Thank you God! We're in the final half of year three and starting to actually fill out away rotation applications! The last couple months were BUSY. My husbands grandfather was diagnosed with cancer so we made the 5 hour drive to see him back in November. We spent the holidays with family and friends. We also celebrated our 6 year anniversary by spending a couple nights away while my parents watched the kids. (fun!) It was our first official nights away from them, can you believe that? That is what happens when you live far away from grandparents I guess. Our daughter also turned 1. I am officially a mom of a 2 and 1 year old! Exciting stuff let me tell you.
We spent most of December plowing through the endless list of orthopedic residency programs. For each one I googled the location city data as far as crime rates, education, weather, schools. I needed to be sure that I could survive and thrive in each location for 80 plus hours a week without my husband around. I looked at rental websites to make sure we could find a place to live that we could afford and checked which areas were most family friendly. I even made a note by each program that had an airport close by with a direct flight available to my parents location!
As far as for the programs themselves, there were some that made you do away rotations for months at a time in another state during your 5 years. Not okay with that! I mean how is that supposed to work for a family? I crossed those programs off the list. Others that didn't make the keeper list were programs that had only accepted residents from a certain location. I spent time going over the benefits each provided. Medical, dental, life and disability. Free meals on call days/nights, free parking. So, so, so many things to consider. My hubby wants to apply to 70 programs. yikes. So far, after months of this I have 46 on the keep list. Ugh!
We are now filling out applications for 4th year away rotations. We're shooting for two away rotations at 4 weeks each over this upcoming summer. Hopefully, if all goes well, we can get the dates that we want and the programs we want. Unfortunately neither of them participate in VSAS so we have a lot of printing out, filling out and mailing stuff going on.
I'm in the process of beginning potty training with my son. This has been harder than expected. (any advice out there is appreciated) I'm also trying to be a regular at my churches mom's group. It's for moms and their kids under 5. We get together once a week and let the kids play. We pray for each other and for the kids. Once a month is mom's night out which I have yet to go to. Hopefully this month! It's hard when M is gone weird hours to plan for that. Plus we've been getting sick a lot! Also, I'm in the process of starting to volunteer at our church nursery. It feels good to finally have the time and energy to do more than stay in my house and feed/change and entertain my kids. Honestly, for me the whole first year of my daughters life was just getting through each day making sure they were taken care of and that the house was in decent shape.
M is on ob/gyn next, and I'm looking forward to hearing about his first delivery. I wonder if its an advantage that he has already seen labor twice?
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Wow, you sound so organized! Great idea about checking out the living conditions (and airport!) My boyfriend is only in his first year, so I'm going to remember this. Thanks!
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