[N-14]
..And so my grandmother always used to say that it: “took a very special woman to be a doctor’s wife”.
O(h)B(aby) 1: The Ways We Say Those Three Words
You all know by now that I am obsessed with writing about everything that happens third year. (You can read all my other stories about my other rotations here)
I’ve been on OB for almost three weeks now, so I guess it’s time that I
actually put up some of the writing I’ve scribbled down about my
experiences.
OB is one of those rotations that is all highs and lows. There’s nothing else runs the gambit of highs and lows quite so quickly. Someone once told me that the worst outcomes in medicine happen in OB because when something goes wrong, too often you don’t only lose one patient and because sometimes your hands are tied by the simple biology of viability. But it also has some of the most beautiful outcomes and I will never be amazed how often people walk onto or off the OB wards smiling.
As always, all the usual disclaimers to this apply (see bottom).
~~
My grandfather was a doctor; these were the years before work hour restrictions, before anyone had done research about how dangerous it was to treat patients after you hadn’t been asleep in two days. These were the years before we talked about how important it was doctors got to be happy too. And so my grandmother always used to say that it: “took a very special woman to be a doctor’s wife”.
Now, with a set number of hours off between call and a maximum number of house residents are allowed to work per week (even though many residents have to lie because they routinely go over) it may not be quite the same as when my grandfather would leave home at 3 in the morning after the phone rang and then my grandmother wouldn’t know to expect him back by morning or until the following day.
But I still think it takes a very special person to be a doctor’s wife—and perhaps an even more special person to be a doctor’s husband. Hell, it takes a special person just to be a doctor’s significant other for any period of time.
When I was on surgery, my attending agreed to take a patient back for a surgery that was desperately needed, even though he was supposed to leave to go home at 6. I remember him calling his wife from post-op, leaning against the wall with his shoe covers still dotted with blood hiding his brown leather loafers. “Yeah, I’m going to go back to the OR again. I won’t be home till late.”
Silence for a moment, then “If you feed the kids I can pick something up for us if you want to wait for me.”
Silence again, then “You too.” Then a pause, like he’s about to hang up, then he breathes a quiet “thank you” and smiles.
He hangs up the phone and looks at me: “It’s very important to have an understanding partner when you’re in medicine.
“It’s not just important it’s essential,” I say.
He nods, and then grabs a mask from the box and walks back toward the OR. I know that he and his wife have been together though most of his surgical career, she’s probably used to these kind of calls now. But I wonder if she’s ever disappointed when she puts a plate in the oven to stay warm instead of sitting down across from him.
I think it’s interesting how he said “thank you” at the end of the conversation. And it was so much more than just thank you for understanding. Something about the way the words slipped past his lips was the gentle communication that happens between people who have loved each other for a very long time. The way you say one thing to tell a thousand things because the other 999 need not be said, they’re simply understood. He says thank you and he means “thank you for taking care of the kids even though I can’t tonight”, he says “thank you for not being angry”, he says “thank you for every time this has happened”. But most of all what he’s saying is “I love you.”
I love you. A soft, unspoken I love you breathed into the beeping, cold, quivering air of the PACU.
At the time, watching this scene slipped past me, unnoticed in the busyness of surgery rotation. I know it’s OB that has brought it back to the forefront of my mind. It’s OB that made me start thinking about all the ways we say “I love you”.
My first day walking on L&D I notice a very strange thing—the patients, they’re smiling. They don’t seem to mind to be here. Many of them are excited. What a shift from internal medicine or surgery—where patients are only excited when they’re allowed to go home. Where the hospital is a place of death and not life.
I’ve never seen a baby born before. I could count on one hand the number of women I’ve personally known who were pregnant. My only sibling is a brother born when I was still too young to remember. Most of my cousins are older, but none of them have started having babies yet. And like me, most of my friends are putting off having babies until later in life when they’ve gotten a little further along in their careers.
At 4:15 am I’m standing in the darkness of the bedroom, staring blankly at the wall, unable to handle even being human at this time of the morning. I put on makeup, mostly with my eyes closed (not a great idea), kiss T goodbye as he rolls over and mumbles sleepily to me, then I get in the car and drive through the ink black darkness of the early morning hours.
At 7:39 my hands are reached out to touch the soft, dark hair of an infant as it hits the atmosphere. Its delicate fingers, squished tight eyes, mouth open in a grimace as it fills its lungs and screams and screams.
At 10:18 it happens again, and this time my fingers curl around an umbilical cord and I pull gently until the placenta detaches and comes free in my hands, large, soft and bloody.
