The life of a doctor's wife

I can’t deny that there are perks to being a doctor’s wife; when Creed’s spit –up is neon yellow I can page Larry and ask him what could be wrong and if I need to take him to the pediatrician, when I wake up at 2 a.m. with intense stomach pain he can tell me if I need to go to the emergency room and when we get there and they know Larry’s a doctor they are super nice and helpful, and we’ll never have to buy another pen because we have pens from drug reps everywhere that you look.

That said, I fell in love with Larry, but I have never been in love with the idea of being a doctor’s wife. Isn’t the point of getting married that you want to spend the rest of your life with someone so it’s ironic that I spend way more time by myself since I’ve been married than I ever did before. I’ve always done my best to have a life of my own so that when Larry’s around I can enjoy him, but when he’s busy I have plenty of things to keep me busy too. Looking back, I probably overdid it at times. Larry’s third year of medical school I worked full-time, went to graduate school at night and had a second job on the weekends as a wedding photographer’s assistant.

I love staying at home with Creed, but it’s difficult with Larry’s hours. I hate rotations like the one he’s on this month. When Creed’s fussy there’s no one to give me a break. When I have freelance work due I end up typing with one hand while I hold Creed in my lap. Larry is the best dad in the world so it’s so sad to see how much Creed already prefers me to Larry simply because he doesn’t see Larry that much. And some nights like last night I get so lonely I break down and cry.

The rock quarry by our development throws a big party every year for surrounding neighborhoods as a thank you for dealing with them all year. They provide dinner and dessert, huge inflatable toys and slide for the kids, they have all sorts of tractors and dump trucks that kids can climb on and play in, balloon artists, face painters, bus tours of the quarry, and a huge fireworks show at the end of the night. Sounds fun, right? I’ve loved going with Larry in the past, but it’s just kind of depressing by myself. Larry was working a late shift and my neighbor Jessica’s parents were in town so I ended up deciding to brave it on my own with Creed. He was great, but there’s something about sitting at a table in public and eating dinner by myself that I just made me sad. I just ended up feeling so lonely so after wandering around without seeing any neighbors I headed home early. I got home hope that there would be phone messages from my family returning my calls, but there wasn't and I seriously started to cry. Then I packed Creed back into the car and headed to JoAnn's. I didn't actually need to buy anything, but I just needed to not be sitting at home alone, and I couldn't have been more thrilled to hear one of the workers say hello as I entered the door, and she was PAID to say hello to me. Yeah, see this is why I've been working on craft projects; I keep myself busy at home and I have lots of excuses to run to JoAnn's and I can wander the aisles until they close and have long conversations with cute old ladies about what kind of needles I should buy for my sewing machine.

Now I’m trying really hard to be supportive of Larry’s fellowship. I mean come on, two more years before we can settle down with pay that probably works out to be less than minimum wage when you break down all of the hours that Larry works so that Larry can have even fewer jobs options and might even make less money than if he didn’t do a fellowship, and someone else has the final say about where we will move? Alright, sign us up!