If someone told the coed-me (on the pre-med track) that fifteen years later I would give up my career as a Physician Assistant to jump into the rigors of full-time parent to three small children…well, I would have told that person to get lost! No way was that ever going to be me, poised as I was to be a fantastic doctor and a fantastic mother to one (read: one) perfectly behaved child. I had been primed since my own youth as an only child to be highly successful outside the home, NOT within it. Despite my awesome mom’s efforts (she did work a full-time job outside the home) to teach me to sew and cook (I did learn the latter….after I was married. the former…well, let’s just say my skills are lacking.) I simply wanted to study, play my trumpet and blow everyone else, hook, line and sinker, out of the water. Why be any other way?
Then life happened. I got married to a pre-med student and realized very quickly I didn’t want the crazy lifestyle a physician couple would have to juggle. So I became a Physician Assistant, with more time and schedule flexibility than my husband, and this decision helped set the stage for that one bambino we would have no trouble conceiving. After all, we were driven medical people, how hard could starting a family be?
Then reality happened. In a nutshell, after four painful years encompassing four cycles of in-vitro fertilization I became pregnant with twins. Not entirely surprised given the IVF process, we were ecstatic to be having two babies. One, and a bonus, for all our time and hard-earned money put into expanding our family. I didn’t want to waste a minute away from those babies so I resigned from my really awesome position in family practice to be with my little ones.
Then something funny happened. I got pregnant again. Just like that. No medications, ultrasounds or other medical intervention needed. My twins were just 10 months old. Now how ironic is that for an only child who thought at one point in time she could “have it all.”?
Maybe not in the traditional sense of the phrase but I do feel I have it all: three beautiful, healthy children, a devoted husband and father and the privilege of being a Domestic Engineer. (I used to call myself a SAHM but that just doesn’t fit when my day is filled with coordinating 5 schedules and preplanning their execution, all up to a week in advance.) And now, indulging in a not-so-secret desire to write, and following the advice “write what you know” I am ready to share what I have learned from this ironic life journey and along with you, discover answers to those many questions related to parenting.
“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
