An announcement...

(Linking up with Jen for my favorite Quick Takes ever)

1. 

2.

3. 

4.

5.

I really don't even know what to say, I'm just so excited! We can still hardly believe that we're going to be parents. Each day that goes by I feel more in awe of the fact that there is a little human person growing inside of me...

A few things:

- I've worried since the day we found out about something going wrong. I'm really trying harder to trust. Now that we are ending the first trimester I feel more at peace (but prayers are still much appreciated!)

- Pregnancy is way harder than I realized. The overwhelming fatigue and nausea at all times of the day (definitely wasn't just morning sickness) made it so hard to get through my hospital shifts the last couple of months. Now that we are just about in the second trimester, things are much, much better.

- Yes, we planned it. I think this is the question that everyone wants to ask (and some actually do) of couples that practice natural family planning. Especially couples who happen to be in medical school and starting residency mere weeks after said baby is due. Ha. But we 100% hoped and prayed and planned for this baby (although we would have loved him/her just as much if we hadn't planned it). And I credit NFP for opening my heart to having kids in med school/just before residency, which was one of my number one fears when we got married. But more on that another time...

6. Baby's first picture!

This ultrasound was done almost 6 weeks ago now because I was having sharp, one-sided pain at the beginning of the pregnancy. Of course my medically-oriented mind went straight to an ectopic pregnancy (despite the more common things I knew were on the differential, i.e. ovarian cyst and constipation). I was doing one of my away rotations at the time and this kind, old, OB/GYN got me on his schedule right away and put my fears to rest (it was an ovarian cyst...a completely normal corpus luteal cyst in medical terms). The best part was that at the follow-up ultrasound at 6 weeks and 4 days, Stephen and I got to see the heart beating for the first time. We also found out that I was exactly as far along as I thought (I credit NFP charting for that one). 

7. The heartbeat:

My sister-in-law sent me her home doppler and on the day that I got it in the mail, we found the heartbeat for the first time (just before 11 weeks). This is one of the most recent recordings and for you medical people, I'm pretty sure that I can distinguish S1 and S2 (incredible). Every morning I spend a few minutes listening (it's easiest to hear first thing in the morning) and it's so reassuring and beautiful.

Happy All Saint's Day!

Wearing lately + 5 things

 Wearing lately:

1. Puffer vest//mustard//scarf//Hunter's

This has been my quintessential fall uniform...I want to wear it every.day.

Sweater: J. Crew Factory (recent)

Vest: Gap

Scarf: H&M (old)

Dark denim: Gap

Boots: Hunter

 2. Aztec sweater//black + brown

Ahhh this sweater. So cozy and fun. Pinterest proved to me that brown and black can 100% be worn together.

Sweater: Urban Outfitters (old, similar)

Black leggings/tee: Target

Boots: Madewell Archive

3. Shades of grey//stripes

This sweatshirt dress has completely repaid itself in cost-per-wear. There are so many ways to layer it for fall.

Dress: Madewell

Scarf:  J. Crew Factory

Chambray: J. Crew Factory (old)

Boots: J. Crew via Anna

 Two more things (linking up with Hallie):

4. I made this white chicken chili last night and it's perfecto for a cool fall night. This recipe is hands-down my favorite white chicken chili recipe; it's super easy and soooo good (it won a Rachel Ray contest). I pretty much follow the recipe other than that I cook the chicken in a little olive oil first and then I put everything in the crockpot on high for a good hour and a half. Oh and I use Mexican jack cheese in place of straight pepper jack (Stephen can't handle anything remotely spicy).

5. Stephen and I won't be dressing up this year for Halloween, but we did go to a party last year as Mr. and Mrs. Incredible (I still can't believe that I got him to wear red spandex). 

 

I also happened to be on call that night so I was beeper-ready.

 

I'm working my last shift in the ER today and then I'm off until January to take the second part of my boards and finish up my interviews. This year is just going by crazy fast and I'm really trying to savor each day before the rigors of residency next year.

