Here's a roommate picture that Linda took for us while we flopped. 

Rachel, Ellis & April at the lake 

Nicky and baby James 

My throat's feeling really scratchy today too...

<---This is from when my new roommates took me out for my birthday. Olive Garden is really cold, that's why I'm wearing that dorky shrunken sweater.

Okay so on Monday I woke up with a mildly scratchy throat that turned into a runny nose and sneezing and a thousand-pound head, so I left work early and came home to sleep.
On my way out the door, I said to my preceptor, "If I wake up feeling worse than this I'll give you a call in the morning."

She said, "well, that's ok when you're a student, but when you're a real midwife, you come to work no matter how you feel."

I was like, "Oh. Well maybe I'll feel better in the morning."

Anyways, I didn't feel better yesterday when I woke up, so I left her a message and slept the rest of the day. Okay I didn't sleep the whole day: I woke up to eat a little and drink a lot and take Sudafed.
It was a pretty good day, in that I felt like I had made the right decision to not go to work. Linda came over and brought me tea, a Z-pack, arnica gel, Airborne, a plant, a get-well-soon card and some quesadillas. I was supposed to go to yoga with Christian, but she was feeling sick too, so she invited me over to watch movies and be sick on the couch together.

She gave me some chewable Immunorockyourworld tablets or something, and after I put it in my mouth she goes, "they're basically just colostrum and echinacea, so they're really good for you."
What the? Colostrum? I almost spit it out, but then she said it was cow's colostrum. I didn't know they made that, but since I drink cow's milk, I felt like it would have been hypocritical of me not to accept their colostrum. Well whatever. It didn't taste gross.

Today is my day off, and I'm planning on being better, because I want to go watch Wooster & Jeeves movies with Nicky and I certainly don't want to make her 3 month-old roommate sick. So I should probably go back to sleep now.

Slug thoughts

Today I feel like trash so I'm flopping around watching Cool Hand Luke and eating puppy chow. Paul Newman is in that movie, did you ever know that? He's my favorite, even though I have to try really hard not to think about salad dressing when I watch him.

On a less embarrassing note, I was noticing this week that I still get a little nervous every time I get ready to go in a patient's room. I mean, I always look in the chart to see why the woman's there and get an idea in my head of what I'm going to do before I go in, but I guess I'm afraid that they'll ask me something I don't know.

Sometimes I'm even scared of the prenatal visits, which are the easiest of all and take like 20 minutes. Those pregnant ladies, especially the first-time moms, have a LOT of questions. Occasionally the husband will come too, with his own list of questions.

<---that's me. I usually like it when I walk in the room and she's sitting on the table with a 12 page "tentative birth plan" and list of things to ask, because I can usually tell them what they want to hear and have it actually be the truth. That's something I really like about midwifery. They'll ask, "how many of your patients do you cut episiotomies on?" And I get to say, "we only cut if the baby's really in trouble and has to be out right away, which is pretty unusual." But other times they'll ask me stuff like, "I heard I'm not supposed to be eating fish because of mercury levels--how much is safe?" or "Where's my scar going to be after I have a tubal ligation?" and I have to go ask someone. Both of those fall into the category of things-I-should-have-memorized-by-now. But I love those patients, the ones who are curious and freaked out at the same time, but still want to try having an unmedicated labor. It's really brave of them, I think. Sometimes if I have really bad cramps, I yell in my head, "I am SO getting an epidural when I have a baby!! It's going to be so much worse than this!" and then I feel guilty like I'm not a true midwife or some crap like that. :) That's why I don't mind if my patients decide to get them. Especially if they're the kind who ask me if it's going to get worse after every contraction, because then I have to say, "Yes definitely. But you can do it." Of course, I like it better when they don't--because it's more of a challenge for me (epidural patients usually sleep a lot, which means I get to sit around bored until the baby comes down) and because they are so proud of themselves afterwards.

This week I really enjoyed myself in the clinic, even though I had to look up a lot of stuff and felt like an idiot approximately 50% of the time. I'm excited about the births I'm going to get this semester--last semester, I didn't get to see the patients for their prenatal visits, so I didn't know them as well. This time I'm going to have an idea of where they are in life, what their family dynamics are, how they deal with pain, and what they want from the birth. I mean, I tried to get an idea of all those things with my patients this summer but it's hard, especially if it's one of those stop & drop moms who've had like 6 kids. :)

Anyways, enough of that. I saw a cute little lemon tree for sale at Home Depot the other day, but then Christian pointed out that we'd never seen a lemon tree growing around here before, so maybe it would just die. Does anybody know? Also, if I were to get it, would it take like 50 years before it would actually bear fruit? Because it's only 3 feet high, and obviously I don't want to help it grow to like 12 feet and then have to leave it here when I move again.

