The Exam

I survived.

Basically, the test was harder than I thought it was going to be. I'm pretty confident I passed, but I'm not sure I did really well. I need at least 75% to pass. The perfectionist in me was hoping for over 90%, but now I don't know. We'll see. Results should be mailed to me in about two weeks.

My mom was the best. She picked me up Tuesday morning and we spent the day shopping at the Vacaville outlets and then at a thrift store in Sacramento. She took care of all our meals and snacks and her driving was totally fine! As a result, I was super relaxed and didn't stress about the test the whole day.

The only negative part of the day was that I forgot how much the sun hates me. Our long drive up combined with lots of sun (and lots of previous stress) led to a massive migraine. Once we got to the hotel, I took some medicine and tried to take a nap to make it go away but it still lingered. It was the worst one I've had in a long time.

Once the headache was mostly gone, we went out to dinner at the Elephant Bar. The food was great and I discovered my mom is a very good food mate. She tends to like the same things I do and she loves to share. We ordered garlic noodles with shrimp and spicy Moroccan chicken with raisin couscous and then split both dishes. Very cool. Back at the hotel, we watched Glee. I skimmed through a textbook and then we decided to get some sleep.

I tried so hard to fall asleep. I took TWO doses of homeopathic sleep aid and still nothing. My mind wouldn't shut up. I kept getting flashbacks from the past three years of midwifery school. I thought about memorable births, things my preceptors said, clients I loved. I thought about Texas, Casa, the clients, the midwives, the boot camp aspect of it all and how it changed my life. I thought about Kean and Tiger Cub and all the babies who have joined the world recently, some of them into my own hands, and how incredibly lucky I am.

Before I knew it, it was 2 am, then 3 am. Still no sleep. The alarm went off at 6:30 and surprisingly I wasn't tired. My awesome mom packed me a lunch of Chinese chicken salad plus grapes, cucumbers, carrots, and tangerines for snacks. The exam was held at the Medical Board offices and I got there right on time.

There were about 15 of us taking the exam. I guess I was lucky, because some people had to really travel to get there. This exam spot was for all of California and parts of Oregon and Nevada, too. I didn't recognize anyone but we all had the same deer in the headlights look.

The exam was 350 multiple choice questions split into a morning session and an afternoon session. Maybe I'm exaggerating just a bit, but I felt like about 25% of the questions were straightforward and I knew the answer without a doubt. For the other 75%, I could easily eliminate two of the four answers but then I was stuck on the two that were left. Sometimes the answer that felt right was a combination of the two or it seemed like either one of the two would work. It was incredibly frustrating and that's why it's hard to know how I did.

During the lunch break, I chatted with another student. She had the same frustration and complaints, so that made me feel a little better. We started talking about how stressed we had been recently. I told her I haven't had a good night's sleep in over two months. She said she had gained 15 pounds during that time. Phew, that made me feel even better (and glad I got the insomnia and not the weight gain). Looking around, I saw some students doing yoga poses and another who sprinkled some sort of oil on her crown chakra. What a crazy bunch of people midwives are.

I listened to some Norah Jones on Pandora. God bless the designers of the iPhone. I was super calm before starting the afternoon session. The afternoon was harder because for some reason the air conditioning in the whole building wasn't working and it was HOT. We were all stuffed in this room without air conditioning or even a window. They brought in a fan but it was just aimed in a general direction without really helping any particular person. When I stood up to turn in the test, my waist band felt wet. Gross. It was such a relief to get out of there.

Back home, Louis and I had dinner and I heard about all the drama he's been dealing with for the past couple days. I tried real hard to be sympathetic but I was exhausted. I went to bed and slept for 12 hours. Finally!

I'm sort of taking today off and then I'll jump back into the last of my modules. It will be a long two weeks waiting for my results.