Labor and Delivery!

Last night I started night float on the high risk delivery floor at Parkland Memorial Hospital. Parkland is the busiest labor and delivery service in the whole country! Anyway, it's totally a blast. I got to deliver a baby within the first thirty minutes! Then I delivered the placenta. Then I almost fainted. Yeah, so embarrassing. I always thought I was a tough cookie. Four weeks of trauma, tons of gross gangrene on medicine...and I didn't even flinch. But between the generous egress of blood (I did NOT realize there was so much) and the excitement of delivering my first baby...I just got really dizzy. Oh well. It was kind of a laugh.

I also got to scrub in on a Caesarian section....and my resident said that my knot tying was the best she had seen from a third year! Awww....how sweet.

The main problem? When the baby comes out, I want to go be with him or her. But I have to stay with mom. Yeah, I'm not cut out for Ob-Gyn, but it's pretty fun while it lasts.

Only three more nights of night float!

Today's prenatal clinic

I was working at a prenatal clinic today. One of my patients was a 41 year old Latina lady pregnant with her first child. I went to measure her stomach, and it was way too big for how far along she was in her pregnancy. We got her a sonogram, and she had polyhydramnios (too much amniotic fluid)--the baby had duodenal atresia (an obstruction in the intestines that prevented him from swallowing the amniotic fluid). Combined with some concerning blood tests and other abnormalities on sonogram, this baby very likely has Down syndrome. What a tough diagnosis for this lady.

What's is, in my opinion, a testament to this lady's strength is that she already knew
(on the basis of blood tests) that Down syndrome was a possibility. She, however, declined to have an amniocentesis (a procedure in which some amniotic fluid is aspirated from the abdomen with a needle so that the baby's chromosomes can be analyzed) because knowing for sure would not change her plans. She was not going to have an elective abortion if she found out that the baby had Down's.

I pray that God blesses this lady and her baby and gives her peace during this time of uncertainty.

My favorite music video!

This is my favorite music video...and it seems like most people I know have never seen it. Weezer...y'all know what you are doing...what a way to score points with the ladies. ;)

A National Tragedy...

No I'm not talking about what happened at Virginia Tech, although that is a heartbreaking tragedy, and my prayers are with them.

I wanted instead to share a quote from my ob/gyn text:
"Nearly 55% of pregnancies in the United States are unintended. Of these, 43% result in live births, 13% in miscarriages, and 43% end in elective abortion."

I can't even come up with any commentary on this right now.

Top Ten Reasons Why I Need to Get Married

I hope this post isn't too self-promoting; that is not the intention. It's just that I'm somewhat frustrated about my current relationship status (really, really single), and I need an outlet. So please humor me.

Why I would be better off married:
1. If I fail out of medical school, I need a back up plan. OK, I'm just kidding on that one.
2. I can't drive. At some point this will be detrimental to my personal health. I've already been in three accidents since medical school started. And I've learned from my limited experience with men that they often like to drive. If I get married, I will drive less and my life expectancy will increase.
3. I love to watch sports. And sports are more fun to watch with others. Girls, while excellent companions for watching Veronica Mars and Gilmore Girls, are somewhat less excited about watching the Mavs game (or the Colts kicking the Patriots' collective butt or the Tour de France or basically the entire Olympic Games summer and winter) with me. Guys, this is a sweet deal. I won't make you turn the channel when the big game's on. I seriously sat through the entire New York City marathon last year...and loved it. I even watch curling (although I honestly don't understand it very well). Note: this enjoyment of sports spectatorship does not extend to actually DOING sports. I wish! But I'm a total klutz.
4. I need to bake. And baking for one is not good for the figure. Men, I've heard, are willing receptacles for cookies, cakes, fudge, and the like. I can see how this arrangement could be beneficial for the man, as well.
5. I don't think I'm suited very well for lifelong virginity. Though I am committed to obeying God on this matter, the state of marriage would be a more pleasant way of being obedient with respect to this particular subject. And that is all I am going to say.
6. I really want kiddos at some point. And adoption isn't so easy for us single folks. Plus, I am a proponent of the whole two parent thing. Besides, could y'all imagine me raising a boy? I could see that being disastrous. At least he would like watching sports.
7. I'm not very handy. Now I think women can and should be able to change tires and fix running toilets and all of those exciting things. I feel embarrassed that this is on my why I need a husband list. But I have a special deficit for all things mechanical (I blame my extremely poor hand-eye coordination), and it would be nice to have a life partner to help with these things. In the meantime, I will try to learn. I did assemble my Target laundry rack by myself.
8. At some point I need to stop calling my dad when I need to negotiate a car sale or the rent or whatever. Again, number six indicates that I should probably learn to do this. But the girly-girl in me would really like a man to handle all of this.
9. Who am I going to play with when all my friends get married?
10. And finally, seriously, having that mutually exclusive, 'til death do us part companionship is a big desire of my heart. I really want to meet that special someone and all the excitement and day-to-day ordinariness of marriage. Yeah, yeah, the idealism of a single girl, I know. I hope that someday...but until then, I've got to rejoice in the single life I have right now. And there is so much to be joyous about!

