37 Weeks

My attending gave me the most incredible “baby shower” gift: a day off. This has never happened before and I don’t expect it to happen again in my lifetime. But like Hailey’s comet I’ll lay on the couch watch this day burn in the night sky, relishing the temporality and beauty of this fleeting moment.

I am nearing the final stretch of my back to back inpatient block of intern year. That’s eight weeks of 10-14 hour workdays, 6 days a week. I had been doing well until around maybe a week and a half ago, when I began to increasingly feel the weight of being “gravid.” My walk is most definitely a waddle. Medium scrubs, which are a size up from my usual, struggle to contain the bump anymore. Standing up for too long causes me to get winded, so I sit down when rounding on my patients in the morning, which is good bedside manner anyway. My attendings let me table-round.

My seniors, too, have been the most incredible and supportive team leaders: they don’t have me see COVID patients. They’ll split the new admits with me. I don’t always feel like I’m pulling the weight that an intern should, but I’m pulling my all and despite the brain fog and afternoon lulls that come every day, the work gets done. “You’ve got four more years to be a resident- it’s ok to give yourself a little slack,” they say. And I am forever grateful that we both get to sign out at 7:30 and finish our notes at home.

…

My husband and I had a scare this past week: Sitting at my computer desk, table rounding in the morning, I notice that the baby isn’t moving quite as vigorously with her usual headbuts and roundhouse kicks to the ribs- the typical rhythm of my workday. But I brush it off and later try some chocolate in the early afternoon, which usually gets her going. Nothing. Panic mode enters stage left, and I take my stethoscope with me to a bathroom stalls and listen for her heartbeat. Normally I can hear it this way, but today I’m having trouble. Back in the workroom, I entertain the notion of borrowing the dusty ultrasound machine but at the same time knew better than to try and play “doctor” with my pregnancy. I’m training in internal medicine and dermatology and know only what I remember from medical school about obstetrics, which isn’t much.

“I’m probably overreacting here…” I said with a nervous phone call to he nurses line. “But I feel like she just isn’t moving as much.”

“Why don’t we have you go to the Birth Center to get an NST?”

So I did. What followed was a nervous text to my husband. A hurried drive to pick him up and then wait as he tries to corral the cat back into the house. A fumbled google maps search for the hospital where I’ll deliver. Our impromptu “dry run” for game day and we realize how woefully unprepared we both are – the carseat is still collecting dust in the closet. Do I even have a hospital bag ready? As I get checked in they give me a wristband to wear. We follow the nurse to a triage room, a small simple room with a hospital gurney and a set of monitors. I remember meeting many young mothers in rooms just like this as an MS3 on my OB rotation. But today, I get to hoist myself up onto the gurney. My nurse throws on a pink and blue hockey puck with a belt attached to each (tocometers) and the moment she does I hear the whoosh-whoosh of my baby’s heartbeat amplified. My own can and my own can finally relax. “Your baby’s heartbeat looks great,” I’m reassured.

I’m the kind of patient that I know I would roll my eyes at being on the other side. First-timer. Nervous mom. The usual. Any medical finesse and sensibility to take a step back and objectively assess the situation flies out the door as I watch the pink ticker tape of the contractions against my baby’s heartbeat and think “But did they really look?” A few more tests are done and I find out that things may be happening sooner than I thought. Or they may not.

We leave the hospital and pick up pizza on the way back. Our first takeout in a long time. A future that’s been conceptual until now is beginning to materialize into reality.

Soon I’ll get to meet my daughter.