The last load

I believe we have completed the last load of cloth diapers. For, like, two months.

Turing is not potty-trained, but we've been drifting towards disposable diapers for the past few months. First it was disposable diapers at night so he wouldn't wake up with a sopping diaper. Then, since they were around, we started using them for times we'd be out of the house or times when a poop was probably on the way. Or when we just got lazy about doing a load of cloth diapers. And then, this past week, Turing decided he doesn't like the cloth ones anymore. He gets really mad when we try to put them on, but is fine for the disposable. So it goes.

I am not reprinting 1056 pages

Well, I'm printing out my dissertation document (times 6). I guess that means I can't work on it anymore.

I was feeling pretty good about it earlier in the week. Like I told a reasonable story and added something to the literature and had created a huge document that read fairly well.

Then my advisor finally gave me comments. After months of not giving me comments. It had gotten to the point where I had presumed he was actively not giving me comments because it was my project and he was staying out of the way.

Apparently not.

I was seriously angry about it. These weren't just grammarical comments, these were big theoretical focus comments. These were the sorts of things that would require serious work, not just to address at the point where he raised them, but to integrate them into the flow of the entire document. He gave me 60 pages of such comments 3 days before I was planning on being done.

If I wasn't angry enough about that, I was then irritated at his other comments where he claimed to not understand descriptions that my other readers had thought was perfectly clear. And when certain descriptions showed up multiple times in the document (it is written as 3 papers), he had totally different comments each time.

I did as much as I could with all that. The document may be stronger, but it certainly feels weaker since I haven't had time to reread the entire thing to make sure my language and story are consistent.

But, now, I can't change anything else. It is printing. It has that most glorious attribute for a dissertation document: done.

One week to go

My dissertation document will be out to committee in one week. That is printed out and nicely bound and all that business. Spiral bound, not book bound, because the document is not actually done. Goodness, no. Some days, it seems astounding that this will ever be "done." I guess done is when it goes off to the real printer for book binding. Or it is when I get the three papers within that book accepted for publication. If acceptance for publication is "done," I'm looking at another year's worth of work, probably.

So, I've been a bit stressed. Yes, a bit.

It does not help that my advisor is finally getting around to giving me some comments on my papers. And not just on grammar. I think I would have been OK with these sorts of comments up to about 2 weeks ago. Now? F if I know how many I'm actually going to be able to address in the next week. I don't think he really realizes that I can't pull out an 80 hour work week here at the end. Oh, well, I'll know what he'll want to discuss during the defense . . .

I certainly can't pull an 80 hour work week with a bunch of poorly distributed doctor's appointments. Just as Turing is getting to the point where he only has to go in every 6 months, I'm setting myself up for going to the doctor all the time, again. I applied for on-campus parking today. I feel guilty about driving to work when it is only 3 miles away and there are a lot of buses. But the buses are for people who work regular hours - if I was going in to work in the morning and leaving in the afternoon, the buses are brilliant. Otherwise, I end up burning half a day trying to get to a doctor's appointment or make the most inconvenient schedule possible by trying to get home to breastfeed. So, no guilt over the application.

Turing, of course, is picking up on my "little bit" of stress and thinks it is a great time to start testing limits more to see how Mommy handles it. Spitting lentil soup all over the floor? Yup. Eating gravel at the playground? Yup. Pushing the cats around? Yup. I did not handle it well yesterday and ended up dumping him in his crib for five minutes so I could finish making dinner. Today, I am a bit more clear headed and was able to ignore the behaviors I didn't like (and then, shockingly, they stop) and then "praise" the next good behavior with lots of attention or redirect to something fun. Somehow, that whole process just was overwhelming to me yesterday.

It will probably be overwhelming again next week.

6 years of Wednesday evenings

I had my last Secret Meeting a month ago. It was very exciting. I realized I've been going to them for six years. Six years of Wednesday evenings is a lot of time, because it wasn't just the seminar. It was also all the transportation and baby wrangling. For that matter, six years seems like it should be a long time no matter what and yet it has zipped right by.

The meetings were for my program. Over six years, they've gotten a lot better so that by the end, at least I was learning about other people in my program. And knitting. There were other ways I wanted to spend my time, but I figure the program pays for medical school and all they want is for me to sit through an hour seminar once a week. I can sit through an hour seminar once a week.

Because I'm not technically in the program next year, I won't have to go. And then I'll be doing clinical rotations, when I will not be expected to go. Woo!

Next year, I've got a 50% postdoctoral position lined up and I'm going to teach two classes in the spring. Two classes seems a bit excessive, some days, but my fear is a good motivator to find some people to come in and give talks for some of the lectures. Ha. And the postdoc gives me time to clean up a bunch of manuscripts and send them out into the world. The idea of trying to finish up my dissertation and finalize a bunch of projects and try to apply for jobs and think about moving all at the same time seems like it would be totally overwhelming. While my program is long and and my opportunities to do research will be very limited in the next few years, certain portions will definitely be easier than the regular academic route.

Charmed life, indeed.

Light in the fog

The pregnancy fog has descended. I have timed things pretty well, since I am mostly done with my dissertation analysis. I just hope I'm still mentally quick enough to get through my defense without sounding like an idiot.

I have definitely lost mental capacity. I know I am stressed under finishing my dissertation and all that, but I am unable to plan as well as I normally do even when I am stressed. I have lost my ability to determine cardinal directions relative to my current position. I also get confused by things that normally would not confuse me. I have to make a lot of tables, for instance, and I got entirely stuck on if I should describe the entire sample or just the subsample I used for the analyses in one of them. This isn't something with a right answer, but it needs a justifiable answer. I probably burned thirty minutes trying to figure it out.

