🧚✨Fairy Doors + To-Do Lists✨🧚

To-Do list of Not To-Do list?!

I often wrote/write this instead of “To Do” lists, because I like the way it resonates more.  I’m the kind of “to do” list person that sometimes got to the point where I just wrote what I meant “sh**t to do list”.  I absolutely LOVE checking things off, and ensure there is a celebratory box next to items so I can put that satisfying check mark right in there as obnoxiously protruding from the box as I desire. 

 I am the kind of person that would have to-do lists in multiple locations- during Residency we would have 4 hours of didactic lectures on various Pediatric topics: new research, presentations we would be assigned, reviewing evidenced based peer reviewed journal articles, Pediatric Boards preparation questions, lectures from specialists in our field on various pathologies, updates from hospital administration, etc.  Being able to multitask is the name of the game for a Mom, a human, a Doctor.  And I can do it.  And do it well.  This is my zone of excellence.  So, I’d be there, stoked to have the opportunity to “sit” for 4 hours while they held our pagers (but also be running through my head most of the time how my patients were doing and how much later I’d need to stay after the lectures were over taking care of things), and get out the leather planner a co-Resident had gifted me… a fellow brilliant Mama right here in our community.  I’d write all over that thing.  It was cathartic.  It felt like the space to dream and organize and get things landscaped in a contained way… it could contrast the continued chaos I felt just chasing the next page, the next phone call, the next request from the nursing station to come and assess a patient.  

The thing about being a Pediatrician, or any Physician, is that your time doesn’t ever really feel your own.  I would arrive before 5 AM and silently pray for a few minutes to collect myself before the pager would go off.  You have to keep on your game of a seemingly endless things to accomplish before the morning is upon you.  All the while, you must surf all the distractions that inevitably come your way and are a vital part of caring for your patients and collaborating with your brilliant colleagues- the nurses, RT’s, nutritionists, lab personnel, PT’s, specialists, the PCP’s (the patient’s own Pediatrician on the outside of the hospital), and more.  So you answer the pages as they come.  You call back the number.  At some points,  would carry my own personal pager, the Volte phone which is a secure HIPPA compliant phone you can turn on when you’re on service to communicate with team members, and the code blue pager.  There were probably more.  

I remember wanting a pager in high school at some point.  Not sure why I ever thought it would be cool.  They hugged and pulled down on my scrub pants for those intense years of Residency.  I remember hashtagging one of my initial Insta posts in Intern year of Residency on newborn nursery July 4th weekend with “double the pager.. double the fun.”  So yeahhhhh. I was so proud though initially to wear those pagers, and honestly all throughout I was.  It was so ceremonially amazing to turn my pager off that final time.  It was so peaceful to glance down at that screen, see it go blank after I’d cleared, acknowledged and tended to all of the numbers that had flashed across the screen that day.

There were codes that happened during prerounding in the morning (the time in the early morning before 0730 where I would furiously, frenetically and methodically collect data on every vital sign, every lab result, every culture that was down in the lab (calling the microbiology lab for updates and send outs most mornings), go evaluate each patient, speak to the nursing staff from overnight and the morning, talk to the parents or caregivers if available at the bedside, read all of the notes from the specialists, take into account all of the information I’d digested from sign out from my colleague from the night before on night shift who’d handed off to me.

And there was the teaching.  Medicine is always moving.  Always evolving.  So there were medical students always rotating through.  Just as I had a few years ago.  They would sit wide eyed and impressed, also intimidated that they too would be expected to learn to be fluent in the language of medicine to this degree extremely soon and listen to our detailed sign outs.  The amount of information, diagnostic impressions and straight zone of excellence that occurs between Physician colleagues signing out patients to one another is a sight to behold.  I was  proud that this once elusive language I’d been so excited and compelled to learn, I was now speaking with ease… although it had taken over a decade to learn it, and I was refining it all the time.  So there was assigning the medical students patients, prepping them on their presentations, answering their questions, shepherding them through the confusing realm of the beehive of the hospital early mornings.  

Taking on and off precautions for patient rooms.  We have droplet precaution, contact precaution, airborne precautions- all for different infectious disease reasons and all for patient and Physician protection.  So you take this equipment on and off outside of each room that has been established to be an ID precaution room.  And this was before COVID.  