Linking up with the Pleated Poppy and Agi.

Happenings...

I continue to be M.I.A. lately. I've decided to stop being hard on myself and just post when I have the time (which won't be very often in the next months while I'm wrapped up in a myriad of residency interviews) or when something inspires me (which is when I should be writing anyways). 

Here's my life lately...

1. Peaceful hike with my sister.

2. So much beauty. Oh fall, please don't go!

3. 28th birthday...and I feel like such a lucky lady when I look at these pictures. So much love.

4. My residency picture. I'm not sure how I feel about this perfectly Photoshopped version of myself. Although Photoshop couldn't hide the fact that I'm in desperate need of a hair trim (hello scraggly ends).

5. Stephen and I just got home after driving 2300+ miles for my first two residency interviews (home to Rochester, Minnesota to Buffalo, New York and back). It was exhausting to say the least. I had really planned to drive to most of my interviews, but after that brutal 4 days in the car, I purchased three plane tickets for my next interviews....Conclusions from the trip: flying is worth it and my husband (who drove all 30+ hours) is just amazing and entirely too good to me.

asdf

6. The big news of my small hometown is that we now have an Ulta. They just happened to open right around my birthday and my present to myself was this, 20% off but still more than I've ever spent in my life on eye shadow (in all fairness it is 12 different shades and will probably last me years). I'll keep you posted on if it was worth it.

 

7. I'm on number 7 so can I link up with Jen? Happy Sunday tomorrow, I'll be working a shift in the ER. Oh the joys.

Remembering Haiti

There have been a multitude of reasons that I haven't posted lately. One of them I'll share sometime in the weeks/months to come, the others I've already named one too many times (residency applications/boards/traveling). I've also found that I have less desire lately to post about superficial things. I've found myself less interested in reading my normal daily style blogs and in shopping (a good thing). This doesn't mean that I won't still be sharing the occasional outfit post, just that I'm feeling the urge to write about more if I'm going to keep this little space on the internet alive...so here's what has been on my heart lately.

I have written next to nothing about my experience these last two months in the ER. It's been a good two months, very educational of course and interesting. The same things that attracted me to work in the E.D. as a nurse still hold true: the variety, the occasional excitement, and the ability to comfort people at vulnerable points of their lives. Contrary to many who work in emergency rooms though, I don't love traumas. I saw terrible trauma during my work in Haiti and seeing trauma here reminds me of that. Especially last Saturday.

*Some details changed to preserve patient privacy*

Saturday was one of those completely chaotic days in the ER, starting with a medical code where we lost a patient in her 50s, continuing with a child that had to take a life-flight out to a bigger hospital with neurosurgery after we diagnosed a brain bleed, and culminating with a little boy coming in with a horrific facial wound after a devastating accident. I tried to comfort the boy and his family as much as I could but there wasn't much that I could do after the plastic surgeon started to repair his face. It was awful. His cries brought me back to Haiti and this little boy, who I will never forget.

He was only eight, but he seemed much older than that. He had lost his parents in the earthquake weeks earlier, and in the meantime had suffered weeks with a facial wound sustained in the earthquake that extended into his eye. The physical wounds were devastating, but the emotional wounds from losing his parents ran much deeper. Over the next days that I spent in Haiti, I would go and sit with him in the pediatrics tent after finishing my E.R. shift.

His story ends somewhat happily though: several months after I returned from Haiti I was flipping through a nurse friend from college's Haiti pictures. This friend had volunteered with the U.S.S. Comfort, a naval ship that docked in Haiti with a team of specialists and equipment to care for earthquake victims needing care more than the makeshift volunteer hospitals could provide in Port Au Prince. And one of my friend's pictures was the little boy that I cared for, smiling and happy, after multiple surgeries to reconstruct his injury.

