Our new dining room display (I love it, don't you?)
We are hanging in there. I ran five miles the other day and can barely move now as a result. Even sleeping hurts. Seriously. I am that sore. I don't actually see a reason to run so far given all that is going on in life, but I have begun to pick up on a bit of the stress circulating Annenberg 13 (aka, the home of the second year med students at Mount Sinai), and I am really beat. Oh yeah, by the way, our hospital caught fire AGAIN (the last time was only a couple years ago...maybe something should be fixed?) last Wednesday. All the students were called up to the hospital to help move beds around (half the hospital had to be evacuated, then relocated once the smoke situation was improved). I went up, but I felt very nervous about the smoke. Part of the issue is everything smells so much more extreme during pregnancy...so any type of toxic environment FEELS so much more toxic than it actually probably is. Anyway, I found an attending who said I was probably fine to be there because the CO levels were down, but to just go home anyway because there were plenty of people. So I did. But I felt very guilty for leaving. Even though there were plenty of people to help, this was MY JOB. I didn't do it. Yeah, protecting my unborn child should be my first priority in that situation, but at the same time...I don't know. It bothered me. I don't want to be mediocre as a parent OR as a med student, I don't want to shirk responsibility, I don't want to be unprepared. I want to be the person that pulls through in an emergency. And I wasn't.
Life is complicated. I don't have a great deal of respect for broad knee-jerk statements for or against trying to balance a career with having kids. The "Why have kids if you're just going to ship them off to daycare?" sentiments probably bug me the most, but the opposite camp can as well. Tell me my two year old is evidence that 40 hours a week in an amazing daycare causes any kind of emotional harm, and I will believe it when you show me a happier, more totally normal kid. (Unless the argument is that daycare results in a very, very passionate aversion to the wearing of ANY clothes...in which case, ok, fits with our N of 1 right now! We have a most dedicated future nudist in our midst!) That is a topic for another day. But it is so hard, and there are definitely times when I feel like there is just not enough of me--in terms of time, energy, brain power, you name it--to do what I want to be doing well. And I will admit, there are things to be said for doing ONE JOB WELL, rather than two....at never quite 100%. There are so many things I would love to be doing better, or doing at all, that I am not. So it goes.
PS--I'm up at 2 to give Naomi medicine. Either that or practicing for the new baby, take your pick. Or studying. Or all of the above!