P.S. on Cool Hand Luke: maybe not as good as I originally thought. Right now there's some skank doing a Paris Hilton Hardee's commercial imitation, and its totally gross. If she turns out to be a romantic lead, I'm switching back to Jeopardy.

Good reasons to eat Top Ramen...

<----That's Tico, in case you can't tell. Isn't he cute?
This weekend Linda and I drove to NC to switch my van out and see the fam.

Mom, Christie, and Tico are going to Israel for a couple of weeks with Grandaddy. And when they return, Tico will have aged enough to be allowed to trade in his learning permit for a real live unrestricted driver's license. Since the only extra car in the driveway at home is my Dad's shiny new Prius, and I'll probably be trading my van in for something that doesn't break every 500 miles in a couple of months anyway, my parents asked me if I'd switch with them so Tico could use the van for his teenage hijinks. Mom said it was good for a 15 year old boy's ego to drive around in a weird-smelling 1993 minivan.

So anyways, it is a brilliant car. It's a hybrid so it gets like 60 miles to the gallon and you get to feel like a hippie. When I walk up to it (with the key in my pocket) the door automatically unlocks, and then I push a button to start it. It has a GPS and you can type in where you're going and this girl will say, "turn right here" and you can rebel and it will reroute you. AND, the CD player is in the front, unlike my van, where the CD player was under my legs.
I've already made a decision not to fall in love with it because a) I would just be on the rebound, and more importantly, b) I don't think I can afford the monthly payments. Unless I make the decision to subsist only on ramen noodles and canned peas. If I did that, all my hair would probably fall out, and I'm too vain to embrace baldness at 24.

I gotta go get ready for church. I'll blog about my first week at work later.

Now I'm 24

On Thursday night we had our honoring of hands ceremony at my school, and one of the midwives who I worked with this summer gave this photo to me and said, "hey, one of the patients you delivered brought this picture of you and her baby to her 6 week postpartum visit." On the back of the photo is this awesome thank-you note from the patient, talking about how happy she was with her birth and how much she appreciated my help and encouragement during her labor!!! Umm, yeah. So I was pretty much thrilled and showing everybody and jumping around. I'm still pretty excited about it.

This morning I woke up and discovered that I was sleeping with several pine needles, dust bunnies, and black specks, so I decided to wash my sheets. My Mom tells me that normal people usually wash their sheets weekly, and I think I'm going to give it a go, as part of my preparation-for-being-out-of-school-and-being-a-real-person plan. That's actually all I've thought of for that plan so far.

Anyways who cares, because do you know what? We have cable! and wireless internet!! And my patients really like me! And it's fabulous, I'm never going to leave my house again. One time I met this guy who told me he was really lonely when he first moved to Nashville, so he decided to get satellite TV and TiVo. He said after that things got a lot better, because he had something to do after work.

This morning I was flipping through the channels during breakfast, when I came across Dean Cain, my old friend from 8th grade. When I was 13, my best friend Jennie & I used to watch Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman every Sunday night. I made a collage of him for my room and we both wrote him letters, to which he replied with a postcard that said something like "Super wishes!" --Dean. I saw every episode up until he and Lois finally got married, when the whole show totally went downhill.
Since that was ten years ago I was psyched to find him back on tv. Unfortunately, he was playing in some geeky movie on the SciFi channel where a giant dragon was flying around eating people, but he still looked exactly the same, and by that I mean he looked awesome.

So, I am fully moved into my new house and I LOVE it. I forgot how it was to live with people who are your friends: it's really great. When we get home from work we talk about our days and sometimes we eat dinner together and watch movies.

Last night for my birthday, Christian & Glenn & Linda took me out for dinner and then we went back to their place for a movie. We watched Memento, and then Glenn tried to explain what he wants to do his doctoral dissertation on, and by then I was so tired that my brain could only handle one complicated concept at a time. But it was all really fun. I got a big box from my family to open, and Christian gave me a candle, and Linda gave me an Amelie poster in Chinese, and Em sent a card and earrings that she made. I also bought myself a jacket, but that's a story I'll write about later.

Okay, so awhile ago I found this necklace I really liked on the internet for $120. Last week while I was bored in Nashville I decided to try and copy it. Since I hadn't looked at the picture for a few weeks, I sort of forgot what it looked like, so it's not exactly the same, but still close, huh? I was really proud of myself. It cost like $8 to make.

At the star

Welp, I've moved, and we have no internet yet. So just give me another week and I'll be back. Yeah. I have a lot to say, but I'm reduced to using coffee shops for email checking purposes only. So eat it.

