22 weeks

Again, sorry about my long hiatus from blogging! I have multiple excuses that just piled up (lost camera battery charger so no pictures to post, lost USB cable so couldn't upload pics we took, etc etc), but mostly it is because I am on to studying for my Step 2 USMLE boards exam. My goal is to post every 2 weeks, but here I have almost gone 3+ and may not have a chance again until after the boards exam...Ugh. I need to buckle down and study since this is the last important exam before residency though!

For preggo pics - my belly has gotten huge! I cannot believe the change over the past few weeks. Our little boy now weighs over a pound and is the size of a large mango. JD has finally been able to catch some kicks from the little guy, but typically he stops kicking just as his daddy puts his hand on my belly. The other night JD fell asleep with his hand on my tummy just to startle me awake when the two of them jumped - a combination of some hard baby kicks against his dad's hand and JD suddenly moving. What an awesome, indescribable feeling! Or as my sister says "out-of-body" experience...lol, so true.

I feel like I have been fairly busy over the past few weekends: Rose Parade, Lion King, end of Neurology rotation, 4th of July, Camping trip...and now, hunkering down to study. Again, I must say, being an MS4 allows much more time to the family already...at least for a little while. I still have the tough rotations to come. Regardless weekends are more open, choices are given and call nights are fewer!

It has been interesting to reflect on my career choice toward Medicine lately too (random family convo). Hands down, I can say that I do not regret a thing! I am so happy where I am, despite the hard times and the years spent to get to the finish line. In retrospect, the first 2 years were much easier than the demand/stress seen in 3rd year. Classes were from 8 - 12 with a lot of hours to study independently (except the 1 day/week for clinic work with a preceptor and 1 day for class until 5pm for clinical skills knowledge). Tests were more frequent and culminated with the horrible USMLE Step 1 exam, so discipline on yourself was and still is key. I was busy in college (classes, studying, swimming, volunteering and working), but it was nothing like this! Now 6+ hours of studying is just a blink of the eye. Then 3rd year hits and you are no longer in control of ANYTHING, particularly your schedule. You are on call and working on the weekends when they tell you....you are allowed 2 'personal' days in the year if needed for illness or family emergency (wasn't about to use these to tackle morning sickness even though it wasn't easy trying to look 'excited' at 6am after a 10-20min of vomiting).....if you need time off for a wedding or other special event, you have paperwork to request it very early, but no guarantees.....you quickly adapt and learn the demands and expectations of a new job every 5 weeks (if you've ever started a new job, I'm sure you know that the first week or two is no fun...but imagine just as you're starting to get the hang of it and enjoy it, you take a test on everything you've learned and move on just to start something new again). Despite the change of pace, longer hours, and different expectations, 3 year offers a huge amount of learning through direct exposure to people with various diseases/conditions, while experiencing the beauty of life and the tragedy of death. I won't say that 3rd year was awful because at times it was fun and usually always interesting, but I wouldn't want to repeat it! My life will be like that again soon enough during Intern year (first year of residency)!

Anyway, after I take Step 2 I finally get to find out if I love Emergency Medicine, and specifically Peds EM. Will the saying "jack of all trades, master of none" bother me? I hope not, but this is a common argument against ER or even Family Med. from specialists, such as the Neurologists I have just been with. I must say Ob/gyn was appealing to me in that way as well (feeling very confident on a certain subject). Well, to be continued on this subject.

Random note:

Though I never thought the hubby watched out for my style choices, he did make the loving comment when I first wore the shirt above, "I thought you weren't supposed to wear horizontal stripes when you're fat?" Thanks honey! I happen to like purple and this was a super cheap maternity consignment shop buy! Haha. His rebuttal was that he liked that it made the preggo tummy more obvious.