I’m on my way out of the hospital when I see the baby again early that evening. My footsteps slow as I pass the open door. Finding your feet slowing down on the way out of the hospital is a strange experience, usually I’m moving as quickly as my legs will carry me, trying to spend my few precious hours beyond the walls.
I stop in the hallway.
The young woman is lying in bed, her hair pilled up on the top of her head, curls falling down onto the back of her neck. The father holds the baby, his eyes still wide with wonder at the tiny tiny life in his hands. As he holds the baby he leans over and kisses his wife on the forehead. I don’t know what he says to her, but she laughs. They both laugh.
That’s one of the most beautiful ways I’ve ever seen someone say I love you.
But no less amazing than the hours before when that young woman said “I love you” to that baby for the first time with pain, with blood on the floor, with exhaustion.
I’ve been thinking about all the ways we say I love you. We say a thousand words to one another, but somehow all of them mean the same three little words.
We say “feel better” or “I missed you”.
We say “good luck” or “are you okay?”.
We say “go to bed” or “don’t get up”.
We say “come here” or “I got it”.
But all we’re saying over and over again is I love you.
Sometimes we say nothing.
Sometimes we make breakfast at 4 in the morning so it’s there when someone else wakes up at 7.
Sometimes we stop on the way home for flowers.
Sometimes we do dishes or pick up the check.
Sometimes we turn the lights off, curl together in the darkness, and fall softly into sleep.
But all we’re saying over and over again is I love you.
It’s even more important that we do this in medicine. Even more important that we do this when we are so lucky to have those special people who are “doctor’s wives” and “doctor’s husbands” and “doctor’s boyfriends” and “doctor’s girlfriends”.
It’s even more important that we do this for the people who are “doctor’s friends” or “doctor’s parents” or “doctor’s brothers”.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
I walk off the L&D ward that day, thinking how strange it is to walk off a hospital floor smiling. Happy.
The next morning, before I leave, I kiss T goodbye in the darkness. “Thank you.” I breathe out into the stillness of the early morning cold of the house.
“For what?” He says sleepily and his eyes open softly in the darkness.
“For everything.”
“I love you too.” He says.
He knows.
Necessary disclaimers: (LADYDAYMD)
This piece is
OB is one of those rotations that is all highs and lows. There’s nothing else runs the gambit of highs and lows quite so quickly. Someone once told me that the worst outcomes in medicine happen in OB because when something goes wrong, too often you don’t only lose one patient and because sometimes your hands are tied by the simple biology of viability. But it also has some of the most beautiful outcomes and I will never be amazed how often people walk onto or off the OB wards smiling.
As always, all the usual disclaimers to this apply (see bottom).
~~
My grandfather was a doctor; these were the years before work hour restrictions, before anyone had done research about how dangerous it was to treat patients after you hadn’t been asleep in two days. These were the years before we talked about how important it was doctors got to be happy too. And so my grandmother always used to say that it: “took a very special woman to be a doctor’s wife”.
Now, with a set number of hours off between call and a maximum number of house residents are allowed to work per week (even though many residents have to lie because they routinely go over) it may not be quite the same as when my grandfather would leave home at 3 in the morning after the phone rang and then my grandmother wouldn’t know to expect him back by morning or until the following day.
But I still think it takes a very special person to be a doctor’s wife—and perhaps an even more special person to be a doctor’s husband. Hell, it takes a special person just to be a doctor’s significant other for any period of time.
When I was on surgery, my attending agreed to take a patient back for a surgery that was desperately needed, even though he was supposed to leave to go home at 6. I remember him calling his wife from post-op, leaning against the wall with his shoe covers still dotted with blood hiding his brown leather loafers. “Yeah, I’m going to go back to the OR again. I won’t be home till late.”
Silence for a moment, then “If you feed the kids I can pick something up for us if you want to wait for me.”
Silence again, then “You too.” Then a pause, like he’s about to hang up, then he breathes a quiet “thank you” and smiles.
He hangs up the phone and looks at me: “It’s very important to have an understanding partner when you’re in medicine.
“It’s not just important it’s essential,” I say.
He nods, and then grabs a mask from the box and walks back toward the OR. I know that he and his wife have been together though most of his surgical career, she’s probably used to these kind of calls now. But I wonder if she’s ever disappointed when she puts a plate in the oven to stay warm instead of sitting down across from him.
