Should I go to medical school? An advice column.

Check out my post over at Mothers in Medicine:

Should I go to medical school?

It is an answer to a series of emails I have received over time asking me advice about the whole single parent medical school doctor used to be in the natural birth community thing.

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 Her sometimes dormant blog “Mom’s Tinfoil Hat” is not peer reviewed, however.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.

Happy Valentine’s Day

As usual, I have been really busy lately. I owe a post about the wonderful VBAC summit and a link to my presentation. In the meantime, though, I give you Valentine’s wishes.

My cutie boys.

The chocolate souffles I made for them and me for Valentine’s Day. (Hey, I didn’t say I was busy with only med school.)

And, a love song:

Happy Halloween

Our jack o’ lantern was inspired by my 6 year old. First, he loves to color in my anatomy coloring book, and was coloring in it last night while I was trying to come up with an inspiration for our pumpkin. Secondly, for a while, his favorite punchline for his made up jokes was “eyeball.”

This was one time when having hospital scrubs to wear came in handy.

Happy Halloween, everybody!

Today

Today is my younger son’s sixth birthday. He is such a sweet, funny, earnest kid. Yesterday night he told me that he didn’t want to turn six. “I am going to miss being five. Don’t you miss being five? Having fun?”

Yes, yes, I do, Z.

I have been putting off wrapping his presents. I am about to finally tackle that. After I write a blog post about not much, and whatever other stalling techniques I come up with. I got him a bunch of little things. We are going out to eat tonight, and we’re having a small birthday party on Sunday.

I helped out a cardiology fellow at my rotation site with some sympathy and advice about the course of his wife’s pregnancy recently. I was so happy to hear today that the fetus appears to be “small but extremely healthy” according to the maternal fetal medicine specialist they went to go see. He told me that I should consider an MFM fellowship. An intern whose service I am on happened to listen to our conversation, and was blown away by my obstetrics knowledge (I think he is easily impressed, really, I didn’t even say anything that complicated) and said “You’re an ob/gyn already!!” That was nice to hear. I don’t know. I am definitely attracted to MFM, and would love to spend the majority of my time with obstetric patients. I am just so old. I will be 40 my first year of residency. An MFM fellowship is another three years.

And, to wrap up a post of non sequiturs, I figure I’ll list the songs I sang along with today as they came on the radio, just because they tickled me in their diversity.

Hey Jude – The Beatles
Crazy Game – The Indigo Girls
Rebel Without a Pause – Public Enemy
Tainted Love – Soft Cell
Keep Your Hands to Yourself – Georgia Satellites
She’s Crafty – The Beastie Boys
Holiday – Green Day

I am rubbing off on my kids. S, my older son, asked to hear Don’t Stop Believing by Journey and The Lady Is a Tramp, Lena Horne’s version, the other night while in the kitchen with me. Last night he asked me to turn up Ani diFranco’s Little Plastic Castles and said “This song is awesome.” I quite agree.

Wish me luck today

I have a status conference in front of the judge to lay the groundwork for my divorce and custody proceedings.

Ugh.

Send good luck wishes, please!

Things are coming together

I finally have wireless on my laptop! And my wireless printer is installed! And, my outgoing mail is actually going out!

And there was much rejoicing.

(And I love starting sentences with the word “and”, and I don’t plan on stopping any time soon.)

I am having a very small housewarming party today. Hopefully that is enough inspiration to finish unpacking the few boxes I have left.

Getting adjusted to our new life, with me being on rotations, has been trying but good. The juggling of the kids has been difficult, and it will only get more difficult once the two grandmothers are out of town at the same time – how selfish of them! (Just kidding) It’ll be easier once the kids are in school, hopefully, and the main grandmother caregiver is no longer in China.

We all seem to be adjusting well, better than I had even hoped. We went to a friends’ house last night, and Z, the five year old, was getting a little weepy and saying he missed home. He spent 8 days with his dad at his dad’s folks house, and I have been dropping him off at grandma’s house every morning early. Even though I have been home at a reasonable hour in the afternoon every day, and he has had dinner and bedtime in his own home every night, I can see how he could be feeling a little disconnected and upset when we went somewhere else for dinner, and then I asked him to put his head down in the guest room as we finished up a board game. But, we went home soon after that, and he woke up in his own bed, we ate breakfast together at our own table, and he is now sitting on his own couch with his own brother, playing his own video games.

And there was much rejoicing.

Magic dust

I don’t usually do the mommy blogging thing (not that there’s anything wrong with it!), but I wanted to share a sweet story from last night.

Five year old Z came into my room in the wee hours of the morning yesterday, because he had a bad dream about werewolves. I gave him hugs, reassured him it was just a dream, talked him into going pee, and tucked him back into bed safely.

So, last night, as I was putting him to bed, I said “I have something for you. Here is some magic dust,” and I dumped some imaginary magic dust into his hand. “Keep it in your magic pocket. It makes any dream monsters explode into a firework.”

He looked at me doubtfully. “That’s not real magic dust.”

If I’m one thing, I am quick on my feet. “That’s right!” I said brightly. “Of course it isn’t. It only works against monsters that aren’t real.”

He bought it. Whew!

Stay tuned

The tinfoil hat kids are getting out of school. Today is S’s last day of elementary school, and Z’s last day of preschool. Big transitions! *sniff*

And, we will be moving during the next week. Please wish us all good luck with the changes! I will be ranting full force again, soon.

Food tour of San Francisco

Sourdough creations

I put up pictures and commentary about my foodie adventures while in San Francisco at my mostly dormant food blog Almost Healthy. Please check them out if that’s your sort of thing.