Special Delivery!

I delivered my very first baby tonight! And even though I don't get to take it home, like most people who post about delivering a baby, I got to be right there in the trenches. I got to check the cervix, monitor the labor progress, don the sterile gloves and gown, and have my hands right there when the baby was crowning. It is more elegant than I ever thought possible. Then I got to suction the baby and hear him cry for the first time, clamp the cord, deliver the placenta, and draw the cord blood. The mom was such a trooper, she didn't have an epidural, and this was her very first pregnancy. She was such a pro!

These are the days when I am reminded why I am in school. The miracle of it all. A little perspective can make it all worthwhile. So tomorrow when I am in the nursery helping with his newborn exam, studying pathology won't seem like such a burden after all.

I can't wait for that moment when I am the mom and that is our baby. I won't even mind if a medical student needs to learn on me, because the first time is a once in a lifetime experience.

This is why I haven't posted in awhile...

My professor expects me to understand this:

"Metabolism of fructose-2,6-bisphosphate and regulation of the pathway: The formation of fructose-2,6-bisphosphate is catalyzed by phosphofructokinase-2 and its breakdown is catalyzed by fructose-2,6-bisphosphatase. Phosphofructokinase-2 is not an enzyme of the glycolytic pathway. Although phosphofructokinase-2 uses fructose-6-phosphate from the glycolytic pathway, the product of this kinase reaction is strictly a regulator of phosphofructokinase-1 and fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase. The amount of fructose-6-phosphate removed from the glycolytic pathway to produce fructose-2,6-bisphosphate is inconsequential."

I think the part that really strikes me is the part that says, "...is inconsequential." That I understand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li5nMsXg1Lk

Flossing's for the birds

I can hear my dental hygienist scolding me in my mind when I don't floss. So annoying! I have clearly committed dental sin and then I have to floss twice the next day as penance. However, I can pop in the cheetos and my doctor is still smiling merrily at me saying, "you deserve it!" I like my doctor. So sometimes I want to tell my dental hygienist to get herself some fanny floss and mind her own business.

Some things I do solely out of guilt. Flossing is one of them, hands down. Checking out books that can be classified as something other than literary junk food is another. You know, the classics, like (yawn) Moby Dick. I'll get a few chapters in and then, whoops!, they're due again already. Darn. But no one's the wiser that I finished that cheap-o murder mystery or read every recipe in the cookbook about chocolate, plus polished off the whole Twilight series in the same week. And it's really just because the librarian gives me that stare, you know? I feel all guilty inside if I slip into the romance section because I know she's throwing me eye darts from the set in the back of her head.

So does anyone else do things like this solely out of guilt? Or does everyone actually read those stuffy classics they check out?

Swimingly

You know that feeling when you drink the first cold sip of water in the morning and you can feel the coolness spreading all the way down your chest? It’s like someone poured cool water right through you. I love that feeling.

And here's a non-sequitur--I really want a camera. There was this window at MGH this morning that had a letter on each of twelve 8 1/2 x 11 pieces of paper spelling, "GET BETTER DAN!" It was so simple and it looked sunny but sad in the window of the 14th floor. It would have made an interesting story captured in a photograph. That's what I was thinking. Also, I was thinking that I wanted Dan to get better too.

So now I'm at work. A part of me really wants to get all sorts of scut work done with so that I can go to my boss and tell her all the ridiculous things I've been doing with my days and also tell her that there's really nothing more I can possibly do because no one else has scut work for me. In essence I've done IT ALL. And then another part of me thinks, I am really too good for scut work. And instead just writes on this blog of mine. Or checks my bank account. Or writes Boyd an email. Or looks up the movies in town this weekend--which, by the way, includes the 6th Harry Potter :) I mean, really, they're paying me $10.50/hour. What do they expect when they don't give me anything to do? I am only 50% the type to seek out grunt work is all I'm saying.

At the house I'm subletting for the summer there are these water glasses with little blown glass goldfish embedded in them, and there is also a white bone mug with an artsy panda on it that says "bei jing" all phonetically with the accenture marks over the vowels and everything. I'm really in love with both of these. Needless to say I drink my chammomile/spearamint tea out of the panda mug which makes me feel like I've just consumed a hug. The panda helps. And the fish glasses are sort of rose-colored (theoretically speaking) making me think that life is going swimingly to say the least.

Also, I'm addicted to Pandora, which is only a slight consolation prize for the gorgeous 70 degree day I'm missing outside. My optimistic side made me put on sunscreen anyways, since I don't want the spotty, fugly arms that seem to dot most women in their 6th decade. And since I may decide to become a dermatologist it only seems logical.

No cute photos of our kids until I get that camera! And then, no promises since said kids don't exactly exist yet. Ah well.

The Moral of the Story

Tonight is my first night in Boston for my (lonely) 6 week internship at Mass General Hospital. I do have a roommate and sadly it's not Boyd. I've warped back to college with the mismatched plates and shower bulging at the seams with random bath gels. My roommate is young and her parents were here when I arrived, stocking her half of the refrigerator. I remember those days. And I am proud that I now know exactly what to buy to stock my half. I even know how to cook it all without calling mom.

