Working Moms part 2: Selling my soul

I HATE babies…can you tell?

It was my last year at BYU and I was taking a marriage and family class (sounds kind of funny now and so BYU!) from a well known faculty member, an “expert” on the subject who has even published a number of books. One of our assignments in the class was to write papers periodically throughout the semester on marriage and family topics (duh). I wrote a paper on the topic at hand…my pull to go into dentistry, a demanding career, and my fears about balancing this with marriage and children in the future.
One day in class shortly after I wrote the paper, my teacher stood in front of the class. He mentioned, “One of your classmates wrote in her paper how she wants to be a dentist. You know (as he laughed in a snarky way), if she never gets married, that’s great! Be a dentist! Get all the education you can. But only if no one wants to marry her. HA HA HA!” Although this wasn’t exactly what was said (except the part about “no one wanting to marry her”), his comments were very much to the effect that as long as “she” was an old maid this was an okay way to go. But only until this was proven.
I was very upset as I felt he was calling me out in front of the whole class. Yes, I knew I was basically anonymous but I felt betrayed and embarrassed that he would use my paper in a public way to humiliate me. I felt like he was implying I had to be unmarriageable or I was making a wrong choice-- the only possible way to follow my prompting to further my education was to be an old maid. And I was angry that he acted like the choice I was making was a big joke. At this point I felt very confident spiritually that I had been led to follow through with my dental school applications. I emailed him stating that I was upset he would use me as an example in that way in front of the class and that he seemed to be implying I was making an inappropriate choice which wasn’t his place. I told him that I was grateful I knew he didn’t receive spiritual inspiration for me but that I was worried other women would disregard their own personal revelations because of something they felt an “authority” said in the wrong.
He emailed me back and “apologized.” He said he wasn’t talking about me but another girl who wanted to be a dentist, “But now that we are talking about you” he had spoken to some of his colleagues and they agreed that “Why would God tell a 20 year old girl to go to dental school?” (Evidently the belief that God appeared to Joseph Smith, a 14 year old boy, is totally within the realm of possibilities but Him giving revelation to a young woman about her career was out of the question?) He said I should “continue on the dental path” another few years (I was already at the end!) and THEN if I wasn’t married to go for it (I guess at that point I would be unmarriageable? at age 21 or 22). He told me about how when he was a missionary in Iowa (ironic to me now, as at this point I had no idea I would end up in Iowa), Chiropractics was really en vogue and he thought he should be a chiropractor. But now that he is in his career that fulfills his patriarchal blessing (a blessing we get in our church with guidance about our lives) he knows that the idea to be a chiropractor was from Satan, and I should seriously consider where I was receiving my inspiration. Yeah, the prophets have said to “get all the education you can” but I was obviously being misguided. Oh, and I really should make a big decision like this with my husband. (So I can’t go to dental school if I am married, but I also need to find him so I could ask him if it was okay?) It would be unfair to him to not have input in such a big decision.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have a husband to ask.
So I was left with no choice but to ask Beelzebub himself!
And my teacher, being so inspired, was on to me.
Good thing he didn’t know that I had to make a pact with the evil one himself to get in. He may have got me kicked out of BYU a few weeks shy of graduation!

Next Time: My plan to end up on top!

Working girls...er, Moms: Part 1

I’ve been thinking a lot about my life as a woman, a surgeon, and a Mormon as you can tell from my recent postings. I happened upon a blog which was discussing a similar thread, women working outside of the home, and particularly, Mormon women working outside of the home.

As I mentioned before, a large number of LDS families continue to follow the model of dad going to work and mom staying home with the children. I think this is wonderful. I have friends who are both LDS and not LDS who do this. Some have given up lucrative or impressive careers to do so. Growing up I always planned to do this myself.

But as life often goes, things don’t always end up as expected. This has the potential to be a really long post so I’ll keep you in suspense and break it into multiple postings.

We’ll start with a picture of me from the time shortly after this first installment. I can’t seem to find any of my college pictures so I guess you get this one instead. I gave up on the idea of marine biology but decided to live in Honduras after graduation to become a SCUBA Dive Master. Can you pick me out on the boat? I’m wearing the red bandana.

