the underwear drawer

contrasts

My OB's office is really nice. Every time I go there, I can't help but to compare it to my own clinic. I know it's not fair to compare a private attending's office to a resident clinic, but I compare anyway, because I'm dumb. Behold:

HER OFFICE: Madison Avenue, right next to the Calvin Klein flagship store.

MY CLINIC: Broadway and Dyckman (which old-timey New Yorkers should know is pronounced "Dyke-man," not "Dick-man"), next to the Broad-Dyke Butcher Shop. I know it's terribly clever, given the location, how they came up with the name of the butcher shop, but heh, it's called "Broad-Dyke."

HER OFFICE: Thick carpeting, padded seats, floor to ceiling modernist oil paintings, recessed full-spectrum lighting.

MY CLINIC: Linoleum, metal office chairs, buzzing florescent horror bulbs, TV bolted to the ceiling incessantly playing "Rollie Pollie Ollie," or whatever that freakish show is where computer generated spheres yammer at each other.

HER OFFICE: Magazine selection includes Vogue, Harper's Bazzar, New York Magazine (though not the superior New Yorker, with which it is often confused), and American Baby, the parenting magazine that offers such helpful pregnancy tips as, "Tired? Why not put your feet up in your plush recliner and snuggle up in your $1,000 cashmere throw?"

MY CLINIC: One ripped up copy of Parents magazine in Spanish.

Then again...

MY CLINIC: One and a half hour wait in the waiting room for your "scheduled" appointment.

HER OFFICE: One and a half hour wait in the waiting room for your "scheduled" appointment.

Aww, two worlds coming together. Isn't that nice.

I think that my OB must think I'm the biggest slob ever, though, because every time I see her, I'm post-call. It's the only time I can ever make it to an appointment in the daylight, so there's really not much other option. But seriously, every time I see her, I'm in wrinkled scrubs, my hair all messy, my glasses all grimy, and my body 36 hours from it's last shower. Luckily, at this point my appointments mainly consist of getting my blood-pressure taken and peeing into a cup, but dude, you have to stand close to me to take my blood pressure. I'm a smelly post-call girl. I hope they know I'm a resident, and it's not just that I've, you know, fallen on hard times.

Yesterday's appointment was probably the quickest ever, but mainly because I only needed blood drawn for my quad screen. They said they'll call me on Monday with the results. I'm not overly nervous about it, because I'm only 26, so statistically the chances of something funky happening with Cletus are lower--but I think you always imagine the worst when you work in a hospital. The proportion of messed-up babies to non-messed up babies is significantly higher in my world-view. After you've worked in the NICU, and you know just how much can go wrong at any point in the process, you marvel that any healthy babies are born at all. But I guess that makes me kind of a downer. During dinner with Ray and Susan this weekend, they asked us if we had a preference for Cletus being a boy or a girl. We don't, and I put it this way, "Hey, as long as Cletus isn't born with holoprosencephaly or a hypoplastic left heart, we'll be happy! Heh heh, yesiree! Are you with me?" Then I rapidly changed the subject because they started to get this Look on their face like they thought I was the evil jinx master for even bringing up such topics.

Currently reading: Re-reading "Maus." Have you read this book yet? You should.