I almost failed Organic Chemistry (read I almost got a B+) and now I am a doctor

From an early age, I was heavily praised for being bright and precocious. I was generally obedient and craved deeply my parents love and affection, which perhaps too often went hand-in-hand with a good report card. I recognize they were doing their best, as we all are, just trying to do the right thing day in and day out while putting a roof over our heads and food on the table. 

I strove for perfection, vigorously treading water to please my parents and to maintain an aura of success and competence. I learned very little about failure until I reached college and this article ( Campus Suicide and the Pressure of Perfection http://nyti.ms/1VIuROq) in the NY Times struck a cord with me today. 

Societal and academic pressure has been around for ages and I think the majority of what is said here is already well know. Parental pressure can be debilitating, and one billion Asian teens can tell you that story over and over. The Tiger Helicopter mom is our bread and butter. I was pressured into memorizing my multiplication tables in the dark with three grains of rice while all other children had a proper childhood with cable television and on-brand fruit roll ups and frolicked in the woods carrying Barbie dolls. Or so I thought.

I had a somewhat delusional vision of everyone else's all-American, stress-free homes. Everyone else's life was my fantasy. I dreamed up that faux-reality even without the aid of a perfect Insta-filtered world of swans and bikinis floating in aquatic backyards. I mean, have you seen some of these adolescent Insta accounts?! hashtags with #bae? Goddammit everything is #on fleek. I barely know if the vocab is even in the English language. Merriam Webster be damned! I really do enjoy Facebook and Instagram. I can catch up on old friends and their babies, sneakily investigate a new friend's husband's name that I forgot and I am a member of some Mom groups that tell me what day to recycle my milk cartons. But I feel Insta-pressure from other postpartum moms who look like Greek goddesses in their bikinis after 4 kids, and I am a grown up! How on earth are my kids supposed to grow up in this era of Photoshopped-life and not feel that need to keep up? 

I guess the answer lies with me and my husband. We can be human reminders that perhaps a picture is worth a thousand words, but those words may just be a good work of fiction. I'll start the trend. Lets post real life. The good and the bad. No filter, failures welcome.

Xo,

m 

Hoodies, no makeup, no filter. 

#deliveryroom selfies ?!@!&

A disturbing item came up in my googlenews feed this morning. A Venezuela-based medical student had posted a selfie with a woman giving birth in the background. Along with some crude remarks about female anatomy, there was a brash and disgusting disregard for perhaps the most vulnerable moment in a woman's life. The article detailed that this is actually not a rarity and that many health care professionals use the delivery room hashtag to post similarly offensive Instagrams. As an obstetrician who routinely leaves my husband and two small children in order to spend sometimes over 24 hours supporting women during their labor, I found myself more than a little miffed. I make that difficult choice to not be with my family, to ensure safe passage of a new life into this world and to care for women during a moment that is literally life-threatening. How dare someone make light of that? How dare a medical professional disgrace what I consider to be my life's work? 

I usually use this blog to talk about parenting moments and avoid the shop-talk of my career. I never want to be preachy about the birth experience because it is such a personal choice, so many polarizing opinions about epidurals, elective cesareans, skin-to-skin, boppies, birthing balls, breastfeeding and feminism. A universal truth, though....It is NOT a public social media moment.

I battle daily against public misperceptions about what happens on the labor floor. Patients fear that we make rash decisions about their deliveries based on office hours, money, imaginary cocktail parties. That fear has lead many to become distrustful of obstetricians, vilifying us as crude manipulators of a natural process.

My husband, who is perhaps my greatest  cheerleader, knows what I go through in order to help women have a safe and nurturing birth experience. It is not easy to be married to me. I make these sacrifices in my personal life because I know what can go wrong during childbirth, and I am fortunate enough to have the skills and experience to make a difference in those moments. 

How far we have come as a civilized society, gay marriage and transgender equality shout out in the headlines, but how Neanderthal our views on childbirth and maternity leave. I am so lucky to have women who trust me to care for them during what can be a scary and foreign moment. I am so sorry that there are members of the medical community with such poor judgement. 

Sandwiched

My dad recently mentioned a phrase I hadn't heard before, the Sandwich generation. That is, being sandwiched between caring for your young kids and ailing parents. While it primarily refers to financial burden, it's an emotional challenge more than anything else.

