Pilgrims at Oak Ridge

Or "Why there are always dirty dishes in the sink and a pile of laundry in the bedroom." Since I'm in the midst of another work week, I thought I'd post a few thoughts about being a working mom and what makes my life easier as a working mom. 1. The realization that I can't do it all. I am not superwoman. I have decided that I am not going to feel like a failure if the house is messier the weeks that I work, or if Judah wears a few more disposable diapers, or the laundry piles up more. I would rather spend time with my husband and son than trying to get all that stuff done every day. 2. Things are much better if I do as much as possible the night before work. I try to get my breast pump bag ready to go with everything washed that I need to take. I pick out my clothes. I often take a shower in the evening because that's one less thing to do in the morning. 3. I really, really need to plan meals ahead of time. Honestly, I don't do this well. But if I make at ...

I think the hardest part about working (for me) is just how tired I get. I'd love to go to bed early, but since I do a dream feed with Judah at 10:30 or 11, I can't really go to bed before then, and then I'm up again by 5:30 so I can feed him before I go to work. It's just not enough sleep for me. Thankfully, I finished my work today before noon, managed to catch most of an excellent sermon at church, and then even got a nap during Judah's nap this afternoon. I'm on call tomorrow, so maybe I'll have a slow afternoon and can sneak in another nap then. Of course, it's all worth it to me - I wouldn't give up nursing Judah for anything, and I do love my other job, too. I'm just happy I only do this 1 week at a time. Just 4 more days until I'm off again....

We are all slowly adjusting to our new schedule. Thankfully, Judah seems to be handling it fairly well and has been taking a bottle from daddy just fine. Yesterday was my first day where I didn't get to see him all day. I missed him and was speeding all the way home so I could hold him and feel his weight snuggled up against me. So far, the pumping has been going well. In fact, I'm pretty much always able to pump more than he eats while I'm gone. Since I already had a stash of milk in the freezer, I'm actually thinking about talking to our NICU about donating some of my milk, if anyone is interested in it, because otherwise our freezer is going to be overtaken. Thankfully, someone gave me a heads up about these breast milk storage bags , which are very space efficient. My biggest problem since going back to work is that suddenly, Judah has decided he doesn't want to sleep for 5-6 hours at night anymore, and has gone back to his every three hour feeding. I'm not ...

Things I'm thankful for this morning: 1. A slow-starting, fairly easy first week back to work. I think making this transition would have been much harder it my schedule had been more packed. Even all my clinics were fairly slow, which is nice considering my brain is working at about half speed. And I haven't really thought about anything medical since he was born. 2. A wonderful loving husband who has cheerfully taken care of the baby this week. He has even been able to bring him in at lunch so I can feed him myself. He also did really well getting up with Judah during my first overnight call and is now upstairs finishing up his sermon for tomorrow, even though he'd probably rather be sleeping. 3. A quiet first call back - we only had two medicine admissions, both fairly straightforward, and I had plenty of time to pump, sleep, and chat with one of my favorite interns. I'm also extremely thankful that I only have ONE MORE CALL before finishing!! 4. A baby who is current...

Monday was supposed to be my first day back to work. But then, I got the wonderful surprise of finding out that I wasn't actually scheduled to be anywhere Monday. (Especially nice since we got back from Tennessee at 11:30pm) So then today was supposed to be my first day back. I'm currently on a dermatology rotation, which we do in the town of Aiken, SC. So I drove there this morning (it's an hour and a half drive), walked in to the clinic, and then discovered that the dermatologist was on vacation. Oops. I hear there's an invention called a "telephone" that can occasionally clear up things like this. I went to clinic instead, hoping to get a few things done before I really go back tomorrow. I'm so thankful that I had this half-day to break me in slowly. Judah did great with Jeff, and for some reason had even decided he only wanted to nurse on one side at two different feeds this morning, allowing me to pump the extra. So we didn't even have to break i...