Nothing ever happens on Mars

So Linda and I drove down south a few days ago to be with the family. She's alternately packing and stalking her friends. I'm flopping around reading Harry Potter with Christie and petting the cats and going to the dentist and getting my van fixed, in other words, I'm not very busy. In the evenings we've been watching movies "as a family." Last night Maria Elena brought over arroz con pollo and flan to celebrate Linda leaving and it was brilliant. Real food, not from a restaurant or the freezer: it's a good thing.

I've been trying to figure out how I'm going to move all my stuff next week. I've got 4 or 5 large pieces of furniture, and some of them won't fit in my van. I've already tried the whole batting my eyes at dudes with pick-up trucks thing, and it's not working. It takes 2 trips to get all the big stuff moved, and since I'm moving sort of far away, and can only move 3 of the 5 items myself, I can't just ask someone I barely know. I feel like I'd have to at least be dating the guy to ask him to help me with all that. :)

So I've been asking around about how much it costs to rent a trailer, but then, half of the drive involves mountains and the van is seriously struggling lately. And I don't even know if it's worth it. My couch is from Goodwill, but I have this awesome dresser from Pier 1 that I love. Maybe I should just sell it all on Craigslist, since there is a definite possibility I'll be moving again after this semester, and assuming I'm not dating a cowboy by then, I'd have the same problem.

I told my Dad after the van finally dies, I need a pick-up truck. He looked pained and mumbled something about bad gas mileage.

The current moving plan is to make my Aunt and Uncle drive up with me in their real (non-mini) van and load up and bring it all back and unload in one day. 10 hours of driving. They said they'd do it. Eek! Can you imagine? Should I tell them my room is on the 2nd floor? Should I tell them it probably won't all fit in one trip? Should I just sell my $40 Target bookshelves and buy new ones when I get there?

Moving always makes me feel small and grateful. I wish I could do it all by myself and not make really nice people get hot and sweaty. I guess I could if I slept on an air mattress and went back to entirely plastic collapsible furniture.

I told my mom that her van stinks, and she said "no way, YOUR van smells worse than mine!" and then we both said we didn't smell anything in our respective vans. Maybe car stink is like house stink, and you only smell it if you're not used to it. Because her van definitely smells like wet dog. I know my van doesn't actually smell fresh, but I didn't think it hit you in the face or anything. Anyways. I'm so glad the internet can know my thoughts on this issue now.

The last thing I want to say is that Lydia and Eric are married now, and it was a fun wedding. They memorized their vows, which impressed me. I've never seen that done before, and I don't think I'd be able to do it without messing it up, but they pulled it off. For the sermon the whole wedding party sat down, which made me nervous, of course, but the ceremony was over in an hour: perfect. At the reception there were different kinds of cakes she had friends bake and they were really good, like "oooh, taste this" good. Lots of the girls from school came, and Wim came, and of course everybody from church came, and I got to introduce them all to Linda, and it was so fun. For part of the reception I was the only link between the people at my table and I got to pick the topics of conversation and feel all popular. There was no alcohol, but on the plus side, the musicians they hired were attractive and sang songs that I knew.

Before the ceremony started Linda made friends with one of my classmates, and had loud whispered arguments about who was the most attractive groomsman. It was REALLY embarrassing, especially because they were still talking about it by the time we were in the receiving line. And they weren't whispering by then. Everyone heard them.

Okay I gotta go. Congratulations to Ben, who was also supposed to be getting married on the 13th!! I wish I could have been in both places at once. I hope it rocked.

Eric, Lydia, and I. 

Sophia the flower girl 

After breakfast at Pancake Pantry 

This is part of my new living room... 

Linda made us order this even though we were full. 

Lisa and I at graduation 

Me with my chai 

Stop it, Maddy...

Right now Linda's sitting on my couch talking on her cell again, using phrases like "oh my gosh they broke up again? No way!" But it's okay.
I've finished the summer semester, and she's been here for almost a week. It's gone by fast. We've been shopping, swing dancing, to the movies, cooking, highlighting, rock climbing, to the library, to church, a graduation, and out to eat at all my favorite places. Also we've been to Starbucks a lot because contrary to her personal belief, she is addicted to caffeine and a total slug until she gets some. Today we went to meet up with one of her new roommates, to see her room, and to check out my new house. It was fun. I got really excited to move in and took lots of pictures. Oh yeah! That's the other thing! I got a new camera. It rocks.
Well that's mostly why I haven't written, because I've been doing so much stuff. I'm a much more faithful blogger when I'm having a slow school life of boring.
By the way, I did really good on my final exams! I was happy. Even the oral. Even the presentation.
When we got back we went to Shakespeare in the Park and saw "A Winter's Tale" which was brilliant. We remembered a blanket. I was glad I lived here. Except that there was a couple on a blanket next to us eating some really garlicky Italian food that kept wafting. We were making faces about it when the girl in front of us went over to them and was all "I just want to tell y'all, I am totally inspired to bring my dinner with me next time I come to this! That garlic smells soo good!"
Okay so here's a bunch of pictures from our time so far. I got inspired by Em's big picture posting frenzy the other day and my new camera. I had lots more of Linda eating and of my house but I thought that might be overkill.