Snails and Such

During my time at BYU, I was studying biology with an emphasis in marine biology. I spent a summer in Monterey, CA taking classes with a BYU professor at the Hopkins Marine Station (run by Stanford University). Our building was right on the water. We had baby octopi in our classroom, caught from the ocean by our SCUBA diving TAs. We watched starfish babies under the microscope daily as they showed the different stages of cellular growth. During lectures I would look out at the beautiful ocean with the sea lions teasing me in the bay and watch the Stanford scientists emerge from the water: the first hint of their presence a mass of bubbles at the surface, next a black hooded head with that eerie mask peering over the top of the water, until finally I’d see them walking out onto the shore in heavy black wetsuits looking very much like the sea lions that seemed to be following them, just out of arms’ reach.

I wanted to do that. I wanted to be the one in the deep sea submersible catching the images of never seen before specimens with no eyes or glowing bodies. I wanted to spend my days diving into the ocean collecting specimens before class. But I also spent a lot of time in the library researching the feeding habits of the gumboot chiton. And watching snails in our aquarium to see if there was any relation to the chiton. I came home from California depressed. I felt like I had a slim chance of getting to be one of the few in the deep see ROVs at Woods Hole, MA (a marine biology hub) and would probably end up in a lab and I had a sneaking suspicion that snails weren’t the key to my happiness. It just felt too lonely. And even though I knew I would be a stay at home mom, I felt like I needed to have a clear career path until then.

That’s when my sister and my dad encouraged me to look into dentistry. I laughed it off. I had never met a female dentist. The suggestion was akin to being told I should be a machinist or a urologist. These were things I knew a woman could do, but just not something I had ever thought to do. As I started looking into dentistry I actually became more interested. Shortly thereafter, I officially declared myself pre-dent. I was afraid of the whole process—the applications and certainly the school. I secretly hoped I would get married (I still had about 1.5 years left at BYU so I thought this was totally do-able) so I wouldn’t have to go through with it.

As I neared graduation, marriage wasn’t in the books. By then I was committed to the idea of dental school and feeling pretty good about it. I joined the pre-dental club and had the prestigious position of “Women in Dentistry Club President.” I had been interviewing and getting positive feedback at the schools I was visiting. I got a lot of interviews and I got a number of acceptances. And no proposals.

Being pre-dental at BYU as a woman was hard at times. I received a lot of unsupportive comments. Dates would ask how I could possibly be a dentist if I was going to have kids. A dentist I met asked if I was “just applying to see it I would get in.” Yes, I spent thousands of dollars on applications and had to move home so I could afford to live to satisfy my pride! There were hundreds of men who were applying to dental school but I only found a few other women (strangely enough, I later learned one was actually Abe’s cousin, Ashley Sheffield). Some of the men would make snarky comments to me about how they wouldn’t be studying if they were me because as a woman I would get in for sure regardless of my grades (they must have had no idea that about 50% of applicants at that time were women). They implied that I would be taking away a spot from men who deserved to get in because they would be caring for their families. I was being selfish for not only choosing a career over family but for taking away a spot from a man who was choosing this career for the right reasons.

Needless to say, I left BYU with a little chip on my shoulder. Certainly not everyone was this way. There were supportive people who weren’t threatened or confused by my choices, but I left feeling quite defensive.

The religion teacher incident sure didn’t help with that.

Next time: How I got into dental school: my pact with the devil

Blueberry Girl

I am terrified of the whole pregnancy process. I should have bore all of my children when I was young and naive because the older I get the more complications I have seen or learned about from friends and loved ones. Things like my twin sister’s carpal tunnel (which would be great to experience as an oral surgeon), or her HELLP syndrome which almost killed her (and is much more likely to occur to me as a close relative), or friends on months bedrest or with early deliveries and complications, etc.

But sometimes the thing that really freaks me out is the body changes. Vain I know! I probably shouldn’t admit that and I’m not sure why it makes me so worried but I get depressed just thinking about it. Maybe it is because it is easy to say, “I wont be THAT girl” with the 9 months of morning sickness or the pre-eclampsia.  But I can’t shake the feeling that I WILL be that girl this time.

