26 days

Today is my 26th day of maternity leave. Twenty-sixth. As in, the day that marks 85% completion of an entire month.

I'm trying so hard to let go of the fact that I've been using my personal time for "Professional and Career Development" (per my transcript) for "sitting on my butt doing nothing." I fully realize that due dates are approximate and absolutely nothing definitive should be planned around the predicted arrival date of a newborn, but seriously.

I've come up with another analogy that my med school friends could relate to: imagine studying for the Boards. Remember the daily countdowns, the excitement of crossing topics off our checklists, the anxiety leading up to the day, all the planning that went into selecting a location, and the logistics of game day? Now... it's two nights before the test and your brain is full of so much medical trivia that you're certain you can't possibly fit anymore in... so you decide to try to relax- maybe go to a movie, take a bath- do things you haven't had any time to do for a long time, just trying to make the time pass until you can get this event past you. Then, test day comes! As you're getting out of the shower and begin to put on the outfit that you most likely laid out the night before in preparation, you get a phone call from the testing center informing you that your test date has been moved and that they'll contact you when you've been reassigned. Maybe this isn't so disappointing- maybe you spent the whole night awake, unable to sleep, and a couple days of rest might not be such a bad thing. But then, you don't hear from the testing center for a week. You start to get anxious, wondering if you should study some more, or if that'll make you forget everything you tried to cram in during the last three-four weeks of studying... then another week goes by... and ANOTHER. Now, 26 days after your testing date, you still haven't taken your test, and, instead of the 79 days of glorious vacation you were planning on enjoying before beginning your clerkship, there are only 53 days left until your clinical rotations start. You feel like time is slipping away from you, along with your sanity. You go to bed every night wondering, "will tomorrow be the big day?" only to wake up to realize that no... you have no missed calls, voicemails or texts from the testing center.

I don't mean to be so overly dramatic with this whole thing- it's just terribly frustrating. And, for the time being, no news = no news. If you haven't seen anything on this blog, or facebook, or via text/email/phone call or even on a flier dropping from an airplane over your house, I have still not had this baby.

Well, I'm off to spend the day cleaning our already-clean house in preparation for Jordan's family's arrival this evening. Yup- they're coming to help out with the baby... and, from the sound of my post upon re-reading it, I think the only person acting like a baby around here is me.