I couldn't sleep after I got home from my shift in the E.D. on Saturday. The child with the injury's face was too much ingrained in my mind, as were the images of multiple other children that I had cared for in Haiti. And as I lay there, I contemplated what to do with my life. I still haven't decided between OB/GYN and emergency medicine. There is no doubt in my mind that OB/GYN is what I'm passionate about but the difficulties of being a mother as an OB/GYN resident are still at the forefront of my decision. I went to medical school initially planning to become an emergency medicine physician, and I can see through working there that I am needed. There are so many patients like that little boy on Saturday who need comfort during the most traumatic moments of their lives. So I'll keep praying...

On October, and NFP...

Joining Jen for Friday Quick Takes.

1. Beautiful fall hike that Stephen and I went on this week:

2. I love this. 

Via

3. I thought that this post brought up some interesting points on oral contraceptives. It's been said before, but really feel that we (medical professionals) have failed women in not informing them of the numerous side effects and risks of OCTs. I can't tell you how many patients I've seen with DVTs and pulmonary embolisms that were due at least in part to the pill. And from my own experience taking them for dysmenorrhea while I was in college, the depression/mood swings were just awful. 

4. So yeah, Stephen and I use NFP (for numerous reasons). We use the Marquette Method, which we've been really happy with. It involves using the Clearblue fertility monitor, which is very scientific and also easy to use, along with another fertility sign. There's no Marquette Method class where we are, so we learned the method ourselves using this manual. NFP has been both good for my health and good for our marriage.

5. I've had several people email me questions on Marquette's post-partum method. You can read their protocol here. And while I can't speak from personal experience, I think that this method seems easier to use than some other post-partum methods.

6. Perfect October outfit via Pink Peonies. I'm obsessed with military jackets and Hunter boots...

 

7. Happy weekend! I'll be working more weird shifts in the emergency department (sigh). It's been crazy this week: lots of psych patients, prisoners, more than enough opportunities to suture (I've been having dreams about sewing people up), a couple medical codes and traumas, and one case that was House-worthy (diagnosis yet to be determined). We shall see what the weekend brings.

Fall uniform

This is my third straight month in scrubs: August was OB/GYN and last month and this month are both ER. While they're comfy and it makes dressing in the morning a lot easier/quicker, I'm desperately missing wearing 'normal' clothes during my favorite time of year, fall.

I've found myself gravitating towards neutrals of late. This cargo jacket was an investment purchase even on sale, but it's the perfect fall piece. Adding a scarf makes it a little more girly. And the boots? I found them on Amazon Warehouse late spring, supposedly defective for $50 but I couldn't find any defects when I got them in the mail. Desiree started my obsession with them.

I'm headed to the ER tonight and I have to admit that switching shifts every day along with working mostly evening/late night shifts is really starting to wear on me. I'm definitely ready for some time off next month for residency interviews. 

Jacket: J. Crew

Tunic: Splendid via 6pm.com

Boots: Steve Madden, clearance via Amazon Wearhouse

Ponte pants: J. Crew Factory

Outfit inspiration:

Via

Linking up with the Pleated Poppy, Shanna, and Lauren.

Resurfacing

It's made me sad not to blog regularly. I've missed blogger friends, outfit posts, writing...but I'm finally back to some sense of normalcy after the blur of traveling for two months of away electives, random ER shifts, residency applications, and the first part of my Step 2 medical boards in Chicago. While I was gone, Stephen moved us to our new house, so this is the backyard of our cozy little rental. Beautiful.

Oh, how I love fall! Cool air and crisp leaves, boots and blazers, scarves and cozy sweaters... Stephen actually really liked this outfit. I still haven't unpacked much from the move, but my sweatshirt dress was one of my staples over the last two months (when I wasn't wearing scrubs) and I managed to grab this blazer and my favorite boots from one of my unpacked boxes right before I left for mass...

Dress: Madewell

Blazer: J. Crew clearance, this year's version

Scarf: J. Crew

Boots: Madewell archive boots via Ebay

Linking up with Fine Linen and Purple.