Or maybe it is because I feel like I’m trying so hard to get my body to a place I am happy with now, that I am afraid to “mess it up.” I feel like there is now a new cultural phenomenon of “supermodel mom” where you are expected to be an uber-fashionable, thin, beautiful pregnant woman. Gone are the days of eating whatever you wanted for nine months, wearing sweats, and getting a free pass on your looks. Now, the norm seems to be adorable tiny women with their little basketball bellies, running marathons in their 8th month, and of course, documenting it with shots of them looking beautiful and cuddling that belly with all the emotion they can muster. And of course, looking like they stepped out of the salon in their hospital bed in the post delivery pictures and looking great in a bikini a month later. It doesn’t help that celebrities are back in the movies or walking the runways looking just as fit as ever within months (and sometimes weeks) of childbirth, sans stretch marks. I must not be the only one noticing this trend as I just found this article the other day about moms hating their bodies. 

I haven’t been pregnant yet so maybe it is silly to worry about this as I don’t really know what my pregnancy will be like. But deep down I do. I am terrified I will be one of the “Blueberries.”

I remember Abe and I were at church one day when a very pregnant mother came in wearing a very blue dress. She looked so round and blue that Abe and I couldn’t help but think of a single large blueberry (think Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). Since that time, “Blueberry” has been our catch phrase for the women who really are taking the pregnancy thing with all it has to offer – swollen feet, faces, and bellies (including the matching button)! You know who I’m talking about, the Brittany Spears and Jessica Simpsons of the world. And one day, me: Blueberry Girl.

I want to brush this idea off. If a woman is ever allowed to look fat or tired or simply not her best, than shouldn’t this be the time? Instead I feel an incredible sense of dread. I hope when I have that little baby bobbing around inside me I will feel the wonder of new life and the excitement of being a parent. Instead, I worry I wont be gorgeous like my friend Amber above (who was nice enough to let me showcase her amazing picture—thanks Amber!) and my mind wanders to the many otherwise in-shape and attractive women on my plastic surgery rotation seeking tummy tucks and boob jobs to augment their stretch marks and saggy skin—the toll of motherhood on their otherwise great bodies.

I try to remember my sister Amber’s perspective. Although she is my “younger” sister, she is very wise. I stole this picture and caption from her blog. She could have died during her pregnancy with her first child and you can see it in her face in this picture (she normally is much more beautiful). But I love the mentality that it is “evidence of the best sacrifice I ever made.” I hope I can remember that, even if I do become like a swollen fruit while pregnant or am left hoping for a tummy tuck after!

PSA: Dr. Sheffield’s 8 simple steps for avoiding a mandibular fracture

I usually post more trivial things on my blog, but every so often, I feel it my duty as a health care provider to provide some helpful information to the general public. I’ve been seeing a lot of mandibular fractures lately, so thought I could share some ways to avoid a broken jaw. This information is gathered from my experiences after almost four years of residency and seeing hundreds of broken faces.

1. Be a woman. Testosterone is hazardous to the integrity of your jaws.

2. Don’t drink, stay out past midnight, or go to bars. If you can avoid one, two, or even better, all three of these situations, your odds of fracture go down to almost 0%. Some say, “The Holy Ghost goes to bed at midnight.” Well, so does the Guardian Angel of Faces.

3. If you find you must drink alcohol, you got stuck out too late, or in a bar, make sure you are very involved in other people’s lives/business. People who are “minding their own business” tend to get “sucker punched” almost uniformly. But, don’t be too friendly and offer another man a drink. For some reason they don’t like free beer from a friendly guy and you may end up with a mal-occlusion (bad bite).

4. Brush your teeth. People who have no teeth, who need to have no teeth and haven’t got around to extractions yet, or will one day likely have no teeth seem to break their jaws more often than their toothed peers.

5. Beware of people in steel-toed boots. They are sure to stomp you. People in normal-toed boots don’t seem compelled to do this like their steel-toed counterparts.

6. Be especially vigilant around roving groups of men. A jaw fracture rarely occurs in a fair fight. If you find yourself outnumbered, make sure you aren’t minding your own business because you are sure to be jumped, sucker punched, and likely stomped (and yes, by steel-toed boots).

7. Never let your friends roll you in a carpet. And if you happen to be a college freshman and this simply cannot be avoided, don’t let them stand you up vertically. Keep lying down to avoid breaking your inevitable fall with your chin.

