Hello and welcome medical personnel and families, it is lovely to have you here. Brief introduction: This blog is about me (Elle) and my med student boyfriend (Mori) as he completes his 2nd year of medical school and I swallow the bitter life of being a stressed out CPA.
Being the girlfriend of a medical student can be rough and lonely. We live together so the loneliness comes in the form of me having to sit quietly mere feet from him while he studies, and studies, and studies. Earlier in our relationship when we were long distance for two years I'd be alone for double dates, movie matinees, and even restaurants. I was determined to do these things without him because I knew when he went through med school and residency I couldn't sit around twiddling my thumbs. This weekend I went to a wedding alone.
The familiar tug of embarrassment and awkwardness at not having a date to a wedding plagued me the night before while Mori studied for his final exam. Three of my friends backed out at the last minute from attending and I knew that I would know absolutely no one at this wedding except for the bride and groom. Grrrrr. Whatever, I packed my bag and began the long drive to Connecticut.
The roads in New Jersey and New York has been cleared off by this point from the hurricane debris. Gas stations were like war zones with lines and lines of cars and several cops directing them to pumps. In New Jersey there was a gas rule in effect that only license plates ending in odd numbers could get gas at the service stops. Um, what if you are at your absolute last drop?? My fuel light went on in New York City, absolutely wonderful timing, but I puttered on fumes and faith till I got to Connecticut. The wait was only half an hour, but the attitudes of people were shocking.
At one point I was blocking the entrance to a neighborhood with my car, and an SUV came up trying to get through. It had a Baby on Board sticker, clearly this was not someone trying to squeeze their way to the front of the damn gas line underneath the watchful eye of the cop. I put my car in reverse and squeezed a couple feet back to let the person through. As I was backing up the jerk behind me starting slamming on his horn and screaming "WHAT THE F--- ARE YOU DOING?" Seriously??? This is not the apocalypse you might think it is, and we've been in line for 20 MINUTES - the length of a Nickelodeon episode. I finished backing up, the SUV slipped through to the neighborhood, and everyone carried about their freaking day. I hope this jerk gets a non-threatening ulcer and that he had to eat food out of cans last night. How inconvenient for him.
The part of the night I'm trying to get to is this: It became apparent later in the night at the reception that I was put at the pregnant and married table. Demographics: (2) 6 month pregnant young women with their spouse in the wedding party and back at home, (1) young woman with a 7 week old infant there with her whose husband was the best man, (2) married young drunk men whose wives were bridesmaids, and (1) ME, alone, unmarried, and empty womb.
I tried to engage the pregnant women in chatting about babies, of which I know a lot about thanks to all the blogs I follow who would have fit well at this table. You guys have educated me on the types of strollers to buy, sleep training, toys, breast feeding, and everything else that I could possibly need to talk about with a pregnant woman. However, all they wanted to talk about was how fat they were and how hungry they were. I definitely sympathized with them on that latter part and volunteered to get second helpings with them.
What surprised me about these women was that they had a gold mine of baby information right in front of them in the form of a new mother with a newborn and they weren't speaking to her. I was all about that sweet baby asking about his inherited looks, sleep patterns, and personality and they were too busy talking about how they can't look at the scale anymore. At one point they did bring up baby books.
Pregnant Thing One: "I only read the really funny baby books, all the other ones gross me out."
Pregnant Thing Two: "I don't read any baby books, I learn all I need to about pregnancy and babies from my customers at Walmart."
WHAT? That is like Mori saying "I learn all I need to know about medicine from the carnies at the fair." How can you trust the people you see maybe once a month to have reliable knowledge about pregnancy?
Stunned, I went to the bar and asked for a huge glass of wine. "All the women at my table are glowing and I need to as well, load me up." And I sat smug for the remainder of the evening drinking my alcohol and not thinking about my womb.
Ha ha, What to Expect When You're Expecting, the Walmart version, I still can't stop laughing.
