Category: Working mama

Split second

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This morning, we had a birthday party at a local playground. The kids were all 2-3 years old. I watched as other parents sat back and observed their kids playing while I chased after mine and made sure he didn’t hurt himself on the large play structure. “Why am I such a helicopter parent?” I wondered. It’s true – my husband and I tend to be very anxious, paranoid, and overprotective when it comes to our kids. As a disclaimer, I don’t think that there is a “right” or “wrong” parenting style. I would actually prefer to be more laid-back and relaxed about parenting, but it may be impossible for me.

In any case, at one point I thought to myself: “I think I can relax. I’m the only parent hovering over my child here. Let me take a step back and chat with some folks.” So I stepped a foot away from my son as he was climbing up a play ladder. One second later, he had tumbled to the ground 6 feet beneath him and had landed straight on his bottom. Shit.

I tried hard not to panic. He was crying and I scooped him and took him to a quiet area to evaluate him. “Can you feel my hands on your legs?” I asked. My heart was beating fast, imaging the worst-case scenario. “Yes,” he responded. Thank goodness. “Can you stand up and walk?”. He could. Phew. I watched him walk and wince in pain, touching his back. He was being a lot more cautious and didn’t want to play as much. I touched his spine, low back, tailbone, buttocks. “Does this hurt?” No, he said. But at first, it seemed like everything did hurt. He would start an activity and then reached down to touch his back. He was momentarily distracted by cupcakes, but then didn’t feel like playing anymore. “I’m tired, I don’t feel well…I want to go home.” Fuck.

I called our pediatrician’s advice line and it was recommended that I take him to Urgent Care. We stopped by our house first and I iced his back a bit. At that point, it seemed like he was climbing and running with less pain, so I second-guessed my logic for a minute. Still, there was no way I could live with myself if something was really wrong and I ignored it. So I took him in. At the urgent care, they have a playground in the waiting area. He climbed up the rope ladder, went down the slide, played on the seesaw. These people are going to think I’m crazy, I thought.

They didn’t say it, but the less than five minute evaluation spoke volumes. They palpated the affected areas – no pain. They asked him to walk – no pain. They asked him to run – fast, no pain. They lifted his legs up and down – no pain. “X-rays of the spine emit a lot of radiation,” the doctor said, “so I wouldn’t recommend it.” That’s all I needed to hear – we were out of there in no time.

I am still worried, of course. I think: what if he fractured his tailbone and the pain is worse when he wakes up from his nap? What if he ends up having a slipped disc/nerve injury/becomes paralyzed? I can’t help myself. Being in medicine, I see worst-case scenarios all of the time. People who didn’t have cancer until they did, were pain-free until they developed debilitating pain, lived normal lives until being diagnosed with a life-threatening condition. So any time anything happens to my kids, I shift into worst-case scenario mode. It’s a terrible way to live.

In sum: I think that helicopter parenting is in my future for a good while longer.

What my nanny knows

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For the past few weeks, whenever my husband and I would try to put our littlest pea down for a nap, he would point to his forearms. At first, we thought he was pointing at a mole, but this didn’t entirely make sense because he only has a mole on one arm.

After a few weeks, I pieced together that my nanny must be doing something to his forearms when she puts him to sleep. When I asked her, she told me that she uses her index and middle fingers to “walk” up his arms while singing a song. No wonder! He was probably like “What’s wrong with these people? Don’t they know my routine!?”

When I was a first-time mom returning to work after maternity leave, not knowing these details pained me to the core. I would agonize over what was going on: how is our nanny/my mother/my mother-in-law putting him to sleep? Were they feeding him too little/too much milk?  Did they dress him in the correct pajamas? Were they sticking to the nap schedule? Were they careful while taking him on walks? And on and on and on. The mental load was exhausting!

But there were a bunch of little things too: what songs was he learning, what books was he reading, what words was he hearing over and over again? Our first nanny taught my son to refer to his bottle as “teta”. Now “teta” translates into “boob”. Although I speak Spanish, this term is culture-specific and not something we say. So for months we dealt with our son essentially screaming “BOOB!!!” every time he wanted a bottle. Fortunately, most people in the U.S. don’t speak Spanish, so it could have been worse. The point is: when you’re not with your child all day, you give up a certain degree of authority over what happens. This can be challenging for control freaks.