8. If you are a nice/kind/sweet person who has managed to avoid all of the dangers listed above, you might consider keeping your distance from horses. They like to kick or head-butt nice people, often girls, who normally wouldn’t break their jaws and it seems that jaws and teeth are their favorite targets.

It is possible to break your jaw in other ways, but if you can follow these few simple suggestions odds are your face will remain relatively intact!

I have a question

My student loans have yet again been transferred to another company/department/servicer. It is a little disconcerting that I owe SOMEONE hundreds of thousands of dollars and that SOMEONE can change at any time without any input from me.

But that’s just a side note for today’s post.

When I was trying to get settled in with this new servicer I had to set up my log in. The standard stuff like choosing a user name and password, one of those funky ID pictures of either a stapler or a colorful frog (things that are supposed to speak to you enough to remember, right?), and the security questions.

I have a hard time with the security questions. If they aren’t the right question I can never remember my answer – I can hardly remember my username and password, let alone my first favorite color. My mother’s maiden name luckily never changes but that’s not always an option. My favorite band often does (change), if I can even think of one in the first place. And even simple questions like, “What was your high school mascot?” can be tricky. Did I put “Tigers,” or “Orem Tigers,” or “Golden Tigers,” or “tigers,” or “Orem tigers” or even “orem Tigers,” etc.

I was doing pretty well in this log in process until I came to security question #2. I got 5 options:

1. What is your first niece’s name?

2. What is your paternal grandfather’s nickname?

3. Where is your vacation home?

4. What was your maternal grandmother’s favorite food? (okay, I can’t remember this one exactly but it seemed like a detail I wouldn’t likely know about my grandmother)

5. What was the name of your first pet?

I felt like these were horrible question options! Luckily I have a niece but I didn’t until just recently. And who does the Dept of Education think I am to have a vacation home? I’m not sure if my grandpa has a nickname unless they merely mean what I call him, which is simple “grandpa.” Another grandparent question which feels like it is rubbing in the fact that some people never knew their grandparents, and finally, what if I never had a pet growing up? I did, but I had so many I can’t remember which was the first!

I felt lucky I have a niece and was luckily able to move on.

Then there are those security picture/phrases you have to put in for buying things online or commenting on blogs, etc (pictured above). I know I have to prove I’m not a computer, but sometimes I really cannot figure out what the phrase is to type. And it’s usually ALMOST a word, something like “Bat1leshape” or “luv3rly,” and of course written all catty-wampus (love that word but have no idea how to spell it!) and scribbled on or blurry. I’ve had times where I’ve had to try four or five times before I can get it right. Sometimes I think it would help if I WAS a robot to decipher the code!

 

And maybe I could be a photographer for the security pictures. I think I have access to some good ones already. Who wouldn’t want to see a sand Taj Mahal, pancakes, or pretty chilis when they log in to pay a lot of money for little progress to no progress on loan repayment? Or you could choose a more romantic one like a costco anniversary cake or feel accomplished by seeing made ahead freezer meals…I think they are at least better than the stapler. Then again, staplers do hold things together, which has some metaphorical value I suppose.

Women in Oral Surgery

In college I was the “Women in Dentistry” club president. This consisted of me getting excited if I ever found another woman interested in dentistry while at BYU and having  a few meetings with anywhere from about 2-6 girls. I think we even went out to lunch once. It probably cost all of $20.

I was inspired by the Women in Otolaryngology Club that some of my ENT colleagues participate in. From what I have gathered, this consists of having meetings with cake and talking about important issues for women surgeons like salary discrepancies and giving each other free botox injections. Great, right?

So, I’ve decided to start my own version, the (Iowa) Wom(a)n in OMFS Club. And as I recently found out I will remain the lone woman in my residency program after this year’s MATCH DAY for the fifth year in a row, we will have meetings every day! In fact these meetings will last all day for the next year and a half. I may not be able to provide perks like free botox but some of the frequent activities can be fun womanly things like getting ready for work in the morning, thinking about my place in the world as a woman surgeon (less than 3% of women who participate in the OMFS society are women), and even occasional nail polish parties (we can do cosmetic procedures, too)! Of course, there will be some hazing events like nights on call, cleaning the bathroom, and shaving my legs.

