Match Day!!

 

Yesterday the long anticipated Match Day finally came!  We had found out on Monday that we matched somewhere, and had to wait til Friday to find out where.  I had thought it would be torturous, and partly it was, but after hearing from so many people who didn't match it made me so grateful we had a job somewhere that I didn't really care where it was.  Josh had the day off so we took the kids to story time at the library in the morning to pass the time and then headed off to the Match party his hospital was throwing.  We had pizza (and obviously Shane had cake frosting) and chatted nervously with friends while we waited for 1 o'clock.  (Marissa looks thrilled to have her picture taken huh?)  At 1 we hit refresh, refresh, refresh on Josh's phone til we got the email that told us we're going to Fort Wayne, Indiana! 

We were pretty excited because that was the place we ranked #1.  Haven't heard of it?  Yeah, I hadn't either til we started looking into programs.  But it was overwhelmingly our favorite for a bunch of reasons:

 

-the program is a perfect fit for Josh.  He really wanted a program where family medicine was the only residency so the residents get to do a ton of stuff without having to compete with other residencies for it.  It is actually a fairly large city with 250,000 people so there is a really good variety of patients and a decent sized Spanish speaking population, which he wanted too.  He rotated there for a month so he really got to see the program and saw how the residents could get training in all kinds of procedures that would help make their future practice even more profitable (he could even get enough training in c-sections to do those if he wanted to- he doesn't :) )    

 

-cost of living is very affordable and there are a lot of nice areas to live

 

-they have a great zoo (perfect for my animal-obsessed little boy), 3 YMCA's, lots of running/biking trails/parks, a nice baseball field/minor league baseball team, and lots of good shopping and restaurants, including a Costco which they are building in the fall (I am so excited for that!) 

 

-they offer a lot of extra benefits like a housing stipend, sign-on bonus, etc.

 

-we really like the residents and everyone involved with the program.  The coordinator has already been great to work with, she has a couple kids with celiacs and knows Josh is so at second look she had a ton of gluten free stuff for him.  They even sent us a gift basket over the holidays with popcorn, candy, and other goodies- how could we not pick them??

 

 

I will stop there, but suffice it to say we are feeling grateful for this opportunity, it really feels like where our family is supposed to be right now.  I am so proud of Josh and all his hard work getting to this point.  (I'm proud of me too, and glad that the time home alone this fall paid off because without a doubt doing the rotation there helped him get his spot.)  We went to celebrate last night at Outback! 







 Josh's last rotation ends at the end of April and we will move the first part of May- so it is on to house hunting (rentals), getting ready to move, and, oh yeah, having a baby!!!  If I haven't gone into labor by Thursday I am getting induced then, so stay tuned!