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I'm just going to pretend that there isn't a huge gaping hole of time in my blog and just jump right in. A summary, a catch up, and hopefully more consistent writing!
The past two years have progressed sort of like this:
"Ermagerd, I'm living in England, I'm gonna blog about it!"
"blog blog blog blog blog"
(Two months later)
Blog dies. Suddenly.
1 1/2 years go by.
Enter crickets, stage left (Ahem)
Since the demise of my very pleasant yet short lived blog, I have moved from England to Pennsylvania, where the plan was to start my nursing program (an accelerated bachelor's degree in nursing, which lasts 12 months) and then from Pennsylvania to Denver. The peripatetic life keeps on being so.
1 1/2 years ago I was in Pennsylvania after England, ready to start school again.
Enter Vera. Vera's my daughter. Well, I didn't know what her name was at this point, nor did I even know she was a she. I just knew that I was pregnant (always a good thing, I mean, how else would you know to avoid alcohol and hazardous waste for 9 months. NOT TO MENTION KITTY LITTER). So yes, I was pregnant. And I was completing all of my necessary chores before nursing school started- things like fingerprinting, a background check, and purchasing special. embroidered. scrubs. When I got a call from the program director while standing in the mall in Wilkes-Barre PA the THURSDAY before classes start, I had no idea what was coming. (That's right, classes started in a few short days, on Monday). Did I mention I had to buy scrubs that were specially embroidered? And why oh why was I the kind of overachieving lunatic who buys textbooks from the syllabus BEFORE the first day of class? I had already received my bright orange boxes from Chegg. No one buys textbooks before the first day of class! Some people barely show up with notebooks! And I had both things. All the things. Except, apparently, immunity.
Your thoughts:
(Immunity? What the heck. I know Mary rambles sometimes, but she's completely lost me at this point. Is her life an episode of the should-be-cancelled-by-now-but-isn't-TV show 'Survivor'? Seriously, the irony with a name like that. That show should be gone. I can't believe I saw an ad for it the other day.)
Yep, I needed -but didn't have- immunity. And no, this is not the kind of immunity that saves you from getting kicked off the island in Survivor, or the immunity that prevents you from having Heidi Klum say auf weidersehen to your tear streaked face in the next round, but rather, it was the immunity from disease. A virus, in fact. This pesky little virus that just so happened to have made a major comeback (in a bad way, like I'm looking at you, crop tops at Target, kind of way) the same year. The virus? Measles. The vaccine? MMR.
Let me give you a little backstory. While I was banished from England (oh no, this might itself require a back story- in a nutshell, England only let me stay for 6 total months even though my husband's grad program was 9 total months. [*!%#?] it, I know. But rather than being found out and deported, I left to stay with my family like a nice little American for 2 months and then we traveled out of England for 1 month. 1+2=3 yeah? I WISH it had been that simple to the migration authorities at Heathrow, who had me in tears when we first arrived. My later entrances into England went smoother, although I still felt like I had to be armed with an Arsenal of facts and logic and tons of printed off pieces of paper documenting my whereabouts before they'd finally stop giving me a hard time and writing secret codes in my passport. Seriously.)
So as I was saying, during my two month banishment from England, I had a lot of fun visiting my family; Virginia got a lot of beautiful snow, the Winter Olympics were afoot, and my beloved old job at Hyperion Espresso was available again so they took me right back and I got to make some cash. It ended up being for the best! While I was in America, I thought it would be the perfect time to get some of my ducks in a row regarding nursing school. In an attempt to organize said ducks, I stopped at Walgreens to get an MMR vaccine because I knew that was one of the required vaccines for nursing school. Unfortunately, (either due to my lack of research or because of my insurance policy I don't know) I had to pay $100 out of pocket for this vaccine. <money eyes emoji> $$$$
I'm glad I got it though, because I ended up having a great experience shadowing some medical personnel at Mary Washington Hospital and having the MMR booster was necessary for that anyway. A necessary evil, I suppose.
August 2014
Fast forward 5 months. It's August. We are in Pennsylvania, I'm pregnant, my amazing brother just married his amazing fiancée, we had a family beach vacation in North Carolina which was relaxing and fun, and here I am standing in a mall in Wilkes-Barre PA with my phone ringing, and it's my nursing program advisor.
I don't remember the conversation exactly. They got my blood tests back and I'm not fully immune to measles, part of the MMR vaccine.
"That's impossible" I think I said. I had just gotten that shot in February!
"Sometimes they just don't work" Said my advisor.
I didn't know quite what this meant, program-wise, until she elaborated. Measles is a very dangerous virus to contract while pregnant or if you might become pregnant. Since I fell into the former group, my advisor explained that I would be in hospitals doing clinical work almost immediately, and they wouldn't be able to guarantee that I wouldn't be exposed to measles somehow (what if the patient didn't know themselves that they had it yet?); furthermore, the risk to the baby was birth defects and, in serious cases, death. My advisor said my participation in this program, given my pregnancy and immunity status, may not be approved by the dean, but she would go to bat for me and push to have me included if I decided I wanted to risk it.
Risk it. Yeah, I risk it for some things, but not my baby.
I broke down in tears (always with the tears!) at this point in our conversation but tried to hide it, so was gasping and choking but trying to not let her know. To say I was devastated at this point would be fair. My advisor asked if I'd like time to think it over and discuss with Max, and I said 'yes' because it was one syllable (hello, easy to say while masking sobs) but my mind was already made up.
I called her back the next day, Friday (again class starts Monday!), and explained that there was no way I could in good conscience risk my baby's well being for the sake of the nursing program.
I will never forget her response:
"Well Mary, I know you won't regret this, and I can tell you are already a wonderful mother"
Spoiler alert- I have never regretted it; that one big sacrifice was one of many required of me since becoming a mother, and the ability to sacrifice with a happy heart for the sake of someone else has been a huge huge learning experience and ongoing puzzle for me, since that day when it all became REAL. After she and I hung up, I realized I had to put away "all the things" (except immunity, that I just had to be mad about for a few days). The textbooks, syllabus, stethoscope, all put away. I sold what I could, figuring that if I did re-enroll in the following August (the advisor said they would save a spot for me) the textbooks may be outdated anyway because that's how it goes. I had worked so hard to get good grades, discern, and apply to nursing schools. And yet, not once have I regretted making that decision.
That's kind of what I'd like the focus of this blog to be about. Selflessness in a selfish world. Sacrifices (and why make them?). Motherhood (see ya, gentlemen). But most of all, my peripatetic life. Because I'm not showing any signs of settling down yet!
