Much more fun than studying

I am cramming for my last exam in medical school tomorrow. Scratch that, I am procrastinating instead of studying. I will be speaking at the VBAC Summit again this year, and had to write a bio. As much as I didn’t want to write about myself, it was much more fun than studying.

Hilary Gerber is a pre-doctoral research fellow who will be graduating from medical school in two weeks. After completing a traditional internship, she hopes to specialize in obstetrics and gynecology. Her fellowship research focused on evidence based labor and delivery interventions. Before medical school, Hilary gave birth twice with the help of midwives, once in a hospital, and once at a free standing birth center. She would love to have a home birth if it didn’t involve having another baby. She trained as a direct entry midwife and worked as a doula. Her article “Social Media, Power, and the Future of VBAC” was published in the Journal of Perinatal Education. Her sometimes dormant blog “Mom’s Tinfoil Hat” is not peer reviewed, however. She also has a studio art degree, has delivered pizzas, worked the graveyard shift at Denny’s, wrote a parenting blog for Mtv, and was in a band that is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

So, in case you were wondering…

…I didn’t match.

There are probably many reasons why. I was geographically limited in two ways: my custody agreement limited me to the Southeast, and I only applied in cities where I knew people. I am an osteopathic student who was competing in the MD match. Obstetrics has been a very competitive match recently. I had excellent board scores, a research fellowship, and great extracurricular and leadership activities, but my grades were very middle of the road.

So, now what? I will be doing what is known as a traditional rotating internship at a local hospital, then reapplying for obstetrics residency. It will be much harder to interview as an intern with increased responsibilities. It will be harder to transition to my new residency, if I get one, with only days or weeks off at the end of the year, as opposed to the months I will have to ponder my temporary failure this year before starting as an intern.

Sigh.

I am tired of well meaning people asking me where I will be next year. I am tired of people telling me this was meant to happen. I am jealous, painfully jealous with a pit of hurt in my insides, of my classmates who are joyfully planning their futures. Of my former classmates (I graduated a year behind my original class because of my fellowship) who already have almost a year of residency under their belts. Of people in my profession who are my age and are well into their careers.

I didn’t post about it for a while because it was too raw, too painful. And, honestly, I don’t really want to talk about it. There isn’t much to say. It’s hard enough to deal with people I work with, people in my family, and people in my life who genuinely care asking me about it in a time released fashion. I know they’re asking because they want to share in what they think will be my good news. But, it forces me to rehash my pain over and over again, like someone with a new bandage being asked what happened by every new person they see. And, then I have to nod grimly and politely when they tell me that somehow, it was meant to be.

Please allow me to be self indulgently angry and defeated on my blog. This is not how my life was supposed to be at this point. I wasn’t supposed to be staring down the barrel of forty years old, not an obstetrician, just a single mom who is wondering if I can even keep my tiny 1000 sq ft house next year on an intern’s salary. Oh, and I just got diagnosed with a chronic disease that I am managing very well, but has a small chance of crippling me. I know I am extremely lucky to be (mostly) healthy and able bodied, with good support, and smart enough to have made it into medical school in the first place. I know that this is not the end of the world – I very well may match into obstetrics next year. I can also fall back on family medicine, and then do some obstetrics, eventually, in a rural area, possibly after doing an obstetrics fellowship. Or, I can finish internal medicine and then do a women’s health or family planning fellowship.

Sigh. I am not digging for reassurance. I just needed to finally get this out.