On a serious note, I have been lucky to have a female mentor. I am sure that Dr. Morgan has had some effect on me even choosing oral surgery. She has been a great example of being a great surgeon as well as a wonderful mother who seems to do a good job balancing both worlds. I am sad to say that after she expands her family further this next year she will be going very part time and I will essentially truly be the only woman in our department at the hospital (except when she is taking call).

Better get going, there will be nightly meetings and the next one starts in 5 minutes (under my covers)!

Who wears the pants

I wore pants to church yesterday.

(I like pants. I own lots of pants. I wear them a lot. Actually, I wear them almost every day and often at night. Funny how it can suddenly be hard to find pictures of pants when you are looking for them. I evidently I also like crouching down in this position while wearing pants!)

 

Normally I wear a skirt or a dress to church, but I finished a case in the OR earlier than expected. I changed out of my scrubs and into my dingiest jeans (which I just happened to be wearing on my way to the hospital that day). I figured I could catch the tail end of church but it meant I would have to wear my jeans if I was going to make it. I didn’t worry about what people would think. I didn’t feel like I was making a statement. I put on the best of what I had hoping to receive a little spiritual pick-me-up. I felt a little bad about what I was wearing, but only because of how dirty my pant legs looked after trudging around in the melting snow outside. Not because the fact they were pants…

 

This reminded me of a post I started a few weeks ago but never finished. Maybe it is time to post it…

 

There was recently a bit of a stir in the Latter-day Saint community. Strangely enough, it had to do with something that most people do without a second thought: wear pants to church.

Okay, that needs some clarification, WOMEN wearing pants to church.

(To clarify, these are my own opinions. I don’t mean to sound judgemental or self righteous or like I have all of the answers. I don’t feel threatened if you disagree with me and I actually probably understand your point of view, maybe agree with you at least partly. But here are my thoughts on the subject weeks later, hopefully after some of the emotion died down.)

Unfortunately, there are evidently a number of women in my church who feel they aren’t “allowed” to wear pants to church. Sure, there are no rules that state you can’t wear pants to church (in fact, I don’t think there are any official rules about what clothes are worn to church, as long as they are worn), but the culture has overwhelmingly been one of women wearing dresses or skirts. I don’t find this strange or alarming as women in the US often wear dresses to events where they are supposed to look nice (prom, weddings, funerals, …the oscars). I may not choose to wear pants to church regularly but I certainly wouldn’t feel bad if I did.

Evidently there is a feminist undercurrent that feels the women in our church are discriminated against or treated unfairly. I know this is a common perception of others on the outside looking in. I think this has a lot to do with the large number of stay-at-home moms and a more traditional family view in our church which may seem “old fashioned” and for some perhaps even “oppressive.” I have heard a lot of comments from others wondering if women are forced to stay home or why more women don’t work. This certainly appears strange to some but it is usually (or at least hopefully) something the couple has decided together. It also has to do with the fact that the Priesthood (what we believe is the power of God on earth to perform His work) is only given to men in our church. However, while I have had my fair share of wondering my place with God as a woman (especially after reading the Old Testament), I feel very strongly that I am in equal standing with the men in my church. There are surely examples of bigotry and prejudice in any congregation but in my experience I have found and hope these to be fairly isolated.

It seems so few men these days want to grow up. There are articles all over the internet and the news about the Peter Pan complex complex of boys who want to remain forever in Never Never Land. Men who play “Call of Duty” all day and live in their parents’ basement. Men who aren’t willing to take on the responsibility of work and a family. With this in mind, I don’t feel threatened by a church that asks men to GROW UP. To be a man and to look outside of himself and to help others. I am proud that my husband has extra opportunities to be nurturing and to serve others which is what the Priesthood requires and I don’t think I need to take that role away from him to feel better about myself.

In an age where women “can have it all” and do/be whatever she wants without a man (including in some instances make a baby with test tube sperm and no real man in her life—something that in the past always “took two”), I am happy to hit snooze on Sunday morning while my  husband is up early performing his “Priesthood duties.”

No one wants to feel unimportant and unneeded and I think letting the men have one job that we don’t get to take away maybe isn’t such a bad thing after all.

And maybe when I get up, I’ll put on a pair of pants.