The to-do lists.  So the personal ones were so sacred.  Because I was always battling against an ever growing one that was outside of my locus of control.  A super long and extensive, detailed patient list for every patient I was caring for that day.  As a senior Resident, I would have 16+ extremely ill Pediatric patients a day not uncommonly.  At night, there could be 40-50 patients that I would round on and keep track of.  

So the illusion of control that comes with a to-do list was appealing for me… in that it was a space I could play with prioritizing things, doing some dreaming, looking at a calendar for what was to come…. Seeing into the future and believing it wouldn’t always have to come at this pace.

Knowing I could sustain myself on those Wednesday afternoons looking out the window.  Willing myself to get it all done even as a 3rd year senior Resident now in charge of the younger Residents and all of their patients… seeing all the patients on our team in the mornings, needing to know and synthesize the labs and data and vital signs and information for them all…. All the while keeping my own emotions in check in the beautiful postpartum mess of a Mama I was each morning leaving my own beautiful newborn baby girl to come into the hospital to care for other people’s babies.  It tore my heart out every day.  Or morning I should say.  I pumped that liquid gold for her with every muscle of magic that I could.  

I claimed the bunk bed call room and sat in there prerounding and pounding out my notes, calling specialists, calling the lab, prepping the medical students and interns… all to the hum of the pump.  There was no designated pump space offered for me at all.  I willed it to happen.  My Mama strength evoked more from this former and revised version of a people pleaser than I ever knew I possessed.  And I’m so happy I stood my ground…. Or every further than that created ground where there previously wasn’t any ground…. Because two Pediatric Residents in the two classes behind me were also pregnant and going to give birth within the same year that I had Camden.  And we hadn’t had any Residents have babies in such a long time.

When I disclosed my pregnancy, there was congratulations…. But mostly I could feel the burden. That there would be no exceptions made for Mamas.  That I would need to work hard…. Harder to ensure I wasn’t a burden to my colleagues, that any time off for “maternity” would be made up.  I could use my vacation time of 3 weeks to have a baby, and would then forfeit my vacation for the entire year.  So there wasn’t any maternity leave.  There wasn’t anything.  I scoured the research and found emerging data on new parent electives that supported new Mothers and Fathers in Residency still maintaining their medical education, but with some flexibility from home in the early days of a newborn’s life.  I presented it to the leadership of my program.  They were unimpressed overall and cited that they were bound by the rules and there was no room for deviation.  

I was so nervous about how it all would work out.  I enjoyed “bringing her to work” every day of my pregnancy and also mourned the fact that when I gave birth we wouldn’t be able to be together anymore.  So I would wake up in the already sleep deprived newborn Mama early hours before 0430 when I would leave for the hospital to watch her sleep a little bit more.  To imagine how proud she would be of me, to feel the expansiveness between us of showing her how strong women and Mamas are to carry all of this.  To carry a pregnancy, to deliver a baby, to nurture a newborn, to care for the most critically ill children in my calling as a Pediatrician.

I feel to some extent, I may have internalized how much I considered myself to be a victim of my to-do list.  Like you guys… the lofty-ness of these lists were admirable.  They were pages long.  I knew I wouldn’t get all of it done.  The boxes I did get to check off with glee were for sure checked, because I’m not gonna miss out on one check mark of a party.  I would then just re-copy all the stuff that didn’t get done onto the newest version of the “to-do” list.

I also had a similar, probably identical, but maybe with other things too version on my phone on the notes app.  There I could add in some emojis for “pieces of flair” Office Space anyone…. And it was easy to copy and paste the note… deleing the action items that had been accomplished and checked off (of course), because the notes app has those little circles you can check.

So I started landscaping at some point.  It felt more reverent, more playful, more honoring of the core energy that was gaining momentum within me.

I knew I’d signed up for this.  I loved to be busy and getting things done.  I desired this role in caring for children… walking this sacred ground with parent and child and promoting health.  I had written in my entrance essays on why I wanted to be a Pediatrician was to care for “the most vulnerable and yet also the most resilient among us.” That line resonated with me then and resonates with me still.  I’ll always feel that way.

I took on so much.  Everyone else.  Gave everything of me in those hospital halls.

Went home delighted to give everything of me to my marriage to JD and to our baby girl (and FUR baby) who were everything I ever dreamed of.

I put me on indefinite hold.  I existed.  I ate when I could, peed when I could, showered half asleep coming home at night or in the early mornings before stepping back into my scrubs when I could.

I did the newborn new Mama thing and first time post partum period after having a significant post partum hemorrhage and massive 3rd degree almost 4th degree laceration/tearing with delivery all while going back to 90 hour workweeks initially with an 11 week old baby.  

I claim that I did that.  I still feel the trauma of it though.  It was that way.  It had to be that way.  But I started to believe in that chapter that I could author my own life.

That the to-do lists could be joyful, and I could create them.  That there could be an expansiveness and power in writing down what served me, what furthered me, what lit my genius zone on fire.  

Mamas…. This is taken straight from something I wrote the evening before I went back to work.  I had PTSD and could feel the trauma of the forced separation seeping into every cell of my body before we were even apart.  I had cherished every moment with her and JD and Kai Kai in that little yellow plantation 1930’s Hawaiian home with the white picket fence. The one that sat at the base of Diamond Head on the edge of Waikiki.  I’d eaten the frozen lasagna friends had brought, the chocolate macadamia nuts from costco, watched the Olympics and late night TV (Bachelor in Paradise marathons… no shame) with so much joy.  I had been able to be in the all these moments.  I felt so privileged.  Because all the while, I knew my pumpkin was coming.  I knew the clock would strike midnight on being able to be an all-the-time-there Mama.  I made a deal with myself that any new milestone would be new to me when I saw it.  

I can feel the emotion welling up in me making contact again with that version of me now just over 5 years ago.  Ya’ll… I sat at our electric piano with Camden to my left… she had this sea flower beautiful rainbow swaddle blanket from a local company spread out on the ottoman and I had her on her belly doing tummy time while I played her “Part of Your World” on the piano from The Little Mermaid.  

I can and will forever be able to conjure up the pride, the power, the trauma, the heartache, the devastation, the determination, the will to go on, the exchange of every good and powerful thing and all the love I had to give her in those moments and in what I so desperately wanted.. needed to communicate to her… in what I was trying to illustrate to myself.

”In my day dreams I’ll still be playing and singing to you all the lifelong day whilst caring for keiki at Kapi’olani.  Mommy has to go back to Doctoring tomorrow baby and my heart its a kaleidoscope of emotions.  Mostly I just can’t imagine not having the privilege of many magical moments with you all day long- but we will embrace the bookends of each day blissfully and you will continue to serve as my inspiration as I heed my calling to care for others and the little ones that need me too.  Camden Makaia- you’ve made me a Mommy and undoubtedly a more empathetic Physician and I can’t wait to continue journeying through this colorful life and watching you blossom.  The time with you, Daddy & Kai Kai was a beautiful symphony for my soul.  I’ll close my eyes and be right here playing you Little Mermaid on the piano during tummy time.” #camdenmakaiacam #alohatomommyinganddoctoring #homesweethawaii

I will forever tear up looking at this image of me, the haunting feelings I felt.  The power I knew I possessed.  I was still so pale even, still recovering from severe anemia and blood loss after multiple transfusions from hemorrhaging after giving birth.  I see her in her little striped diaper and her jet black hair.  The plants perched on our tiny little kitchen island we picked out and had shipped from IKEA. Our humble little kitchen in that beloved little cocoon of a house…. The jalousie windows (totally just had to look up that spelling bee of a word.. have said it many times and yet never written it… always a lifelong learner and I claim that about myself and love that part of me Anik the geek) letting in the evening trade winds. 

I was so talented, and yet so torn. I was so powerful and yet practically unaware of all that power that I held.  I was determined and devastated.  I was so brilliant and also so broken.  I was terrified of how I would do it all but totally willing to give whatever I needed of myself to make it work.  To be there for them.  JD, Camden, my patients.  If it took all of me, then so be it.  

The to-do lists on Wednesday afternoons faded away as I normalized it bringing in babies so I could have a chance to hold Camden for a brief time on a weekday afternoon.  The Residents after me did it with their babies and I think the tradition has continued on.  I absolutely love that.  I believe leaders should always look to make things better.  That the mark of a true leader isn’t brining the low vibrational energy of “well I had to do it or go through it… or this is just the way it is…” but rather the higher vibration of “how can I make it better for the next person that comes along.”