Back to classes

Here's a picture of some pregnant belly dancers. There were 3 of them at our Annual Meeting (of all the midwives) in DC this summer--it was really funny.

This week I'm back in classes. My presentation went fine, and there were a lot of other interesting presentations too. It is fun to be with my classmates again, and sleep at night and be awake during the day. My hours this week are 9-4, so no shameless requests for schedule sympathy this time.

I've been studying a lot because I've got my oral exam on Thursday and my comprehensive exam on Friday, then I'm done with the semester! I've got a few weeks off. My plan is to spend the first one with Linda, the second one at home, and the third one moving. Then I come back to Nashville for a week of classes and to get my hands honored. Honoring of hands is a ceremony that we have before going off to Integration, the last semester of midwifery school. It's put on by our faculty and supposedly involves lots of handholding, feminist blessings (not praying!), music and crying. All the husbands & boyfriends get to come watch and feel awkward. I like that I am going into a profession that requires me to learn hand skills, but I'm sure this'll be interesting.

I think my brief flirtation with lice is over, so you can just go ahead and relax Christie.
Linda's coming the day after tomorrow! I can't wait. I've got so much I want to show her. I might actually pick her up from the airport too if she ever sends me her flight info.

Yesterday I went to the pet store and looked around at the rodents, birds, and fish. It was fun, but I didn't want any. The ferrets were all flopped out on their backs sleeping and looked dead. There was a little girl there picking out pet mice. Out of probably 20 white mice, she picked out 2 specific ones and put her fingers on the glass to keep track of where they were in the cage. It was cute. I would like to have a cat, but I need to wait until I'm not moving around as much, since having a cat limits your roommate and housing choices a lot. Sort of like being a smoker.
I should probably go back to sleep now.

Let them eat cake

Ok, so I'm subtracting Dooce from my links, because she's been so nasty lately. So everybody go check it out. Just kidding. In her place I'm going to try Opinionistas, an equally sarcastic, less well-balanced blogger big-shot who pretty much only writes about work, which she HATES. But it doesn't make you feel sorry for her. It just makes you think, "I never want to be a lawyer. Why would anyone want to be a lawyer?"

I'm really proud of myself this week for doing those 5 shifts in a row. I keep trying to slip the fact that I worked 60 hours this week into conversation, but so far no one's (Em!) impressed. I can't think of anyone to call and show off to, although I keep considering those who laugh at my lamer jokes, like Susan and a couple of the Pribyls.

***Lice Update***
No more bugs noted. Itchy if I think about it. Mild dandruff vs. egg cases?
Working off suggestions from multiple advisors, I found myself in Kroger's self-checkout aisle, buying some hastily selected nit combs after work on Thursday. I combed my hair out for an hour. I didn't find anything.
Maybe it was a boy louse.
Next step: dandruff shampoo.
P.S. Guys, I can't cut my hair off. Don't forget about the Q-Tip of '03. Or the Mushroom of '02. I'm going for Pocahontas, without the tan. Or fringe-y dress.
***
Today I wrote a big bad research paper that's been hanging over my head all semester. I feel relieved but gross since I did nothing else today. You know that stay-homey, never get all the way dressed for the day, hungry every 2 hours thing? That's what I did.

It's a review of 10 research articles. I did mine on Depo-Provera and whether it REALLY causes irreversible bone loss or if the black box warning was just a freak out.
I concluded that it was a freak out.
It's not the most interesting topic in the world to research, but I am so over picking out controversial abstinence education or post-abortion syndrome stuff and then searching around for 20 hours (in the actual library, because it's not available on the internet) to find the 3 current articles that exist on the subject. Actually I've only done controversial once that I can remember. But I usually pick stuff that I care about more.

