Update Dump

So much blogging catch up!

Baby updates:

• Finally got into see an OB physician for transferring my care after the midwife hoopla (took a lot of phone tag with the nurses and very nearly had my only option to see one of the perinatal specialists). She is amazing! We're very happy with her, and I only wish she was a family doc so that I wouldn't have to start the search over to find a primary care doc for the little one as well. She even tries to come in for her patient's deliveries when she's not on call - which would be great!
• The nursery is starting to come together. Thanks to craigslist (dresser/changing table!), an Amazon coupon and some random Target shopping we've started to get some more things together and it actually looks more like we're going to have a baby. We have some Ikea ordering and assembling to do, a minor art project to put together, a used glider to find and a slew of Amazon registry ordering to do (oh Amazon, why do you make us wait until 30 days before her due date for our completion discount? there are so many things we need to get!) and then we should be pretty set. Until I think of something else to freak out about our baby not having (update: she probably won't be naked most of the time, after some Target/Costco sprees and finding a great consignment store in the boondocks she does have some more clothes! although if she wants to get much fancier than a onsie, possibly with some pants, then she might be out of luck).

• We had maternity photos done! Mostly as an add on for the newborn photos I am super excited about, but despite my lack of desire to have my puffy feeling self photographed (luckily my photogenic husband helped balance things out), so far they look great (the sneak peak photos we got are below)! We even got the dogs in a few of the photos, although Malcolm clearly is the most photogenic of the two, Rue mostly spent her time in a frenzied panting state wondering why a stranger was staring at us the entire time and she couldn't go sniff the ducks.

• I'm still feeling overall pretty well, other than a bit creaky after working. Though between the heat and the constantly on my feet for my work shifts I am wishing someone would design some compression stockings that makes sense to wear when it's 90 degrees out. So far I'm going for the sausage digits are sexy angle. 

Work updates:

• Just finished up my final supervised training shifts, so I'm on my own from now on! The DOS based EMR is still not my favorite, but I seem to have it down. I don't think I'll ever like the strange dictation limbo they have us in to dictate just enough for our level of service, but not any more lines than needed, but I at least am getting used to it. The model of patient care and reimbursement structure I think will continue to drive me crazy, but I just try and ignore the fact that I have to sign off on PA charts that give antibiotics, albuterol inhalers, a steroid burst and cough syrup with codeine to every bronchitis or URI (I wish I was kidding, this is one of the PA's "specials," I've already had a patient tell me point blank that every time he comes here with a virus he gets an antibiotic) and go along and try and save the world from super bugs on my own and singlehandedly bring down the vicodin prescriptions handed out every day (you aren't getting narcs from me unless you have a broken bone!).
• There are also mysteriously no stools for the provider to sit on in the exam rooms, and I have to stand to access the computer anyhow. This along with only 1-2 computers I can dictate at that have chairs, contributes greatly to the previously mentioned creakiness and sausage digits. Not to mention there is no such thing as breaks or lunch for the providers, so I just have to make patients wait when I've gotten to the point of no return with my hunger and then eat like a starving teenager! And we can't leave the building during our shift, so I am brushing up on my rusty lunch making skills.
• The silver lining in this job is that due to the high volume of patients I see per day, I have gotten to see some interesting things. Clinical Lyme disease for the first time, aborted a cluster headache (which I've only previously seen as a boards question!), done some fracture management, sent a patient to the ER for rule out appendicitis and she got her appendix out!

Fun updates:

• We weaseled ourselves into our friends' family visit to the Outer Banks in North Carolina and picked them up from the airport in Norfolk and drove down to hang out with them and check out the beach! Despite the 6 hours of driving that day it was a lot of fun and great to catch up and spend some time with friends and check out more of the area. Rue got to see the ocean for the first time and Malcolm got to see the Atlantic ocean! Neither were terribly impressed and found it salty and too wavy. 

• Went to a "Partners in Medicine" BBQ, which is a support group for significant others of medical residents/interns, in the attempt to broaden our nonexistent social support. Everyone was lovely, but none of the women residents showed up and I was the only significant other of a non-MD resident/intern. So I was awkwardly the "doctor wife" rather than a "doctor's wife" and the only MD there who had completed residency. I was able to have more interesting conversations about what it was like to be an attending with one of the senior residents (also a dad) than able to commiserate with the wives about my husband being on night shifts and on call all the time (because he isn't! I was the one who did that already). But luckily babies are a pretty common subject and there were a bazillion kids there. I simultaneously was admonished for not having my hospital bag packed already in case I went into labor early, and complimented on being so prepared that I have a car seat already. But I feel okay about the former, I'm holding this kiddo in until 40 weeks (okay so I know she'll decide when she wants her birthday, but I can dream right?) and the hospital will give me a gown and underwear, what more do I really need?

Now for the video of the post - fetching in the Atlantic! Or how the puppies ingested more sand than could seem possible: