New, too. DH too busy/never home, new baby, demanding job

[v-girl]

Welcome!

[Meenah]

Welcome!!!

[Bittersweet]

Welcome

What year in residency is your DH? It will get easier but right where you are - it isn't fun. Y'all gotta work out the kinks and learn to this new way of life. I will tell you (what I had to learn the hard way) a date once a week or every other week is essential once kiddos came into play. Now, expecting DH to plan that stuff - never gonna happen. I had to get over that. We had 1st DS at end of 4th year of MS, 2nd DS 3 year of RAD.

Bumps I've seen so far in RAD residency - 2 months before physics test; 3 months before written boards and the lovely night rotations that go on for a month.

With kids I started to feel like I competed with my child for the 10% of time my DH was home. We rectified that with dates.

Good luck! This group is great and very supportive!

[scarlett09]

Welcome! Post often - you will find lots of support here!

[MarissaNicole]

and nice to meet you!

[cylverdust]

Welcome.. This is the place for support and honesty!! It has saved my husbands life more than once!

[Rapunzel]

Welcome!

It's nice that we're starting to get some more rads wives.

Woo Hoo! Power to the wives who work in bat caves!

[Rapunzel]

Occasionally they DO emerge from the basement and join those who live topside.

I'd like to say balance is the key to it all, inclusive to this is the schedule. It can be so hard, but look at it this way, at least you are getting to see each other! It will all be worth it in the end.

Thanks, again, for the warmest of welcomes! My hubby is in the 2nd year of rads, and he JUST finished the physics test -- yup, that was tough. Things are going better now that he's finished and settling back into a more normal work pattern. I guess his studying for physics put our family's stress level to the max.

We spent a good deal of time talking this weekend, and he said he is going to try to be more vocal about his schedule (so I don't have to guess when he will be available for our family), and he's going to try to listen more to my needs and help me out more. We'll see.

...at least our little "talk" urged him to do the dishes for me this week

Oh gosh yes, Allison, this sounds SO FAMILIAR! I feel for you.

The hard part is that even though you meet other moms, there are very few who GET it that it's really "all you", that Dad isn't there at those critical times, that Dad can't put the baby to bed consistently every night at 8 because he's on call half the time, etc... It took my parents the first few years of our marriage and visiting us more than once until they noticed that I reallty AM exhausted and not just being melodramatic!

For you, especially now with the baby, yes, organization will be increasingly key. It took several years until he finally understood that his schedule meant something different from MY perspective- I don't care if he has ICU/OR/research/meeting so much as whether he'll be home for dinner on time, or if I should put his portion in the fridge for later, or if he's EATING at a meeting and I shouldn't cook for him at all. And we've agreed that he can't call to say "I'm coming" until he's actually IN the car, because otherwise he'll bump into somebody and chat or get asked about a patient or whatever, while I've got all 3 waiting-for-Daddy girls and a warm supper I'm trying to stave off here at home until he shows!

If there are things he can take over when he is home, flexible things like toenail clipping or emptying the diaper pail or who knows what, agree on those and let him be the primarily responsible one. And I wish I'd learned in the early days to flat out request things- "Would you do the dishes tonight while I nurse? Thanks!" He won't NOTICE them ever, but if I ask for something in a non-accusatory way, he does respond. Helps me realize that sometimes he doesn't think I'm actually in charge of all of it, it's just me ASSUMING he thinks that.

And as for the way-too-late-when-you-need-to-sleep-sex-and-chatting... I am still working on that solution!?!? Esp. when I was nursing a baby every 4 hours and he wanted to talk to me, I'd just see the clock and know, ack, I'll be up again in 3, 2.5, 2 hours... Sometimes those nights where he was at work I slept the best-how horrid, but true.

Hang in there, and keep up the communication attempts!

Jenn