Forceps and Flavors

Hi, I am Genie Pancakes (my husband loves to call me that). I can’t sleep, so let’s chat a little.

As I sit outside in the middle of the night…. (it’s currently 11:31 pm in case anyone was wondering) I thought I should share how our family started. I must say that in no way shape or form I recommend people to do what we did, but it worked for us.

A and I met when I was in my first year of surgical residency. We were in the east coast, most of my training was there and he had been working as a paramedic in the emergency department (ED) of the hospital I trained at. Now, this is important… I don’t really remember him from that point and time. He does enjoy reminding me of this. I would like to defend myself and say that I was overworked, under fed and there was a significant lack of sleep involved…. but I looooved my training. It was a slightly toxic relationship with my job/training, and anyone that has gone through residency will tell you that. But I would do it again in a heartbeat.

A left the ED, and we saw each other every once in a while in the trauma bay when he brought patients in.

I was not having a great time dating. Dating in this modern world is WILD! I don’t know how everyone does it. Went through several failed relationships during residency, I tried a couple of dating apps without luck. Some of my residency friends told me that they found their partners later in their career and to not lose hope. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy on my own… but also wanted to share my life with someone. And there is nothing wrong with that, but being someone that is type A in most things, having nerdy interests and being quite independent, I knew it was going to be a little bit of a struggle.

Downloading Bumble was a decision I made on a whim. Why not? What’s the worst that can happen? Nothing else has worked, might as well give it a shot. A little while later, I see this guy on the app (At this point I really don’t remember him). Guy looks nice, he is handy (was building something in one of his pics), and weirdly enough had a pic on his profile with the boyfriend of one of my friends. I had a pic with said friend on my profile!

We chatted for a bit, exchanged numbers and started talking. First date was unplanned, we both got off 24 hr shifts and after a couple hours of sleep went for ice cream. I was wearing sweats. Conversation was going great and I was so happy, but so frustrated. At that time I already knew I would have to leave the state in a couple of months and something told me that moving was gonna break my heart.

We dated for about 6 months until I had to move. Decided on doing the long distance thing for a while. Because of his schedule, I was able to see him about 5 days every month, but it wasn’t enough. I am not ashamed of the fact that I cried on the phone many times while talking to him. After a couple of months A decided to move with me to the northeast of the country.

We got engaged after a year and a half of dating and we got married in a small wedding ceremony a couple of months after that. Part of the reason was COVID, a lot of the reason was me driving him crazy with wedding questions. In his words, “let’s just get married, I just want you”. And this came from a guy who wasn’t sure he wanted to ever get married when we first met.

That was almost 6 years ago and would do it all over again.

I think it may be time to turn into a pumpkin, it is after midnight and I work tonight. Let’s keep talking some other time. You all behave, I don’t want to see you in the hospital tonight.