This layout is extra special to me. It is special because "skin-to-skin" was something they really pushed for post-birth at Loma Linda. For those that don't know, it's basically having baby skin-to-skin with you. It's also called Kangaroo Mother Care, and both are for the promotion of bonding with a newborn. Basically the mother or father tucks baby under my blanket and baby and parent just snuggling. I know the picture isn't me doing skin-to-skin, but watching the husband doing skin-to-skin was so heartwarming to me.Anyway, Miss Zoey and her bottle feeding. Well, let's just say, she does a 4 hour strike of feeding. She won't bottle feed for a whole meal. She basically starves herself until I come home and then she's attached to me like a leech. She will do that the whole day and into the evening. I don't know if I'll be able to withhold solids from her when 6 months comes around. I really wanted to exclusively breastfeed until 12 months, and not give her anything until her first birthday, but I don't know....
I love that she loves me... I just wish there was a way I could balance my work and family life. I am still very blessed to be picking up James from his 1/2 day of Kindergarten, and coming home before noon....
Anyway, my sleep issue. My Dear Zoey doesn't sleep through the night anymore. She in fact, wakes up every 1-2 hours after midnight. It's exhausting. She was sleeping through the night before I went back to work, and as soon as I started up, she quit. I think it's her way of saying Mom don't go to work...
Well, lately the husband and I have been on this topic of adoption. It's something we really want to do later, when our kids are all grown up. I know we are fully capable of procreating, but we would really like to help a child that would otherwise be without a family. I don't know if we'd do it locally or we'd go overseas, but it's definitely something we want to do. Man, at this rate, we'll be like his cousin, who is a Family Medicine doctor in Kona, he has 6 kids. I think the biggest age gap is like 2 years at max. But he's totally able to support them and his wife is a SAHM and he runs his own private, non-insurance clinic. I hope someday the husband can achieve that, but we shall see.
Ahh, yes, another topic in the Matsukawa Household is the topic of whether or not he should apply for Chief Resident of Riverside County Regional Hospital in 2009 for the 2010-2011 year. With him being a Chief Resident, he'd be employed by Riverside county and not Loma Linda University and would receive county benefits and the pay is excellent. He'd be making a salary equal to an Attending and on top of his salary he'd be getting paid for every procedure performed on his patients, whether of not he is the one physically doing it, so if his resident does it, he still gets paid for it. It's almost too hard to pass up.
On top of all of this he also wants to do a Geriatric Fellowship through JABSOM, but that in itself is still in the air, because as an Internal Med M.D. you deal with Geri patients, and the only difference with the fellowship is that you are more specialized in palliative care and placement/social issues. If he is going to do a fellowship, he needs to apply now, so that he does his interviewing by the end of this year and would find out whether or not he got the fellowship next year. Seriously, at the end of the day, I think the husband just wants to be a lifelong student.
When we talk about all of this, it's amazing how if we do one thing, over doing another, it makes a drastic change in where we go. It's either staying her for another 2 years, 11 months, or going home in 1 year, 11 months. It also means, that if we plan to go home, we need to start figuring out our finances for the house. We are intending on doubling or doubling and a half my parents house. We were thinking about buying a house, but after talking to my parents the best thing would be to take over my parents house and drastically increasing it's size; with that, we would need to start looking for an architect and construction company prior to moving home soon.
I am getting excited the end of residency is near. I feel like I've been on the road for this whole time, never knowing where we would be next. It's nice to know that finally the husband's education and hard work is finally paying off.... Also, I am finally happy that he is the breadwinner and it's not all on me.