But it isn't a bad kind of foggy, most of the time. It is a light detachment. All those hormones are on high, and that isn't all bad. When I'm not stressed, I'm just floating and smiling, and that is nice.

This is for my future reference

A few months ago, I bought a giant pile of silk kimono scraps to make little japanese hand-sewn presents. After much internet searching, I decided to go with ahkimono.com and I was really pleased with the selection I received from them. You are informed.

I have had no time to use much of it, but, oh, the projects I will do someday.

Play date!

I've been thinking about trying to set up play dates for Turing so he can get some interaction with kids besides staring at them on the playground. And I'd get some interaction with other adults on the days I have him for many hours. Unfortunately, I couldn't think of anyone I know with a kid of a comparable age who I would like to hang out with who doesn't live in Milwaukee.

Then, yesterday, I saw this woman at the coffee shop who I've spoken with a number of times when we just randomly pass each other. We ended up having a long chat about babies in grad school and spacing babies and writing dissertations. It was great! She has a kid just a few months younger than Turing, so I asked her out on a playdate and she accepted! woo! Added bonus: she's a grad student juggling babycare with her partner, so we can totally hang out during the week.

Healthcare dollars

The competition begins; baby is trying to out-punk Turing and may be winning.

Last week, we learned that baby is dropping heartbeats occationally. This is actually relatively common and most fetuses outgrow it before birth. And then there are all the really sucky lower probability outcomes. This would be one of those times when having some medical knowledge may be a lot worse than having very little. While Trouble was able to focus on the "probably nothing" part of the outcome flowchart, I spent days and days fixated on the "sucky crap" part. This is mostly because I am genetically predisposed to plan for all contingencies because it maintains my illusion of control. But there is no control in this sort of situation (or fault) and it would have been better to be able to mentally set it aside while waiting to see the Fancy Doctor.

So, I haven't gotten much dissertation work done. My document is now due in three weeks. shit.

The fancy doctor was generally reassuring, though he is still dropping beats. There were also a few other small things she wanted to follow-up on in two weeks. And I am supposed to avoid all possible stimulants. I've only been having a half-cup of coffee once a week or so, so that isn't a big deal. But, chocolate? Life is hard! The combination of concern and no chocolate may mean baby has out-punked Turing's 50 hour delivery already.

But overall reassuring, I got a lot of work done last night.

Then her office called this morning to move up the follow-up because she had reviewed some of the lab stuff last night. Uh?

I have been putting off doing a gestational diabetes screen. I have no risk factors and the last time I went through two false positives (that's three rounds of test which meant three days of my life in headachy blah) over weeks of trying to follow a vegetarian diabetic diet (bean soup anyone?) and it just sucked logistically, though I wasn't particularly anxious. I did a bunch of research on the screening and it isn't recommended for all patients by any of the big groups (AHRQ, NICE) because the false positive rate is so high and there is no real way to quantify the "cost" of false positives. Intellectually, I've known that the cost of anxiety and testing is real, but the past week has made that much more salient.

A day off

A week ago, I was talking to my advisor and it suddenly dawned on me that he has no idea I work every day. We were working on a revision of a paper last Friday and I had to go home, but that I could finish what I was doing that evening. He was so appalled at the idea that I would work on a Friday night, that I said, "Oh, well, then I'll finish this weekend." Which he also didn't want to ask me to do.

The thing is, I am always sending him stuff on the weekend, so I'm not quite sure why he doesn't know I work on the weekends. And he knows that Trouble and I juggle most of Turing's childcare, so I just presumed he knew that I make up for it by working less per day, but working every day.

He also asked me what I was doing for Memorial Day and I got a blank look on my face. Holidays? I'm supposed to take holidays? When my dissertation document needs to be out the door in four weeks?

In retrospect, I should have taken a holiday-day. I always feel guilty about taking days off because I do have so much to do and I do feel guilty about how flexible and accomodating my schedule is right now. Sure, I hang out with Turing 40 hours a week and I'm dealing with being pregnant, but I'm also getting plenty of work done (everyone thinks I'm plenty productive) even if I have more projects I want to do than I would be able to complete even if I didn't have these other "distractions." I have two without-child social events planned per week, I sometimes do other things, and I spend most of my other time working. Yes, that includes Friday and Saturday nights.

But those people who work 5 days a week are taking holidays. Those people are losing 20% of their workweek for Memorial Day where I would have only lost 14% of my workweek.

We went to a party at the house of some friends who have a child of similar age to Turing. They both work proper jobs with proper hours and thus need proper childcare. But this means their weekends are their own - they have an awesome garden where I haven't pulled weeds in weeks and I just got my beans planted, they go to farmer's market as a family where Turing thinks it is an amazing treat to get both parents sitting on the couch at the same time, they have managed to continue their hobbies where I am panicking about finished the (very small) quilt for my advisor's retirement party in three months because I haven't touched it in months.

But this morning, Turing and I went to the small farmer's market to get some local strawberries and he pushed his stroller around the stalls for as long as he wanted. We stopped at the big playground on the way home and giggled on the swings and watched the baby ducks swimming. We went home and gorged ourselves on strawberries and then sat and read a giant pile of books together. And I get to spend those leasurely hours with him every day.