How Life Has Changed (Sara)

So I'm going to have to disagree some with Kyle's previous post about feeling that life hasn't changed dramatically since Sam was born. I don't usually like to draw attention to gender differences because I think they're often socially constructed, but I do think there are some very real biological differences between mothers and fathers that color their experience in different ways.

Central to the issue is anatomy. Spending time at home to recover after labor and being a nursing mom are both huge factors.

Before Sam was born, I had never been a patient before. I had never broken a bone, needed an iv or had stitches. In a single day, I then had an iv, an epidural/spinal anesthetic, and a foley catheter (that's for pee, folks and luckily they placed it after the spinal kicked in). Oh, and let's not forget the c-section itself, which is major abdominal surgery during which the surgeons pull your abdominal muscles apart.

Being a recovering patient was therefore a very new experience for me and required that I stay home from work. This too affected my life greatly as my very identity seemed to change.  One day, I was a training physician- attending daily medical lectures, taking overnight call in the hospital, and making important decisions for patients- and the next, I was a stay-at-home mom- caring each minute for a completely dependent and helpless creature.

I'm sure all new moms have mixed emotions about their own recoveries and subsequent solo time at home with a newborn, whether they're choosing to return to work or not. Some days I felt completely content about being with Sam and worried that returning to work would be awful; I couldn't imagine being away from him. Other days, I really missed work, missed my physician identity and the excitement of training and learning.

A huge component of being at home with a newborn of course is nursing. Never before have I had anyone so dependent on me. In Sam's first 3 weeks of life,  it felt like all I did was breast-feed him, recover from breast-feeding him, or think about the next time he would need to feed. My body felt exhausted from holding him and from hunching over to gaze at his face.

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As the weeks have passed, that initial drama of suddenly having a newborn has mellowed. I can already look back and think, "Wow, if I did that again it would be easier because I would understand more about what to expect, how to take care of myself, and how to savor my time at home." True to what all parents say, this has all gone by so fast...

Now that I am back to work, I would propose that Kyle and I are having a more common experience of parenting. We are both balancing our work with a new schedule of drop-offs and pick-ups at Beth's house. We both cherish our time with Sam and value the opportunity to be in the working world, doing something we like to provide a good living for our new family.

Yet the biology remains and 2-3 times a day, I have to steal away from my work duties to pump breast milk. Of course, that's a choice I've made, but it's one I actually enjoy. I like knowing that even when I'm away from Sam, I'm working at being both a physician as well as a nursing mother. Beth recently placed a photo of Sam in my pump so when I open it up, I see his little face smiling at me. While I pump (in a private call room), I can review patient charts and write my notes on our electronic medical record.

Yup, that's right. I'm Super Doctor Mom.

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Moving past the anatomy, I generally agree with Kyle's overall point that having Sam has not changed the core of who I am. It may have felt a little like that at first, but now he is seamlessly integrated into our partnership. What has changed is that our partnership is now a family.

A family.

Something about that word had my smiling in the car the other day. I never thought that having a child would make me feel so... happy. Sam is like a project that Kyle and I share; he's our little creation, our love. Nurturing him and sharing the responsibility of his care, has made me love Kyle more deeply than before.  I feel like I belong to something, something that can be absolutely what I want it to be.

And that's how life has changed.