So I had started advocating for the Mommies even then.  Even when I didn’t know my to do lists would evolve into life landscaping would lead me to the opportunity to create and write to you from my heart each week-ish in these Life chats… things were building.

I was allowing myself to believe.  I knew I wanted to be Part of Her World.  For sure Camden’s.  And I claim that.  It is absolutely magical and sacred to me being their Mama every day.  Right now, the fairies are visiting one by one and leaving her notes and pixie dust (she’s frustrated she can’t fly with the wings and mint green fairy costume we acquired upon our first Costco trip after getting back home to Maui post 2 months away on the Mainland).  So, the fairies and I have been having a blast with them showing up- we’ve had the midnight fairy Mahina  🌙 🌌(Hawaiian for moon) come and leave her dark blue sparkly pixie dust in a star necklace.  It allows you to fly in your dreams- day dreams and night time ones too… in your most powerful flight of imagination.  Then Healani 🌺🌱 (Hawaiian “haze from the heavens” the flower fairy came to visit and brought her pink sparkling pixie dust in a little vial and explained the power of her pixie sparkle was in the love and aloha that allows your heart to fly.  We even made a door for the fairies to come and live in that is on our front yard plumeria tree.  It’s the picture you see on this blog post.

So, I’m embracing the shadows and doubts and weight on the shoulders on that Mama version of me sitting as straight and tall, as proud and brave as she could playing the piano that afternoon…. She did it.  I claim all of the power and energy, love and sacrifice and all that it took to leave her every morning or night (depending on day shift or night shift or 28 hour shift).  She’s here now… writing to you.  She exists in perpetual peace.  The constant overwhelm she felt, the weight that she carried.  She set it down.  One day in some corner of the song in her heart, she knew somewhere that her to-do lists could include painting and bedazzling fairy doors to hang on her front yard tree.  That it could include creating her own business and claiming her time as her own.

She didn’t know the world she longed to be a part of was that of her own. To take back the worth she didn’t see she had and felt she had to earn constantly tending to other people’s needs.  She’s a brilliant Physician, a magical Mama and a devoted and loving wife.  She’s also an innovative Visionary empowering Mamas everywhere the way she did for herself.

Pixie dust from me to you Mama.  Do you know you already have all of the magic, all of the everything you need to claim the life of your dreams?  That your to-do lists are optional.  If they bring you joy, you go right on ahead.  If life landscaping is your thing, you plant it.  If you’re ready to come into the expansiveness of what you’ve already dreamed, you fly right in.  

It is safe for you to rise, Mama.  You were created to be in peace and in harmony with your soul.  To be living into your dreams and desires each day, to be harmonizing with the happiness you’ve claimed in your life because you know you are worthy.  All the prosperity that swirls around the garden of your heart wants to take root in the beautiful foliage of your fears, your faults, your passions and the pursuits which truly, truly set your soul on fire.  You can come into this expansive space whenever you’re ready.  Plant the seeds of belief if you just can’t see it yet.  I’ve been in all seasons.  Sharing the vulnerability that was me 5 years ago.  The version of me who courageously put on her stethoscope each day to listen to the hearts, lungs and tummies of thousands of children…. And only when I turned the stethoscope around upon my own heart and listened…. Really listened… got uncomfortable and divinely deviated to my own path… my own composed to-do list turned life landscaping turned authoring my own life did I realize my worth.  I feel more of a Physician and claim more of all that I did, do and accomplished am accomplishing now than I ever did.

And I want that for all of you.  I desire every single Mama to live into that place, that space where she shines, she SHINES.

I actually don’t usually know what I’ll write about, how it will come together, where my thoughts might meander. I used to mute my thoughts, or at least attempt to edit them down.  I now know that isn’t my place.  I offer what I feel compelled to say because I know it’s meant to help at least one other Mama.  I don’t judge myself for how it will be received anymore.  I invite.  So, that final to-do list item for me was really giving permission to let it all go.  To not need to accomplish. To not need to be busy. To not need to earn my worth.  To be.  To accept that because I was born I’m worthy.  To live into my zone of genius which is connecting and healing and doing more of this.

A place to fall apart to come back together even more of a masterpiece.  That’s what Mama Mindset is.  That’s the divinely inspired dust you’ve got sparkling all over your soul… come and claim

I’m also not editing this blog post and it feels so freeing. 

Aloha Mamas,

Anik