I haven't posted much in this last year since my mom passed and as the anniversary of her death approaches, I find myself faced with my father's mortality as well. Recently diagnosed with lymphoma, he began his chemo story yesterday. I have not been able to be as supportive as I would like, but I am trying my best. Aren't we all?

He is surprisingly chipper; he's prepared in a way most people aren't. After all, he walked this road for seven years with my mom. He knows it all, the ins and outs of nausea, hair loss and fatigue. He got a smart buzz cut earlier this week, dropped by with gifts for my daughter's third birthday before his treatment, stocked up on soft, palatable foods. He is admirably rational and practical about the whole thing. It's a task, just like any other. In some ways I think he feels closer to my mom now that he is sharing an experience with her. He doesn't pity himself. He is just standing tall and marching on. 

I am sitting in the dark, considering my own pity party, and after a brisk GET OVER IT moment, I am thinking about what it means to be a parent, a wife and a daughter. I should probably be asleep but as is typical for me, a bit of font on the page is soothing and cathartic. I'm sandwiched but life is meaningful in a way that feels good and tense at the same time. 

The meat of life. The push of blood through my arteries, it matters. I wanted to collapse from the emotional burden of it all, but I look instead and see opportunity. To do this well. To be the best thirty six-year old me that I can be.

How many people face adversity and crumble, how many rise and learn to be better?

I saw it with my mom. My how cancer transformed her and made her more graceful and kind. I see the same with my father. I don't want my children and family to remember these times as fraught with illness and loss. There are so many fresh wonderful experiences to be had, made that much sweeter by a gentle reminder of our mortality and how fleeting and precious this gift of life is.

My daughter's new school has a lovely quote by the Dalai Lama in the entranceway, "We are visitors on this planet. We are here for one hundred years at the very most. During that period we must try to do something good, something useful, with our lives. if you contribute to other people's happiness, you will find the true meaning of life."

It is so poignant to me now. Worrying about fitting into my old jeans, whether I can still be interesting in suburbia (I can!) or how rude some stranger was to me on the train. It's all such a waste of time...all that worrying over minutiae. THROW IT ALL AWAY! That worry, it means nothing. Doing this well now is all that matters and handling the gritty pulp of life with grace and optimism is everything.

I am sandwich'd. And it's good. I am wedged between people who I love and who love me. I have a chance to be useful. I shan't waste it.

Xo,

M 

..

All about that Bass turnt down for what?

Okay I am late to this party but as I have gotten back into running, my iTunes pop radio(gasp can an aging 30-something admit to still loving pop music) has been my new workout buddy. 

And LO and behold, Meghan Trainor, I like your peppy upbeat message! Pop starlets and positive body image messages? Who knew?!

But I'm here to tell you that,
Every inch of you is perfect from the bottom to the top
Yeah, my momma she told me don't worry about your size

Yes! She had a good momma (albeit not a very grammatically correct one) who didn't fret about size or second helpings of rice at dinner. It's a tough balance, health and fitness vs. exercise just for some unattainable society-driven goal of a visually pleasing body. I hope to inspire my daughter to feel so free and proud of her shape that she writes a song about it too!

Maika has discovered a love for running. I have to thank the #Little Critter books for encouraging a healthy perspective on exercise and Gabby is our new racing icon. My daughter flies past Morningside Park with unbridled joy and golly she is fast! And she loves it!  It's exercise by default and fun first. I have to admit that my buddy Equinox has become a bit of a punishment for me recently ( um, can the instructors please stop asking if anyone is pregnant in class everytime they walk past me with an awkward knowing WINKWINK). NO! I am not pregnant. I had two 8#babies back to back and I have a horrible core and a pot a-la Fabian circa 1996 Pulp Fiction. I do not love it. But it made two delicious children. Maybe I will lose it one day but I can't be embarrassed by it anymore. I can't avoid the gym because of my little pooch. What sort of lesson would that teach Maika? What would Meghan Trainor say? 