I love this city--I'm living steps away from beautiful Harvard Sqaure in an old brick walk-up and it's 60 degrees outside to boot--but it's just not the same without fancy Sunday night desserts, Simpson's episodes, and goodnight kisses.

I never realized how much time I spend just shooting the breeze with Boyd. I called him today to tell him about the beautiful breeze I felt sitting beneath the spotty shadows of a maple tree in Porter square while eating an ice cream cone but he wasn't there and it made me sad even amidst the beauty of it all.

This is a growing experience. If for nothing else than for me to realize that I am so lucky to have what I've got so that I will be wise enough to never let it go. But since I'm here now, I'm looking on the bright side and I'm going to chalk it up to adventure.

Someday

I have to say that I've never really written anything personal on our blog, and after last week of having my pity party I just want to thank the cheering section I didn't know I had! Thanks to Morgan who helped me finally figure out how to cheer up our blog.

So on occasion I come up with baby names that I "submit" to Boyd. Since the usefulness of such a practice is null for us at this point it shouldn't really be serious, but we definitely take it seriously and have full-fledged discussions on the merit of a name. Recently I told him that I liked the name Ginger for a girl. As any good husband should, he was thoughtful about this lastest whim. However then he proceeded to tell me that in England if you have red hair you actually have "ginger" hair. And since the probability of us having a redhead is pretty high he didn't think that would be very nice if some bloke said one day to our daughter (in English accent), "You're kidding me--really--your mum and dad named you Ginger and you have ginger hair. Well that's jolly ridiculous."

So maybe not.

In other news, in school we are learning about the GI system which is fairly disgusting, Boyd goes on his 1st buisness trip to exotic Milwaukee at the beginning of June, and I finished my very first sewing project since high school making pillows for our couch.

Also, I was talking to an old high school friend last night who's in culinary school and I was so jealous. She said in their pastry class they recently made banana cream pie and they deep fried the bananas first, and then folded them into pastry cream with a copious amount of fresh whipped cream on the top. Wow. I seriously would like to raid her refrigerator. Anyways there are a few things that I really can't wait to do in life and culinary school is definitely top on my list. I'm pretty sure Boyd is even more excited about that then the whole med school thing. He's not quite sure how he feels about having to be a guinea pig when I'm practicing physical exam skills. But he has made it quite clear that he'd better be a guinea pig for culinary school. I think he misses the days when I took all the cooking classes at BYU and brought him home the leftovers.

I want to hear what other people are jealous of--or are just hoping to do "someday." I am definitely OCD and have a whole list. Having 4 kids is in there somewhere. As is planting a fruit and vegetable garden. And maybe becoming Martha (minus the trouble with the law).

The one person who truly understands it all

I am not a blogger. I am not a scrapbooker. I am not crafty. I am not so many things that I sometimes pretend to be. I just spent the last hour trying to make our blog background cute and interesting since I've never changed it (and it seems like everyone else has skills in these areas and so clearly I should too). But I'm over it. Done. I admit defeat.

I basically just want to cry right now. But I have no reason to--my life isn't hard. I don't have any screaming kids, or a negative bank account, or even a pimple. I'm not pregnant and swollen, I didn't just burn dinner, and my husband is not working the night shift. I'm not single and lonely, nobody in my family is sick, and I am not sleep deprived. I didn't just fail a test or get rejected from a job. Everyone I know has any of a hundred reasons to feel like crying--but not me.

The one thing that makes such a seemingly perfect life hard sometimes is that feeling of not fitting in anywhere. Sometimes I think the Lord has asked me to take one of the hardest roads of all--the road not taken. I know my life isn't full of the real difficulties in life--the 2am wake up calls from a fussy baby or the trying to figure out which top ramen flavor we want to eat tonight to make ends meet. I don't get the hangover all my classmates get after a crazy party or hear all the heartbreaking gossip from the local bar they all went to on Thursday night. But as crazy as it sounds, it's the not going through those trials that is hard. Because it's lonely.

At church I am probably the only one that doesn't have any kids--and isn't planning on it in the next five years. I'm not sure how to contribute my two sense on morning sickness, or labor and delivery, or potty training a two-year-old even though I'd like to. Little do most people know that I actually envy their shared experiences.

At school I am the only girl who's married and Mormon. I don't fit into the Mormon click because I'm a girl. And let's be honest: there is no married click. Boyd and I try to make an effort to go to the parties and bring our own rootbeer and that works for the first hour before everyone gets drunk. I can't quite keep up with the Twitter of it all.

So, well, it's going to be a white blog. And maybe after re-reading this it's not so bad. "In the depth of winter, we find within us an invincible summer." Especially in Arizona. I may not have an adorable mormon mommy blog, or a recipe for green jello, but somewhere I know I am not alone. Thanks to the one person who truly understands it all--Jesus Christ.