I think it’s interesting how he said “thank you” at the end of the conversation. And it was so much more than just thank you for understanding. Something about the way the words slipped past his lips was the gentle communication that happens between people who have loved each other for a very long time. The way you say one thing to tell a thousand things because the other 999 need not be said, they’re simply understood. He says thank you and he means “thank you for taking care of the kids even though I can’t tonight”, he says “thank you for not being angry”, he says “thank you for every time this has happened”. But most of all what he’s saying is “I love you.”
I love you. A soft, unspoken I love you breathed into the beeping, cold, quivering air of the PACU.
At the time, watching this scene slipped past me, unnoticed in the busyness of surgery rotation. I know it’s OB that has brought it back to the forefront of my mind. It’s OB that made me start thinking about all the ways we say “I love you”.
My first day walking on L&D I notice a very strange thing—the patients, they’re smiling. They don’t seem to mind to be here. Many of them are excited. What a shift from internal medicine or surgery—where patients are only excited when they’re allowed to go home. Where the hospital is a place of death and not life.
I’ve never seen a baby born before. I could count on one hand the number of women I’ve personally known who were pregnant. My only sibling is a brother born when I was still too young to remember. Most of my cousins are older, but none of them have started having babies yet. And like me, most of my friends are putting off having babies until later in life when they’ve gotten a little further along in their careers.
At 4:15 am I’m standing in the darkness of the bedroom, staring blankly at the wall, unable to handle even being human at this time of the morning. I put on makeup, mostly with my eyes closed (not a great idea), kiss T goodbye as he rolls over and mumbles sleepily to me, then I get in the car and drive through the ink black darkness of the early morning hours.
At 7:39 my hands are reached out to touch the soft, dark hair of an infant as it hits the atmosphere. Its delicate fingers, squished tight eyes, mouth open in a grimace as it fills its lungs and screams and screams.
At 10:18 it happens again, and this time my fingers curl around an umbilical cord and I pull gently until the placenta detaches and comes free in my hands, large, soft and bloody.
I’m on my way out of the hospital when I see the baby again early that evening. My footsteps slow as I pass the open door. Finding your feet slowing down on the way out of the hospital is a strange experience, usually I’m moving as quickly as my legs will carry me, trying to spend my few precious hours beyond the walls.
I stop in the hallway.
The young woman is lying in bed, her hair pilled up on the top of her head, curls falling down onto the back of her neck. The father holds the baby, his eyes still wide with wonder at the tiny tiny life in his hands. As he holds the baby he leans over and kisses his wife on the forehead. I don’t know what he says to her, but she laughs. They both laugh.
That’s one of the most beautiful ways I’ve ever seen someone say I love you.
But no less amazing than the hours before when that young woman said “I love you” to that baby for the first time with pain, with blood on the floor, with exhaustion.
I’ve been thinking about all the ways we say I love you. We say a thousand words to one another, but somehow all of them mean the same three little words.
We say “feel better” or “I missed you”.
We say “good luck” or “are you okay?”.
We say “go to bed” or “don’t get up”.
We say “come here” or “I got it”.
But all we’re saying over and over again is I love you.
Sometimes we say nothing.
Sometimes we make breakfast at 4 in the morning so it’s there when someone else wakes up at 7.
Sometimes we stop on the way home for flowers.
Sometimes we do dishes or pick up the check.
Sometimes we turn the lights off, curl together in the darkness, and fall softly into sleep.
But all we’re saying over and over again is I love you.
It’s even more important that we do this in medicine. Even more important that we do this when we are so lucky to have those special people who are “doctor’s wives” and “doctor’s husbands” and “doctor’s boyfriends” and “doctor’s girlfriends”.
It’s even more important that we do this for the people who are “doctor’s friends” or “doctor’s parents” or “doctor’s brothers”.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
I walk off the L&D ward that day, thinking how strange it is to walk off a hospital floor smiling. Happy.
The next morning, before I leave, I kiss T goodbye in the darkness. “Thank you.” I breathe out into the stillness of the early morning cold of the house.
“For what?” He says sleepily and his eyes open softly in the darkness.
“For everything.”
“I love you too.” He says.
He knows.
Necessary disclaimers: (LADYDAYMD)
This piece is
- Mine
- Not representative of any of the organizations, schools, hospitals, etc. I am affiliated with.
- For entertainment, discussion, and amusement purposes only and any much of my writing is very tongue in cheek. Consider this when reading.
- ALL names (including those of physicians) have been changed to protect the identities of people I write about.
- Some details of locations, times, cases , etc have been altered. In every case to protect the details of the people involved and never to embellish or alter the telling of my experience. What you find here is the true account, as true as flawed human memory can tell, of my experience.
- This piece is subject to all other disclaimers that occur on this blog.
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