Baby on My Mind

Prince Charming and I are expecting our first child in April next year. We are so incredibly excited to start this next chapter! I think it is interesting that, when discussing with others the timing of when to have children during this long process to become a doctor, they would always assume that we would wait until after medical school to start our family. Well, PC and I have been married for a year and a half, and for the last year or so we had been planning on trying to conceive when we moved to Chicago. I totally understand those who prefer to wait until further down the road of the medical life, but that just wasn’t for us.

The main reason people gave to wait on children was of course finances. Babies are expensive–and they seem to get more expensive the older they get. However, we’re going to be “poor” throughout the four years of med school, and even when he actually earns a paycheck during the four-plus years in residency, it won’t be much. So that would put us at least eight years down the road, in our thirties, with only a dog or two as our family. Again, I’m not judging; this just isn’t for us. The truth of the matter is simply that there really is no good time to have a child. It will come with difficulties no matter what stage of life you’re in. So we figured we’d rather start early.

Along the line of finances, I have been researching a lot about ways to save money with a baby. My biggest find: Cloth diapers. It’s amazing how much money you can save just by using cloth diapers! I’ve seen a bunch of different figures, but basically from birth to potty training disposable diapers will cost about $2,000. Crazy, right?! And that is obviously per child. So imagine having two little ones in diapers at the same time and that quickly gets insanely expensive. For cloth diapering, depending on the system you use it can cost as little as $250 up to about $800 or so for the top of the line cloth diapers (which is still a significant savings!). And best of all, you can use your cloth diapers for the next child or two as well. So your savings multiply! I used to think that cloth diapering was only for environmental tree-huggers or ultra-conservatives, and although they are obviously better for the environment, that certainly isn’t the case. In fact, cloth diapering is becoming more and more of a trend among younger mothers. If anyone is interested in learning more about cloth diapering, I got most of my information from a cloth diaper vlog by Obbs and Lala. So, needless to say, I’m excited to get my cloth diaper stash and start using them on our little baby come April.

On a side note, and completely unrelated to the rest of this post, we get to find out if we’re having a boy or girl next Friday! We’ve had baby names picked out since way before I even got pregnant, so we’re eager to be able to start calling baby by name. My mom is also flying out next week for about five days and will be coming to our appointment with us. Thus, I am excited on all fronts for the upcoming week!

On Guinea Pigs

A sort of rite of passage for the medical student is dissecting a cadaver. For the medical wife I would argue that we also have a rite of passage: being the guinea pig when our husbands are learning the physical exam. Every medical wife knows exactly what I’m talking about. Your husband comes home excitedly and wants to look in all manner of orifices in your head. At that moment, you become a guinea pig.

In my case, I didn’t become a guinea pig suddenly. No, it was very gradual. My husband and I would be talking and then I notice him looking intently at my eyes in a suspicious way. Or we would be hugging and suddenly he would tug on my ear for a better look. Or we would be holding hands and he would look fixedly at my forearm and hand, while at the same time I can literally see him reciting the muscles in his head.

Then once they start learning how to use all their various instruments, you’re really in for it. I was just about blinded when he did an eye exam before PC realized he could adjust the brightness of his ophthalmoscope.  Then he would tug my ear in various directions trying to find my deeply embedded eardrum. Then of course, he had to look up my nose (that’s not embarrassing). And finally in my mouth (don’t do this after eating).

I actually genuinely enjoy “helping” PC in this way. So often I feel helpless as he stays up til all hours and rigorously studies, so it’s nice to help in this seemingly insignificant way.  So I embrace my guinea pig-ness and look forward to “helping” when I can.