Ah yes, I am an ass

So I guess Mariam and Farrah stepping down from the blog means its time for other people to step up (I looking at you Abby). Luckily for the blog world, I embarrass myself in front of large groups of people on a very regular basis. Unluckily, I am a terrible writer and storyteller, so bear with me.

For some time now, my husband Adam and I have been talking about having a baby, weighing the financial burden (that’s right, babies are burdens, anyone who disagrees should watch the show Jon and Kate Plus 8) and the actual logistics of having something you can’t leave in a cage when you want to leave the house. Finally, we decided now would be a good time to try: Adam is making enough money and I am able to delay the horrors of the third year of medical school for a year while I participate in a pathology fellowship. I decided that if I became pregnant, I wouldn’t tell anyone other than Adam for the first trimester since the risk of miscarriage is very high. I did however decide to share with my friends that I was trying to have a baby, mostly because if I tried to keep it secret my head would explode. However I tried not to tell too many people, as I am pretty sure most people really don’t care about my reproductive status. And yet, somehow, at a school function I managed to tell 20 strangers (and Sapna) that I might be pregnant.

I signed up to be a peer mentor group facilitator at school and had to attend an orientation dinner where, in the grand tradition of leadership training, we played an icebreaker game. I had been popping in and out of the dinner all night because my lunch and I were not agreeing with each other about my having left home so when I walked back into the dinner for the third time everyone had formed into groups. I hastily returned to my seat and joined whatever group was located there. Upon sitting down, I was handed an index card and told to write something unique about myself, but to not put my name on the card. I figured at this point we would turn the cards in and they would be read aloud amazing everyone that someone so unique was in the crowd. So I turned to Liberty who was sitting next to me and said, “Wouldn’t it be funny if I wrote that I might be pregnant? I mean, how ridiculous would that be?” She uncomfortably agreed it would be pretty funny (I should have taken the hint).

This is where the night took a turn for me. The rest of the game was then explained: we were to pass in our cards and they would be redistributed to be read aloud. Then the reader would guess who had written the card, and afterwards the person who actually did write the card would identify themselves as the writer. At this point my stomach dropped and I turned to Liberty in a panic, “Oh my god, what should I do!? I don’t want all these people knowing I might be pregnant!” Liberty shrugged sympathetically but as they already had passed the cards back out, there was really nothing I could do.

So my card was read around and every looked around in befuddlement. I could see in their expression they were thinking who would share pregnancy news at a peer mentor facilitator group meeting? I debated just staying silent and not admitting to my possible oven bun. Luckily I didn’t have to decide because Simas, the current pathology fellow whom I had informed a month earlier my husband and I were trying to have a baby so I could get an idea of my schedule for next year, was in our group. Immediately after my card was read he turned and pointed right at me. I turned red and tried to explain I had no idea that we would be reading the cards aloud or I would have said something like banal like “I have three dogs!” Instead I spent the rest of the dinner flushed with the realization that by tomorrow everyone in the school would have heard the story about this weird girl telling everyone she might be pregnant during an icebreaker at a school dinner! I guess one good thing will come out of this embarrassing experience. If later the hormone surges of pregnancy make me bite someone’s head off (I am looking at you Simas), they will have received advanced warning that I am both unhinged and possibly pregnant.

Ok, so I know I have more ridiculous stories like this (hopefully they aren’t so long). So if you enjoyed this one, and can remember me telling you any embarrassing story about myself let me know and I will write it up. If you didn’t enjoy it, you should probably be studying for boards anyways.

--By Sarah, who wishes her hair was as big as all the secrets she was filled with