If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my four months of being a mother, it’s that being a working mother is hard. Especially when your work extends into all hours of the night. I’m not complaining by any means. I love my job, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say it were a challenge at times. I’m on call every other week, so fifty percent of the time, I have to be prepared to drop everything at a moment’s notice and head to the clinic or out to a farm. First and foremost, there’s the mom guilt. Every mother has experienced this. Just a couple of weeks ago, it was 9 P.M., I was nursing my son, and just getting ready to lay him down in his crib, when my phone rang. “Crap!” I thought to myself. I forwarded the call to voicemail as usual. This is a skill I have acquired throughout the years of being a veterinarian to weed out the price quote and appointment scheduling calls. As a mother, there are also certain sacred moments where you don’t answer your phone, like during bath time or laying your baby down to bed. It can wait two or three minutes. Then my phone dings with a voicemail. “Double crap!” I thought to myself. I listened to my voicemail. A dog had been hit by a car and needed to be seen. I called the owners back and told them I’d be at the clinic in fifteen minutes. Then the wheels started turning. I have the convenience of my in-laws living just a quarter mile down the road, but I really don’t like asking them to babysit at 9 P.M. I then considered going to the clinic by myself, but HBC (hit by car) dogs often require bloodwork and radiographs, so I needed an extra pair of hands (my husband) to do that. With teary eyes, I changed my baby out of his warm fuzzy jammies and into lighter clothing (he gets hot easily) and started gathering things to haul everybody to the clinic. “I feel like a bad mother,” I said to my husband. “The baby needs a routine and I’m hauling him all over the place at all hours of the night.” My husband reassured me, “You’re a good mom. He’ll just sleep in his car seat anyway.” Or so we hoped. We arrived at the clinic and my husband took our son to the lounge until I needed him. After examining the dog, it was clear he had a broken leg and radiographs were necessary. I carried the lab back to our radiology room at the back of the clinic and told my husband as I walked by that I needed help restraining the dog for radiographs. I fired up our developer, started writing labels, measured the dog, and gathered the lead aprons. My husband brought the baby back in his carseat, and he placed him in the other room (just outside the wall from where we were) so as not to expose him to radiation. He woke up at this point but didn’t make a fuss. He sat there just taking it all in. Radiographs confirmed a fracture on the femur (thigh bone) and we scheduled surgery for the next day. After getting the dog settled down in a cage with pain medications, we headed home. I fed the baby one more time and laid him down in his crib for the night. He fell asleep just fine, but I laid awake in bed thinking about how I was going to fit a surgery into the busy schedule tomorrow, the different bills I needed to pay, finishing our taxes, the laundry I haven’t done, and oh yeah, I should work out more. When you’re a veterinarian with a lot of on call time, you always have a diaper bag prepared with all of the necessities, including hot water in a thermos to warm bottles. You jump into action the second you get a call and you know all the things you’ll need for you and the baby. You learn quickly like that time you forgot nursing pads or burp cloths, it was a disaster. Brawny paper towels aren’t as strong as you think and they certainly don’t look great stuffed in your bra. You can also strap in a car seat base securely in a matter of seconds. All of these skills come quickly out of necessity. Farm call emergencies with a baby are a whole different ballgame. Leaving the controlled environment of the clinic can add a host of challenges when leaving your baby at home isn’t an option. It’s currently calving and prolapse season, which means sometimes I need my husband’s help on these calls late at night. The baby has already slept through a few uterine prolapses and calf deliveries in the truck. For all the sanctimommies out there who may want to pass judgement, my truck is always left on so the heat or air conditioning can be run and a baby monitor is left in the truck so we know how he’s doing or if he starts to fuss. Most of the time, so far, he sleeps through the whole thing. The farmers usually get a kick out of seeing him as well. Sometimes the wives will even volunteer to take a peek at him in the truck when I’m shoulder-deep in a cow. Being a mother has also given me a different perspective as a veterinarian. I know exactly how that cow with the swollen udder feels. After enduring 10 hours of labor after being induced before my epidural, I'm happy to give those laboring momma cows pain medication to keep them comfortable. And I only reach for the calf jack when I absolutely need it. I don't think any female wants to be hooked up to a come-along. When you work in an unpredictable job like mine, you learn to be adaptable. At this point, we’ve come up with a system that works. Once my son gets more mobility, we’ll have to adapt our system and do things differently, but that’s life. Sometimes being called out is challenging and less than ideal when you’re a young mother, but you do what you have to do. On nights when you're called out multiple times, it's hard to feel 100% vet or 100% mom. Sure, sometimes I feel guilty that my hours aren’t set and my schedule is unpredictable. I feel a lot of guilt in general. But my son will hopefully someday understand that being available for my animal patients and their owners when they need me is important. He'll know the value of hard work, and he'll figure out how to open and close every type of gate at a ripe young age. I can at least pray he's better at throwing a lariat than I am. If I'm being honest, he'll most likely also learn every swear word imaginable, but at least he'll learn how to cuss properly. And who knows? Someday those little hands of his may come in handy!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Jessica Stroupe, DVM
Archives
August 2017
|