And all joking aside, I am a capable, independent woman (for the most part, and only by the grace of God), which is definitely something to be grateful for.

Happy Birthday to me!

Well, goodness. Sometimes it takes a birthday to realize how blessed you really are. Over the past couple of weeks, I've had THREE birthday celebrations...which seems kind of crazy to me. I don't deserve that. But I realize that the human relationships that God gives us, if they are lived out properly, are in some small way reflections of the relationship He has with us. We don't deserve God's love, and yet He gives it so abundantly...often times by showing His love through other people. And since I don't have a husband to love me as Christ loves the church (Ephesians 5), it sure is an extra special blessing to have such sweet friends that go out of their way to make me feel loved on and around my birthday.

A couple of pics from the celebrations follow.

I'm thinking of retiring...

Not from medicine, of course. But my brief stint as a singer/songwriter might be over. I wrote one little sort of girl angst song that actually didn't sound terrible. I was almost proud of it. It's not total crap (although undoubtedly partial crap).

Then, I played it for just a couple of people who wanted to hear it. Which I thought would not be a big deal. It's not like I was advertising it as anything more than low-quality melodic ramblings. But...I don't know. Now I feel all vulnerable and weird...like something that should have stayed in my private world is now in the public domain. It doesn't help that some folks sort of accidentally overheard it (hard to explain in a blog), which means that eight whole people have heard my little song.

I don't know how real musicians, poets, writers do it...put themselves out there in such a public way. I'm a talentless pretender, and I still feel weird about it.

changing lanes?

Career-wise, that is. I'm thinking about it. I've been the "peds girl" almost since the beginning of medical school...I've always had a heart for the kiddos. Then second year, I entertained the notion of "triple boarding" (in pediatrics, psychiatry and child psychiatry). I've had a heart for children with eating disorders for a long time, and working at diabetes camp during medical school showed me how prevalent mood disorders are in the type 1 diabetic population (as well as in other kiddos with chronic diseases). I thought training in peds and psych would really help me if I wanted to work with either of those populations.

As third year has progressed, I realize that my favorite parts of medicine are the communication aspects. The physical exam, ordering and interpreting studies...that's all fun and great...procedures aren't really thrilling to me...but I am always most invested in my patients psychosocial issues. Hmmm. So that got me to thinking about psychiatry...which I haven't actually taken yet. We'll see if I like it. I'm pretty sure I would specialize in child and adolecent if I do it, which obviously remains to be seen.

Already I've encountered some of the stigma against psychiatry in the medical field. Some of my classmates ask, "won't you miss the medicine?" Which I understand, but really...psychiatry is a medical specialty. A lot of people are understandably surprised that after so many months of being so excited about pediatrics I could possibly change my mind.

And then some Christians think that psychiatrists are doing the work of Satan. Eeek. But that's another story.

The third season of Veronica Mars sucks.

I've been super lazy this week and have basically dedicated my entire week to watching the first season of Veronica Mars on DVD. I was introduced to this stellar series by my sister, and, like the developmentally equivalent to a 14 year old that I am, I love it. It is a pretty smart show, actually.

Too bad it's going to get canceled. But, really, the third season sucks. It lacks the depth and creativity of the first two seasons. Veronica, who's always been a bit prickly, is turning into an unsympathetic b****. And Logan needs speech therapy.

I've pretty much decided that I'm going to pretend that the show ended after the first two seasons. But I need to stop watching, or I'll fail my Ob-Gyn shelf.