anna in med school

My brave, beautiful friend Julie wrote this post yesterday.  If you will, read it; share it.

When does a woman become a mother?  Is when her first child is born?  At some point during the pregnancy?  (Please I don’t mean to instigate an abortion debate.)  Or is it sometime before…when she chooses to cultivate a life that is so ready to welcome a child?  When she proactively seeks and works to find a child who needs her?  In my mind, Julie is already a mother, the best kind of mother, and I cannot wait to meet the kid(s) she’ll love and raise.

After my third round of injections and intrauterine insemination did not result in a pregnancy (go here for more on my infertility), I curled up in bed and slept for over 24 hours.  I was depressed, even though my physicians assured me that I would, eventually, get pregnant.  I cannot imagine going through three miscarriages, at least one during the second trimester, in a year.  That takes a certain kind of character that is very, very rare.

Check out Julie’s story, even if just to read something remarkable or to leave a bit of encouragement.

a.k.a. bath time.  She is pretty indifferent about taking baths, but she loves any excuse to don her birthday suit.

For the record, I wasn’t going for “artistic”–just trying to hit the little camera button without her slipping out of my arms.  Maybe I’ll wash the toothpaste spittle off the mirror before our next photo session.

I love her little brown fat rolls.  I love her hemangiomas (strawberries :), the most common tumors of infancy, little benign heaps of blood vessels that normally go away by age five).  And I love the way she can now wrap her arms around me like in the first picture.

This is what happens when Daddy is responsible for bath time.  He’s a step away from applying product.

Gone are the days of the faux-hawk.

Last summer, a friend from college sent me a message with questions on John and my decisions regarding my prenatal care and delivery plans.  They were great questions, ranging from why I chose to go with midwives to what sort of interventions I hoped to use/not use.  The question I got asked the most throughout my pregnancy, whether or not I wished the have an epidural, I tried to tackle in this post.  The next topic of interest: birth plan.

Not gonna lie, I kind of cringe at mention of the term, envisioning the six-page single-spaced document of mandates I’ve seen some laboring women cart with them to the hospital on D-Day.  But somewhere around gestational week 36, John and I sat down over cappuccinos (fully caffeinated–made our girl dance in utero) and hashed out our “plan”–i.e. we made sure we were on the same page regarding certain hopes…we thought about even writing it down, but then forgot until now:

1. If I choose to have an epidural, I would rather initiate the conversation.
2. I would prefer to not have continuous fetal heart rate monitoring.
3. Above all, please perform whatever intervention necessary for the health and safety of mother and baby.

We thought we were being so low maintenance with our simple requests (God, I’m shaking my head now as I’m remember my protestations regarding having the monitor and IV placed).  Maybe any plan is just tempting fate.  As is often the case with precipitous labor, especially when paired with a med student who feared arriving at the hospital “too early” (and a husband who opted to take a shower when his wife’s contractions were 90 seconds apart), #1 ended up being irrelevant, and #2 was a non-negotiable.  No complaints.  When we shared a bit of our birth story (one day, really, I’ll write it down) with a wiser friend, the mother of two responded: “And that is why it should really be called a ‘birth wish.'”

Ari in the arms of one of our sick day rescuers:

I swear that’s laughter.  Apologies for any motion sickness.

The strangest things set off giggles: she’ll sneeze a couple times in a row, let out a long, satisfying sigh, and then laugh, apparently, at the series of recent events.  And then yesterday:

John: Anything happen today?

Me: Your daughter somehow managed to work her own feces up into her armpits and the folds of her neck.

John: Ha!  Really?!  God, sounds traumatic.

Me: Not for her at least; it couldn’t have amused her more.

Today was a fantastically exciting day.  Today my essay was published in the New York Times!  Not to sound trite, but it’s kind of a dream come true for me.

Family, friends, colleagues, mentors, and readers I haven’t had the privilege to meet have left some kind, encouraging words.  Thank you–they mean so much to me.

It’s strange to see my words in print (and online) in the New York Times–it’s almost like they were written by someone else who has a remarkably similar voice to mine, if that makes any sense.  What’s also bizarre is the mini-bio alongside the article that states: “A student at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and author of the blog Anna in Med School.”  Author of the blog?  I feel like a kid who’s been working lovingly on his experiments in the basement of his parents’ house and then one day is recognized as a scientist or something.

I caught a few shots of Ari looking almost as elated as I feel.  She seems to have discovered her tongue–doesn’t get much better than that!