2.5 years in to having other people (family, nannies, “school”) care for our kids during work day hours, here’s with I’ve learned:

  1. Most of the details don’t matter. As long as your caregivers are adhering to the “big picture” rules, you can let the small things slide. In our case, we want our caregivers to be fully engaged with our kids – loving, patient, and kind. But we don’t need to micro-manage what happens during the day.
  2. Other people often do things better than you do – be open to suggestions! Having a variety of caregivers in our kids’ lives allows us to learn from people who have more experience than we do. Our kids benefit from different types of learning, play, and knowledge. In my opinion, this adds to their lives (and ours!).
  3. Having others care for your kids earlier in life may make later transitions easier. I have friends who are heartbroken because their children are starting kindergarten (which I imagine is so tough after 5 years of being their primary caregiver!). This transition may be less stressful for parents who had had their kids in day care, preschool, etc. on a full-time basis because the schedule doesn’t drastically change. Don’t get me wrong – it’s always hard to give up this autonomy, but if you had to do it once when you went back to work, you don’t have to worry as much about doing it later on.

Just okay

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These two articles really resonated with me. One from today’s New York Times and another from a blog, written some time ago.

Am I okay with a mediocre life? All of my life I have been an overachiever. In fourth grade, we were assigned a state and we had to write a paper on that state by the end of the year. This was in the early days of the Internet. In order to write a paper, you actually had to go to the library, use the Dewey decimal system, find your books, take notes, and then write. I vividly recall freaking out in December because I was worried that my paper, due in May, would not be completed in time.

One of my earliest friends recalls a transportation presentation that I blew out of the park in sixth grade – she still talks about it to this day, and it is probably the only reason we became friends.

In eight grade, I swept the middle school award assembly – my name seemed to be called after every category. It was almost comical.

I could go on, but in sum: everything honors, AP classes, SATs, Ivy League, MCATs, medical school, matching into a competitive residency, academic practice.

And here I am today: a husband, two kids, a home of our own, great careers, good health. I’m happy, but I’m not sure if I should be wanting more. I see people around me opening up their own practices, starting their own companies, becoming Insta-famous, working as media experts, creating ground-breaking innovations, involved in amazing research, and on and on. It all looks and sounds great but sometimes the thought of it just makes me tired (it may be the thought but also highly likely that it’s the kids). I like my quiet life: quality time with family, taking great care of my patients, teaching residents and medical students, barebones social media presence, just trying to be better every day.

Is this enough? It sure feels like it, but does this mean that I am done being an overachiever? When is it okay to stop wanting more? For someone constantly in motion, when is it okay to stop and just be?

The two week wait

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For people who are trying to become pregnant, the two week wait is the worst of times. Here’s how it works: there are generally 2 weeks between ovulation and the time when you may be able to find out that you are pregnant. This translates into roughly 14 days that you can obsess about being pregnant/not being pregnant and swing from disappointment to elation to hope to relief.  The pendulum can swing either way and you have no control over it and you can’t force time to pass any more quickly than it is already moving.

With my first, for whom we underwent fertility treatment, I experienced a great number of disappointing two week waits. I am not a patient person, and I spent hours Google-ing any and all symptoms to see whether they could “correlate” with pregnancy. Slight abdominal twinge? Metallic taste in mouth? More sleepy than usual? Hair slightly curlier? Seriously – there was no such thing as low-hanging fruit. I can’t even tell you how much money I spent on ovulation strips and pregnancy tests! Sometime in March of 2014, a week and change after I ovulated, I experienced terrible cramps and was certain that I was out for that cycle (my fifth of oral ovulation induction). Then, a few days later – a positive urine home pregnancy test! Finally! It was the best of times.

With my second, I wasn’t sure when I ovulated (not a medicated cycle), so I took a slew of pregnancy tests around the 28-30 day mark until I was sure that I was not pregnant. However, because I was still late, I took another test a week later and, lo and behold, it was positive.

I am ruminating on this because we’d like to have a third. The situation is different now: with my first, I didn’t know if we would ever be able to have a child, so each two week wait was a truly emotional rollercoaster (would I ever be a mother? what was wrong with me?). With my second, it was more of a surprise (although not unintended). There was less stress and more joy. Now, I am torn between wanting to BE pregnant/closing this chapter of my life, and sticking with the familiar – two kids under three, a known chaos.

Supermarket Sweep

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When the kids fall asleep, I suddenly feel like I’m in an episode of Supermarket Sweep. Does anyone remember that show? Contestants had to run through the aisles of a grocery store, packing it with as many groceries as possible, in the hopes of collecting the most expensive goods.

