This weekend, a family member who is not in medicine casually pointed out to me that my difficulties with this pregnancy thus far and our daycare woes might have been alleviated had I “waited until [I] became a real doctor” before having a baby.  It took all of my energy not to burn a hole into her forehead with my fiery stare, because oh boy, how many problems are there with this thinking?

(1) Being in training does not make me a fake doctor.  So the next time you want someone to put an IV into you, call the resident who does this 3 times a night, not the attending who hasn’t snaked an IV into a 4 year-old since her training 15 years ago.  (Better yet, call the nurse, who probably does this 3 times a shift).

(2) My training won’t end until I am officially “advanced maternal age.”  If I wait until my training ends, I will be the age of some of the grandmothers of my patients.

(3) The 80 hour work week of residency only turns into the unprotected 100 hour work week of young-attending-hood in some specialties.  Time off only becomes more difficult with the more responsibility you have.

I know, I know, I know, I know I should be Overwhelmed With JOY at the Upcoming “Blessed Event,” (as it has been called by Joe’s grandmother) but quite honestly, folks, I’m nervous as balls.  For starters, I have already started having contractions, so the threat of “modified bedrest” and lately, “strict bedrest” has been hanging over me, and I am going to go ape-shit if this does in fact end up happening.  Finishing residency on time is a goal I’d like to reach, but certainly not at the cost of giving birth to a 25-weeker (oh lawdy, Gully, please stay up in there for a while more, I promise you more yummy ice cream into your veins if you stay put.) Also feeding into the anxiety is this blog I like to read called “Mothers in Medicine,” because it has been giving me a window into the work-family challenge that I am undoubtedly going to face.  “It just works out because it has to,” one attending told me, which is reassuring, but also a little depressing in a way, because obviously, all things ultimately “work out” in the end.  We live down the street from a fire station that has a very prominently displayed neon sign affixed to its brick exterior designating it as a “safe drop zone” to drop off your baby, no questions asked, if you can’t handle it.  If I end up dropping my baby off at the fire station, does this count as “working out”?

I was going to make this a post about how much paperwork being a physician generates, but somehow moms in medicine seemed more apropos.  This weekend I had the luxury of having an entire call-free weekend - no pager, just two normal days in a row to do normal weekend stuff, and it was fantastic.  At one point, I had two loads of laundry running, was freshly showered and relaxed in yoga pants, making soup and chicken salad in the kitchen, and Joe came over to to hug me and commented, “you look like a mom.”  I was briefly a little impressed with myself for just a second, and then briefly jealous of people who do routinely get to this on all their weekends.  I mean, not that it would be easy to be a stay-at-home mom, but wow, how cool would it be to have the chance to take my kid to baby yoga class, and drink coffee at the park in the mornings with my baby, and Make Things in the Kitchen, and take my kid to mommy-and-me book club, and (because this is 2010) become a snarky commentator on some mommy blog?  And now I want to cry, because it’s my own fault that I chose to rack up some ridiculous medical school debt and spend a bajillion years in training and have a distinctly nerdy interest in esoteric doctor-y things.  Now excuse me as I return to more paperwork and reading about lupus and feeling sorry for myself.