Nine Months and Two Days. This is how long Maya and I were “one”. We were together through my last month and half of residency when she was tucked away inside me, still a secret to the world when I was clad in an evening gown, in front of a podium giving the chief resident speech presenting our program director with the faculty of the year award. We were together when we moved to a new state, into a new home, with new neighbors and new friends.
Maya was with me when I suffered months of pregnancy induced fatigue and thus took several months to unpack boxes in our new home. Maya was with me when I suffered an ovarian torsion. She quietly prayed for us while I had an emergency laparotomy to untwist my left ovary, followed by the weeks of recovery when I guiltily but sparingly took opioid pain medicine.
She was with me when I worked tirelessly as a brand new hospitalist 24 days a month with only two weekends off. We completed charts together till late in the evening, snuck away for frappes at Brew Ha Ha in the hospital lobby, a coffee shop chain in our state. She would give me kicks of love in the dead of night and I would lovingly pat my belly, console her, let her know I am here, just getting rest and we’ll be meeting her in a few short months.
The northeast was expecting a blizzard the frigid January weekend before Maya was due. Colleagues joked that she might arrive that weekend, two days sooner than expected. I spoke to Maya and asked to just wait a couple more days. Maya obliged and hung in there while we shoveled our way out of our homes that weekend. I ended up working through her due date and we met each other two days later.
Maya literally went through thick and thin with me and still doesn’t know I am a doctor. Medicine is a part of my life, of our life, our family’s life. She isn’t new to medicine. It shows in how she gingerly checks the heart beats of her stuffed animals laying on a makeshift tupperware lid gurney, in how she administers medicine to the “sick” ones. She even checked in on me last night with her doctor kit while I was sick in bed and thoughtfully concluded I needed medicine.
Her braveness and curiosity showed when she eagerly went to meet her doctor at her three year well visit. She articipated in the entire encounter while knowing there was a possibility of shots. The awe and sparkle in her eyes when meeting her doctor are forever imprinted in my heart. I’m not expecting her to choose this path, as it has its own set of flaws but I know she will be proud to know how hard her mother has worked and wouldn’t want things any other way for me. She would not want me to let a vital part of my identity to wither away. Thus, I will continue to work for this and many other reasons.
This reflection is in response to a collaborative story hop I did recently with five other working moms. What I do for work, what motivates me, why I work were all answered in the story which is now in my Instagram highlights.