When the kids fall asleep I am like one of those contestants – frantically racking my brain for what needs to get done before the little ones awake. I completely forget my To Do list as the most salient tasks in front of me pop up – folding that pile of laundry, washing all of the water bottles and snack containers from the morning outing, putting away the produce we’ve collected from the farmer’s market. So, yes, often there is a lot of cleaning and organizing. Sometimes there will be a work task – following up with a patient by phone, responding to a time-sensitive e-mail, editing a paper or making headway on a deadline. Sometimes (less often than I’d like), I opt to do something creative – reading (New York Times, New Yorker, the current book club pick, another book of interest) or writing (here or in my journal). I respond to messages I haven’t responded to in days. And sometimes I decide to take a nap, because as soon as the kids wake up (more energized than ever), round 2 begins!

So here I am, typing up a few words before the littles wake up. I’m feeling sleepier than usual today so I may opt to take a nap afterwards. Just another day in my glamorous life!

Easy like Monday morning

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This weekend, I left both kiddos at home with their father and spent a weekend in Napa with other moms. It was glorious. Of course, I missed my family (in fact, come Saturday night I was quite lonely!), but I hadn’t realized how far removed I was from the days of leisurely lounging.

A recap of our weekend: wine, uninterrupted sleep (8 hours both nights!), massage, sitting by the pool (in the shade of course), leisurely lunches, appetizer platters for dinner, and lots of girl talk. It was as amazing as it sounds.

Now obviously it isn’t feasible to take regular weekend get-aways, but I’ll be thinking of some ways to incorporate leisure time into my daily/weekly/hopefully at least monthly life! Writing this quick blog post is one way of attempting this before the crazy day gets in the way.

Happy Monday!

Impostor syndrome

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I first learned of the term impostor syndrome a few months back. I knew the feeling well, but didn’t realize that it had a name.

By all intents and purposes, I am a high-achieving and successful individual. I have always been intelligent and creative. I am an Ivy League graduate. I am an academic and a doctor – a dermatologist at that, which is one of the most difficult specialties to match into. I am a critical and analytical thinker, and I am fortunate to be able to do what I love due to financial stability. I feel very blessed, and yet have always also felt like I somehow didn’t deserve this. Along almost every step of my professional training, I have doubted myself. Where does this come from and why do so many people experience this?

One of my mentors said something very important to me when I first started as an attending “If you market yourself as an expert in field X, everyone will come to see you as an expert in that field.” In sum, fake it until you make it. This shouldn’t be interpreted as marketing yourself with false credentials. Instead, it represents having the confidence to see yourself as a thought leader. It also represents crediting yourself for hard work. If you see patients with a certain diagnosis more than other doctors, and if you are actively researching and breaking new ground as to what ails them, then you are absolutely an expert in that field – and you should own that title, not shy away from it.

I have been thinking about this more recently for a few reasons:

  1. I have now been out of residency for >2 years, and I am starting to realize just how much I know within my given field.
  2. Donald Trump, someone with no political experience, just won the highest political office in our country, and arguably in the world. It obviously helps to be a rich (white) guy’s son, but we should all have this level of confidence in ourselves.
  3. Every day, I see people with no actual knowledge of dermatology release books, launch blogs, start Instagram accounts, advertise courses, and even open CLINICS that are skin-focused. It boggles my mind. Here I am abstaining from doing some of these things because I’m worried that I won’t get it 100% right, and other people are out there just doing it, not at all worried that they lack the credentials.

I think many of us can agree that 2016 was a rough year. But if there’s one lesson I’ve learned this year, it’s that a little bit of swagger goes a long way. If you don’t believe in yourself 100%, no one else will. So fake it until you make it in 2017, and push self-doubt and perfectionism aside.

Back to work

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In three weeks, I will return to work after maternity leave.

Before my first was born (he is almost 2), I didn’t understand what was so difficult about returning to work after maternity leave. I was no naive! I watched as colleagues of mine, physicians who had spent years in training and who had accrued sizable debt, decreased their hours to part-time or dropped out of the workforce completely. I vividly remember discussing this with my husband in utter disbelief: “How can they do that? What a waste of all those years!”