In the words of Little Critter, "I didn't win, but I ran the whole way."  Yes. That message matters. I love running, sweating it out, and the grip of pavement (insert treadmill due to snow) under my soles. If I jjjjiggle a little more while doing so...eh, such is life. I shouldn't worry about my size. Life's too short to sweat that.  I have got to be the positive force in Maika's life and I do not want to burden her with body image BS. I want her to hold onto this love for exercise. Running is joyful and a discovery for her not just a means to a skinny end. We can run and still enjoy an eclair here and there. I am her momma and I told her that.

Xo

M

Spring fling

And by spring fling, I mean to say, did this first hint of warm weather encourage all women and teens on the streets of Manhattan to fling off all of their clothes?!

Ambling along Lexington Avenue this afternoon I could not help but notice the excessive amounts of skin flashing in the glistening sun. Women still pastey white, translucent even, from a long winter hibernation shed layers and gloriously displayed their gams and from elbow to armpit enjoyed the splendor of what fifty degrees feels like in NYC.

Huddled around a Just Salad on the Upper East side, I passed a gaggle of joyful twelve-year olds with perhaps a bit too much skin, though...and I felt a momentary pang of fear. I will one day be the mother of a tweenager. Yes, I will find myself embattled in a question of hemlines and neon bra-lettes. Eep. This frightens me. 

My recent lament over princess dresses...ah this pales in comparison to the short-short. You know nothing, Jon Snow...and neither do you Michelle Metz and I apparently haven't even begun my journey in the world of parenting. 

The question arises then. What does it mean to have sartorial choices? How long do I have a say in these matters and is there a line to be drawn? 

Questions. Questions. Questions.

In the meantime, very happy to shed my winter tights. Maika, please wear flannel forever. Maybe I am a hypocrite?

Xo

Michelle 

Disclaimer: I spent most of my twenties quite underdressed. Please disregard Halloween from 2002 onward...

(S)mothering

This blog post is brought to you by The Little Mermaid Radio and Bailywick's pragmatic pearls of wisdom. For all you mothers of girls, you know what I am talking about....

As a little girl I dreamed of becoming a painter. This dream was somewhat squashed by my parents at a young age in favor of a more stable, measured life as a physician. I chose to become an OB/GYN, a career that is all consuming, but one that I have come to really love. I often feel like my identity is wrapped up in my skill with forceps and my ability to connect with women in times of stress and illness. While I am grateful for the career I have and the honor I have in taking care of women at their most vulnerable, I often wonder what life may have brought me had I followed my creative dreams. I wonder if I should have been able to determine my own destiny. Follows my dreams a la Princess Ariel and decided to get legs and join the humans.

As a mother now myself, I find that I have fallen into these default habits that would have made young Michelle Tham cringe. Maika is in a princess phase, a whoa-I-must-wear-a-crown phase. It's wonderful and charming and delightfully ridiculous. My first instinct, though, was to fight it. I feared pink bubble gum lipstick, an adolescence of poor choices...Barbies. Pink Mustangs. Frosted Hair. No, no... I must steer her away from this life. Visions of Team Abnigation from those horrid Divergent Movies danced through my addled brain. Yes, gray, she will wear sensible gray leggings from Costco and drab sweaters from Lands End. And then I heard myself in my crazy head and realized that I was in fact doing some serious (s)mothering. 

I have been blessed with an amazing daughter. She is fiestly, strong willed, heartbreakingly kind. My job is to help her become her best self. The Maika she was meant to be. Her "personhood" is already so strong. She has an imagination that rivals any Hollywood film and an enjoyment of life that takes my breath away sometimes. How fortunate am I to get to be her mom. This is her story, not a way for me to make up for mine. 

I am lucky to have a life that is steady and a family that is stable enough for me to actually take a moment and reflect about the type of parent I aspire to be. I think my own parents didn't have that luxury and they were often just trying to get through the day and navigate a new country and competing cultural customs.

It's easy to let our own childhoods dictate the types of decisions we make daily without really thinking about what is truly best. It's easy to try to force our kids into these preformed identity moulds that burden us from our own disappointed youth.

So, after a trip to CVS, armed with every permutation of pink hair clip and ponytail holder, I welcome Maika's pink phase. 

I welcome whatever may come next! She will be who she is, I just have to get her there safely with lots of love. If I can be the kind of cool candid Patricia Clarkson type mom from Easy A, all the better. Maika gets to find her legs if she wants them....

Xo, 

M