Everybody Needs a Little Time Away (from residency)

As usual, the 4th Monday has come at a crazy time, so I am my usual few days late in posting.  We are in the middle of one of our rare, has been planned out for the last year since we put in our vacation requests, finally a chance to get out of town together and not going to a family gathering, vacation.  And it was very much needed.

 I'd just turned in my take home final for my math class (and decided I didn't want to take any classes this upcoming semester because this last semester I really did not love putting all my time and energy towards math when instead I really just wanted to stare at and hold my belly.  And I assume that I'll be even more attracted to holding and caring for my child once it's actually born, so a math degree is officially on hold.   And I'm very much ok with that).

 My husband had just come off of what seemed like 3 months of crazy hard rotations.  Lots of nights and weird hours, making any conversation or time together either very minimal or filled with charts and checking up on patients.

 With a baby on the way, it seemed a good opportunity to have some time with just the two of us (though some hiking and activities go a little slower because of my 'condition') before most of our attention gets diverted to the beautiful, adorable child that we'll be blessed with.

So we came to Grenada!  That's where my husband did a year of medical school and he couldn't stop talking about it (and after hearing about it, I really wanted to go).  So we scraped together as many vacations days as possible and have an amazing 9 full days and 10 nights in a warm, humid (which I'm really enjoying), beach filled island.  The food is delicious and as a bonus, we got to have our layovers in my hometown, so I got/get to see my parents and get emotional about not living there anymore.

I know things will change once children enter our lives, but I can't recommend enough that you take whatever time you can to be as calm and relaxed and enjoy yourself before something crazy happens ( like your last year of residency and your lack of any definite ideas of where you plan on going in a year and you're about to have your 1st child).  Good luck.  If luck had anything to do with it.

-Rachel C.