15 hours!

Its 9 o'clock at night and I am on my last call at the NICU. When I leave tomorrow afternoon, I will be officially finished with my intern year. I think I cried myself to sleep every night for a week before I started last year. I was convinced that Camdyn would be traumatized by my working too much. I thought that we would lose our special bond, that she would have developmental delay because she was in day care every day. For the first 10 months, every night that I was on call, between the hours of midnight to six A.M. I would go through the same thoughts, "This is crazy, Why am I doing this? I should be at home where my wonderful husband and beautiful, healthy baby are sleeping. I would be happy staying at home and not working. I should quit. Camdyn would be better off. Wait, I have an enormous amount of student loans. How will I pay them off if I don't practice medicine? I guess I can't quit tonight." Thank God for student loans! Every time the sun came up and I was rounding on my patients, I loved my job again and I would not quit for all the money in the world.
So, now, at the end of this, presumably my worst of the three years, I can look at Camdyn and see how blessed we are. She is happy, healthy, and definately not developmentally delayed. Tonight, she had a very nice conversation with me on the phone. It ended with her saying "I love you" and giving me a kiss through the phone. Now, instead of asking her, "Are you going shopping?" when she's carrying her purses around the house, I ask,"Are you going to work?" I know that she knows she is loved. I want her to grow up knowing that she has choices. She should feel free to chose the profession that calls her hearts. I will remind her of how painful these endless call nights have been for me. I want her to realize that women can't have it all. There will always be sacrifices to make on each side. But hopefully, when she is older and has to face her first day at work after having a baby, she will not be as insecure as I was. She will probably cry as much as I did. But maybe she will hear her grandmother's voice, and my voice saying, "You are strong. You can do this. I am proud of you. She will be alright." Thanks, mom.