What do you really want!

What do you tell yourself everyday, every night, every minute. What do you dream of when you sleep at night and when you are wide awake. What is it that burns a fire inside of you? What makes you wake up every morning and sleep well at night. Have you every asked yourself, what do you really want for yourself?

On this crisp spring morning, what are you truly wanting!

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Perspective…

New York city, a place you get to call home with the sky scrappers and Wall Street, the theater scene along with the food scene. The best universities and hospitals to boast of. It seems like a great place to be. And yet, this is the city where the maternal mortality rates are higher than any other developed country in the world, vaccination rates are low, disparities in income exist out of proportion and at the end of every street corner one finds the evidence of extreme poverty. Which reality should we chose to look at today?

Three continents, 3 medical licences, 2 residencies, one fellowship, three graduate level degrees. What do you say, is that enough? And is it? The heart desires so much more. Some times the heart does not know where to stop. When does enough truly become enough?

One natural pregnancy, 5 failed intrauterine insemination,  one intrauterine insemination that led to a pregnancy, two second trimester miscarriages, 4 failed in-vitro fertilization attempts. Do you see the writing on the wall or do you see your eventual goal just one step closer?

Children are dying due to preventable shootings. Is it worth the struggles we have been through to have a baby in this country, if I will constantly live in the fear that their school is no longer the safest place they could be in?

I like my home. I know it is not perfect and there is so much to do. There are problems which I will own.  Only when I do that can I make a difference. Where do I stop? Who truly needs to change is it? Is it them or is it me?

Every time my body says enough is enough, my heart whispers, just one more time. Every time my friends and family tell me to give up, my resolves strengthens. It may turn out to be an unfulfilled wish, but at least I know I would have given it my best!

I worry about having children in this country, in this dying world for that matter.  But when you see children  doing what adults should have done, I see hope. I see hope for a brighter future. I see hope for a future with my children.

How do you chose to look at life? What is your perspective?

 

I am going to give this one last good fight!

Thank you to all of you who have wept with me and for me. Those of you who emailed, messaged, and sent lovely notes full of love and prayer and warmth and concern. Even those of you that stayed silent, know that I understand. Some things are just hard to make any conversation about. I have been in that spot. I just didn’t know what to say, so I said a silent prayer, hoping things would get better for the person struggling.

The good thing with struggle is that I find them very character building. I had to truly work on myself and not go down the rabbit hole of asking myself or god, why me? I taught myself to say, so that happened, as does life to everyone, where to next?

I have taken my time. I have changed homes, I have traveled to 11 countries in the interim, I have worked on my relationship with my mother, I have embraced yoga, healthy eating and regular walks. I haven’t yet reached the stage of meditation or veganism, but I feel I am pretty close to being awesome ( my own measure). I definitely feel ready to give the possibility of a family with a child in it a good fight.

Join me, as I tell you more about this journey, struggle and what hormones can do to a relatively normal person!

How you doin?*

First day of the 8th month of 2016! Below is where I am with my plans.  Everything in bold is already done and dusted. Those in italics are a work in progress. Life has changed, plans have changed accordingly.

More important than the list that is only pertinent to my life is that life happens and just keeps happening. Plans are just plans. Something work out and other things stop being a priority. I like plans. They keep me on point. They remind me of all the things I have always wanted to do or considered important enough for me at some point to be done.

But that’s not how life turns out. I think it has been the most humbling experience of my life. Nothing has really worked out the way I have planned it. There came a time when I even stopped planning and there in lays the problem. I’ve learned that no plan is a sure path to failure. So that changed thanks to this list.

• Drink more water, 10K steps daily at a minimum
• Read the newspaper daily, not monthly
• Complete Master’s thesis – converted to PhD in Clinical Service
• Complete all pending research papers
• Write at least one paper every 3 months- working on several projects
• Network on a daily basis
• Get a better job- daily work in progress
• Log in a daily thought- daily work in progress
• Learn to bake bread, try new recipes, try new cuisines
• Meal prep weekly, weigh my food, log food, water and exercise diligently
• Weight training, swimming, yoga to be incorporated in weekly routines
• Read articles, books that don’t include school work, research articles, and news.
• Blog/Instagram/ Write reviews regularly. Make a schedule and stick with it.
• Sort out pending paper work from last year
• Continue and increase recycling- remember almost everything can be recycled
• Continue and do better with minimalistic living
• Let go of people, places, ideas and thoughts that don’t want to stay
• Remember that money saved is money earned
• Invest in property
• Travel to a destination outside of the US- Europe 🙂
• Learn Spanish-this is the year

*Joey from F.R.I.E.N.D.S way of saying hello..:)

 

Thought-pourri

A Monday is a good time to put some thoughts I think. I have noticed that the busier I am the more regular I am with writing on my blog. To be fair to me, I have had exams, change in course, probably working on a change in career, looking for mentors, traveling, looking for a place to buy, and staying healthy for what lies ahead of us. To say I didn’t have my plate full would be lying.