Fast forward to 2014: the second we brought my son X home from the hospital, I remember thinking “I can never go back to work again.” My baby boy, my heart, had finally arrived. Despite our struggle with infertility, despite a minor scare at the hospital after his birth – here he was. How could I leave him!? It didn’t help that X refused to sleep longer than 30-60 minutes at a time day OR night unless someone held him. I was exhausted – a zombie subsisting on coffee and snuggles from this warm little being. I’m sure that all of the postpartum emotions did nothing to help my vocational morale. There were days when I couldn’t even get it together to leave the house ONCE. How was I going to wake up early, shower, get dressed in something other than nursing tanks and sweat pants (or maternity pants for that matter – why aren’t huge elastic waistbands trending? It’s a genius design!), and then interact with patients, diagnose their conditions, and actually treat them? All while pumping 3 times during the day? It seemed impossible.

I was fortunate to have a generous maternity leave. 18 weeks of paid leave may not seem generous if you live outside of the US or work at Netflix, but I felt so lucky to have it, especially considering that I had only worked 3 months prior to going out on leave. I count my blessings every day that my employer and colleagues are family-friendly and supportive. It makes working mamahood a lot less stressful. And to any employers reading this: longer maternity leaves will help your company. Moms will return to work MUCH better prepared for peak performance. They will be less sleep-deprived, less upset at having to leave their newborn in someone else’s care, and they will be so grateful for your generosity that they will work their butts off.

So how did I go back to work, and how has that experience prepared me this time around? I wish I could say something like “I wanted to set a good example for my children” or “I couldn’t imagine my life without adult interaction and the ability to use my brain”, but it would not be true and it would also be inaccurate, as I truly believe that you can set a good example, have adult interaction and use your brain as a stay-at-home mom. At the end of the day, it boiled down to necessity and fear of regret:

  1. I had to go back to work. We live in an expensive region and we needed my salary to continue living there comfortably and to accomplish our long-term financial goals. We had just settled in the area and it seemed premature to flee so quickly.
  2. Teenagers can be terrible people. Having been a terrible teenager myself (I used to tell my own mother to go back to work full-time so that she would stay out of my hair – terrible, right?), I envisioned myself frantically second-guessing my life decision when this adorable infant turned into an unbearable adolescent. How marketable would I be in a competitive practice environment after taking so much time off?

And so I counted down the days with dread and cried at the drop of a hat until the actual day came. When it did, I learned that there was much to enjoy about work. Some were hugely gratifying – interacting with my patients again, truly helping people, feeling challenged, learning and being inspired by my amazing colleagues – while others were small but also enjoyable – eating with both hands, using the restroom without an infant, speaking to human beings who could respond with words.

Of course, everything is rosier now. At the time, it was incredibly difficult. Leaving our baby with someone who was, at the time, a stranger, was HARD. Tearing myself away from him in order to arrive at clinic on time was often painful as it meant rushing, pumping instead of nursing, or not reading our usual books. Some mornings I would leave before he woke up, which broke my heart. I was also upset when I could not be there all day when he was sick, or when I learned that he had learned something new in my absence, or when our caregiver did not adhere to the routine I so carefully laid out. Lack of control is terrible when you are a control freak! Eventually, these things stung less. I saw that he was well-cared for and that he was thriving. He knew who his mama was and loved her. I cherished our time together and spent every moment at home trying to be as present as possible.

This time around, I am better prepared to deal with these emotions because I know that it all works out. X has so benefited from spending time with caregivers other than myself. Each has taught him something unique and special, and I feel fortunate that my baby, Y, will have the same opportunity.

At the end of the day, we all do what is best for our sanity. There is no “right” decision and I am so embarrassed to have ever judged mothers in the past for doing what they felt was best. Motherhood has certainly been a humbling experience. For mamas out there who are returning to work or deciding whether to return to work, I’ll share the two bits of advice I found most helpful:

  1. Find great childcare. You will never be able to focus on work 100% if you do not believe that your child is being well cared for. Trust your instincts, don’t settle, and change arrangements as soon as possible if something feels “off”.
  2. Do not make any drastic career decisions during your baby’s first year of life. Sleep deprivation, raging hormones, the postpartum state – these variables do not encourage a clear mind. It is so important to take a step back and look at the big picture and this can be very difficult to do when your time is consumed by an infant’s needs (which is 24/7).

Good luck to any moms returning to work and any moms who have decided to work at home. Mamahood is not for the faint of heart!

Frame of reference

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Before children (B.C.), I ran, practiced yoga, dined out often, woke up early, sipped wine, read, wrote, traveled, and socialized regularly, among other things. After children (A.C.), my priorities shifted. I still do (most of) the above, but in a much more limited fashion. So this blog is intended to be a new creative outlet – a way to invest in “me” time while balancing a busy home life and a busy professional life. I’m looking forward to seeing what this experiment turns into!