn’t feel any movement.  I couldn’t quite tell - everything felt like digestion or gas to me, but then Joe pointed out, “Who feels digestion so much?”  Last night, sipping on some Gookenaid (a Gatorade-esque concoction that Joe bought at some orienteering meet, great for rehydration), I definitely felt something more like small limbs akimbo rather than “digestion” on my right side.

I finally had a chance to look into daycare stuff in between bathroom runs, and we are of course late to the game - there’s a two-year long waitlist for the daycare near our house, and an 18-month long waitlist at the daycare affiliated with my next year’s workplace.  Suffice to say, if it weren’t for the generosity of my parents, I don’t think we could technically have kids until I finished fellowship.  I’m still going to be taking call at the hospital every 4th night for the next 3 years, and with Joe’s business travel to California, there was the huge issue of how we were going to take care of an child at night every 4th night of the next three years.  And when Joe’s away, my hours aren’t exactly compliant with daycare hours; I will typically have to be at work by 6:30AM or so, and most daycares don’t open until 7:30 or 8 AM. I entertained the idea of live-in nanny, but that requires having a stranger living with you, and I’m not sure I’m so into that.  I told Joe that maybe he would have to limit his travel just a bit, and that was immediately nixed…”You ruined my life by moving to Massachusetts, so I’m taking the baby to California with me,” was his answer.  He has this vision of Gully being a “1K United baby.”  He has it all worked out so that I will FedEx him weekly supplies of frozen breastmilk for the full duration of the AAP-recommended year of breastfeeding.  I’m still not convinced of the practicality of that, but maybe there’s less of a waitlist for daycare in California! And he won’t have the problem of finding overnight-care since he doesn’t ever have to work overnight.  Given the constraints of my work, Joe’s idea doesn’t actually sound half-bad. He just has to start looking into daycares in Mountain View.

A solution that’s becoming more concrete is my parents.  My dad is in semi-retirement right now and even before I was pregnant, he offered to do the job, and my mom is just freakin’ good with babies.  She loves babies; she’s like the Baby-Whisperer or something, because other people’s babies just miraculously stop crying when she holds them or they find her silly games The Most Entertaining Shiznit Eva.  I explained to them my call schedule, and they were like, “no problem. You and Joe are so busy, we will just take the baby, and you can come visit when you’re not so tired.”  They are entirely nonplussed by my stressed out search for babycare.  So maybe this is slightly better than stranger-nannies taking care of our kid, and maybe on-par realistic with Joe’s frequent-flyer baby plan.