For my next trick, I'm going to do a presentation Monday about letting women eat and drink in labor. I'm excited. Because at our hospital the rules are: sips and chips for everyone, unless they're on magnesium sulfate. Then all you get are ice chips. That's it. Hope you don't have a 3 day labor. I can't imagine doing something so draining without having eaten at least something small and non-barfy. One time I heard someone (can't remember who) explaining to a patient that she wasn't really hungry because she was getting IV fluids. Haven's friend who had twins checked out of the hospital to go eat and then came back when she was done.

Listen, what people need to do is not ask permission. Don't ask if you are allowed to have your 6 best friends in the room for the birth, because then the nurse has to say "hospital policy is 2." Don't ask if you are allowed to have coffee, which isn't actually clear. Don't ask if you are allowed to get out of bed, or take off your blood pressure cuff that's been going off every 15 minutes since you arrived even though all your readings are normal. Don't ask if you can rip your IV out...ok just kidding. The last night I was there, this non-epidural patient asked if she could get up to go poop. The nurse said no and "I don't want you to push your baby out on the toilet!" She was 1 cm/50%/-2 and barely contracting. But okay, this was a wacked-out nurse. She was pretty unusual- like arguing with the midwife I was working with about when to give antibiotics, and telling really loud irrelevant stories to the patient at 2 am. Technically I think I am allowed to tell her to lay off but she would have made me pay for it. I guess I could have lured her away like, "Hey Z, come tell me more about your PMS, they're sleeping in there."

So anyways, that's how I feel about it. :)

I like getting worked up about it.
I think my body's still on nights.
Even though I took a hangoveriffic Unisom.
She was a really nice last patient.

Permethrin 1%

Before I go to sleep for the day, I have a confession. 2 nights ago I had just finished combing out my hair after a shower, when I noticed a tiny BUG on my comb. A nefarious, louse-y looking one. Whatever, I don't share brushes! I don't get my hair braided on mission trip beaches! I haven't been trying on fancy hats at JC Penneys! Of course, immediately I started feeling itchy and looking for bugs and egg cases in my hair but I couldn't find any. I contemplated taking the bug upstairs to ask my roommate if it looked like lice to her, but we're almost friends by now, so...nah. Instead I decided to test the insect, by giving a strand of hair and seeing if it was able to cling to it and walk along, hoping that this would reveal its identity. Well folks, it was able to cling alright. He was a clinger. I flushed him. But then I thought, that was a really weird looking louse...maybe it was a crab!! What if I have pubic lice on my HEAD??? (Right, I wouldn't want my parasite to be in the wrong place or anything) I should have saved him so I could bring it to work and ask the nurses! Then I remembered that crabs pretty much have to be sexually transmitted, and are usually darker in color, so I abandoned that idea. I haven't found anymore bugs since then, so they're either incubating in the back of my head somewhere, or I was just having a big prissy freak out. I'll just...keep you all posted. The world needs to know. Funny that I'm saying all this right after advertising my rather lax hygiene rules in my last title post, huh?

While I'm confessing stuff, let me say to Em's Mom and my Mom and any other Moms who will think me pathetic that I have never read Pride & Prejudice, only seen the movie. But I've seen it a lot! And I even know about that part where their heads move in slow motion during the dance! And I feel like I really get it! But I do wonder what Mr. Collins would have looked like inside my head if I had imagined him first. I mean, did Jane Austen really mean him to have such greasy hair or is that an artistic liberty? Did Victorians even talk about grease?

So anyways. Last night was brilliant. I had a birth, number 12, with my favorite midwife, who let me do everything, and it was so fun.
My main goal last night was not to be such a wuss like I usually am, and make decisions on the spot without asking everyone if they think it's a good idea first. I'm also working on noticing stuff outside of just the woman's bottom and how effective her pushing is. I tend to be really focused and ignore other important things like, say, the fetal heart rate. :) Other stuff I'm trying to keep track of at the same time: how long she's been pushing, if her bladder's getting full and getting in the way, her energy level, the vibe of the room, and whether I'm encouraging her enough or if I've gotten too distracted to talk out loud. It's really hard to make my brain do all that at once, but it's fun too, because I can feel myself getting better at it and that is exciting. I'm glad I'm going to be a midwife. God's good to me.

New subject. Guys, thanks for all the fun comments, I really like getting them. It makes this a lot more fun than writing in my journal. But let's just get this straight, "Susan" is not our terribly smashing, muppet-loving, commercial-making Philadelphian camp counselor, so don't be deceived. This Susan is the homeschool enthusiast, forestry major, clinique bonus time, chicken-lover from FL who passed on her genes to me. Unfortunately, she doesn't see Keira Knightley's clear skankiness as frankly as the rest of us do, but at least she doesn't think Sarah Michelle Gellar would make a good Jane. That was my particularly rotten idea. :)