My husband and I finally went to Europe. After being together for 8 years, we finally went on the much promised/discussed visit to Paris. Will  probably write more about that in another post. Friends and family were quick to label our trip many things because now every thing has a name to it. For us, it was just a trip that took long to get on to. My husband and I relived our times in Europe, felt very young and carefree again and loved every minute of being there without having to explain any of our guilty pleasures.

I feel very tired of people around me. I feel scrutinized, judged, commented upon, advised to constantly. I miss the relationships that would just take me for who I am. I miss easy breezy relationships. I no longer feel that people would be happy for my success, or share my happiness just for it. I always seem to get questions, doubts, dark clouds. I am reaching a point where I don’t feel like sharing anything with anyone.

When there are dark clouds all over you, it is hard to stay happy and content and stress free. It is difficult to believe this is a good place to bring in a child. It is difficult to create a small bubble that feels safe and warm and yours. And despite all of it, people will tell you to. My question to them is how?

If you read all this and care to share a kind or encouraging word, or just a hi-five you are most welcome to. And don’t worry. Now that this is out of my system, I am sure life will look up.

Happy Monday, y’all. Here is to upwards and onwards!

 

5 months down, 7 more to go.

What is this year going to mean for me, I often ask myself. Do you? I often hold a mirror to see what I have become. Life happens to all of us, but what do we do about it? How do we let is shape us?  I don’t always like what I see in the mirror, but I tell myself things will get better. To keep myself accountable, I made a list of things I wanted to achieve by the end of this year.

The ones in bold are what I haven’t yet worked on but I need/want to rectify that. So here I am, making myself accountable on my blog.

• Wake up early(6am-ish), exercise, shower, light an aggarbatti at the home
• Drink more water, 10K steps daily at a minimum
• Read the newspaper daily, not monthly
• Complete Master’s thesis
• Complete all pending research papers
• Write at least one paper every 3 months
• Network on a daily basis
• Get a better job
• Log in a daily thought
• Learn to bake bread, try new recipes, try new cuisines- Tried a few Thai Dishes
• Meal prep weekly, weigh my food, log food, water and exercise diligently
• Weight training, swimming, yoga to be incorporated in weekly routines
• Read articles, books that don’t include school work, research articles, and news.
• Blog/Instagram/ Write reviews regularly. Make a schedule and stick with it.
• Limit online/social activity: Do it daily but restrict the number of hours on it
• Sort out pending paper work from last year
• Continue and increase recycling- remember almost everything can be recycled
• Continue and do better with minimalistic living
• Let go of people, places, ideas and thoughts that don’t want to stay
• Remember that money saved is money earned
• Invest in property: May not happen this year
• Travel to a destination outside of the US
• Learn Spanish-this is the year
• Go skating this year-maybe – I went rock climibing instead.
• Learn to dance -maybe

I know what some of you may say. Well I’ve got almost 50% of my list and we are not even done with half the year. Sometimes though to get what you want to do, you have to work on things every day of your life until you can finally bear fruits.. sometimes those very things mean much more than others.

Friday Fives!

If I asked my 23 year old self, I would have said that I have a lot of time, medical science has advanced so much that the biological clock was a matter of old folks tales. There are plenty of stories of women in their 40’s getting pregnant. That holds true now more than then. What no one tells you is the costs of getting pregnant so late in life. I am not even alluding to money. After all, who puts a price tag on a child. The costs are more in terms of time, emotions and physical struggle. By the time a woman is in her 30’s the responsibilities, stress, commitments she has is way more than one anticipates in their 20’s. So here I am into my late 30’s wondering if I would fail in the one superpower I was born with?

The presidential electoral candidates in the United States has me worried. The country being largely divided into two groups it is difficult to agree with all the principles of one party over the other. Each party brings in good ideas with some very bad ones. Of course people vote for the party and not an individual, but don’t individuals matter? Right now all I see is a bunch of clowns. Or has Obama really set the bar that high?

Being the doctor, I am a go to person for a lot of people. I consider it a privilege that people would trust me with their most intimate fears. Come to me for a second opinion, an idea they want to run by, just to voice their concerns, or just use my being a doctor as an excuse to speak with me. When I have my doctor hat on, I am always happy to be of service. So when I get push back on the healthy living articles I forward to family and friends, or when people tell me to “chill” when I remind them that they should get their yearly medical check-ups, I am left wondering at the irony at the situation.

Please don’t kill my blog. I appreciate the fact that there are people who read my blog. Some of you that do,  reached out to me via emails/texts/instagram asking me if I was okay based on my last post. However well meaning you were, I really would have preferred comments here which is why I didn’t encourage conversations on other mediums. I write a post, to generate conversation here. If I wanted to reach out to you in person, I would have. Imagine how many more people we could have reached if we talked about things here. Blogging begets comments on blog. A blogger can hope.

On the most positive note, I was invited to join the swimming master’s class this week. I have been wanting to get to that level for a while now, but don’t think I am ready. My old swim coach mentioned that he will work at my level and get me to speed. I cannot wait. Needless to say I am excited like a school girl and giddy with happiness at the prospect of working with my old coach after 18 months.

What is making you excited and happy or sad and confused? Have a great weekend you all.