The End and the Beginning

*Disclaimer: this is a long post meant mostly as a journal entry for myself. Please feel free to read it, I just don't know how interesting it will be to anyone else

Last October I traveled to Albuquerque with my friend and classmate, Chris. On that trip we spent some time with one of the managing partners (Bruce) of a dental franchise called Comfort Dental. The trip went well by all measures. Chris and I talked, analyzed and over-analyzed the professional option of "buying" a Comfort Dental franchise together. We got back to Wisconsin and within a few weeks we both mailed off cashier's checks to secure our spots as franchisee's with Comfort Dental of New Mexico. That decision was essentially the culmination of 3 years of researching and planning my dental career. I am not trying to toot my own horn here, but I honestly don't know anyone who put in as much time and effort as Chris and I did into researching the "best" professional pathways in dentistry. I went from wanting to scratch-start a practice, to thinking of buying an old dying practice and re-vamping it. I spent about a year and a half of dental school convinced I wanted to become and endodontist. I did research, signed up for extra programs, ran for class president etc... all in an effort to boost my resume for a post graduate program. Finally, when the allure of endo faded, and I got back in to the mindset of general dentistry, I started re-weighing those options I had previously considered. Part of that decision making process was based on where in the country we wanted to live. So, we narrowed it down to Calif, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, possibly Colorado and maybe New Mexico.

Our decision would be based primarily on a few factors:

1. We want to be "out west" to be close to family

2. We don't want to be freezing (or wet) for a significant part of the year

3. We want a temple nearby

Uncle Pat and Aunt Wendy moved to New Mexico two summers ago and have had great things to say about it. I also found out around March of 2009 that Comfort Dental had spread from Colorado down to New Mexico and was looking to grow. So, we investigated New Mexico, found that it fit our 3 basic criteria. Sara and I went down in April 2009 and took the grand tour of Albuquerque. After that trip I initiated contact with Comfort Dental and got the ball rolling to meet with them in the Fall.

So, that is where I was at as of October 2009. I was fully committed to Comfort Dental of New Mexico. I had put in a cash deposit. Bruce was emailing us with updates on how the other partners were doing. He was actively looking at real estate to set up our future office. I had mentally and emotionally settled in to the idea of becoming a Comfort Dental partner.

Several months go by, over the course of which, I have some second thoughts regarding my desire to go ahead with Comfort Dental. A small part of me felt like I could do better. I don't just mean better financially (the CD partners do very well) but I mean that I could do something more personally satisfying than simply signing up for a franchise and settling in to play by their rules. Those thoughts came and went. I finally got over them and went ahead with the plan as outlined. Then Spring Break happened.

For our Spring Break, Sara, Lily and I traveled to Utah to see Ashleigh, Kyle and Cami (who drove out from Calif). It was a great trip and we spent most of the time trying to sell Ash and Kyle on the idea of moving to New Mexico after they finish school. We explained to them the job I had lined up and how great it would be etc. My classmate, Pako, also took a trip out West. He is considering starting up his own practice after he completes a 1 year residency. It just so happens that Albuquerque was on his list of places to look at for his startup. So, I hooked him up with Bruce so he could take a look at the Comfort Dental offices and learn about their arrangement.

Pako went on his trip, visited Bruce, as well as some other offices I am familiar with and came back to Wisconsin safe and sound. I caught up with him at school after Spring Break to ask him how how trip was and he made a comment that went something like this, "Well, you can spend 350K to buy into Comfort Dental, where you get a crummy looking office and you play by their rules. Or, for about the same amount, you can start your own office, make it look nice, and do whatever you want with it. I just don't see the upside."

Everything Pako said is indeed factually correct. Comfort Dental places little emphasis on designing and building offices to look beautiful. and they most definitely set up the rules on how you practice dentistry; including where you are, how often you are open, what procedures you can and can't do, etc...

I already knew all of this, but as I said earlier, I had gotten over it. What do you need a beautiful office for when you are making as much money as those guys in crummy offices? Why do you want to add more procedures when you can make so much with just a few simple ones? Why do you care about when your office is open if you are only there about 32 hours a week anyway?

I had asked myself all of these questions before, and hesitated to ask myself the one question that is clearly more important, "Is this what you want to do for the rest of your career?" Or, the same question, phrased differently, "Can you do better?"

That conversation with Pako happened last Thursday morning at about 10:30 AM. By late afternoon on that same day I started seriously exploring what other options I had.

The Rebuttal

Some people scoff when we say we are moving to New Mexico. "Ha, that's just a brown desert waste land," they say.

California Fog

I think the fog along the coast of California is great. So, you can imagine how thrilled I was to get to go outside to this:

It made me really nostalgic for Los Osos. I can remember times in Los Osos where I would walk out the front door and not be able to see the neighbors house across the street. One of my jobs while I lived there was delivering pizza/smiles for Domino's Pizza. I would have to creep really slow down the streets because it was so foggy. I would even have to get out of the car to walk up to the house just to be able to see the address. There was a car that I saw several times driving around Los Osos that had a personalized license plate that said "FOG OSOS".

Back in the saddle, so to speak

Soooooooo, about 5 months and 9 days ago Sara gave birth to our beautiful little girl, Lily. Well, since that time I have been meaning to write down the feelings I had during that event. So, here goes:

It wasn't at all what I expected. Sara went into labor at home, and basically stayed in labor, having contractions and staying comfortable, while I went to school to treat some patients. I got home, made some dinner and then we just kind of hung out waiting for the contractions to get close enough/strong enough to merit a trip to the hospital. Sara was really quite calm during the whole thing and around 11:30 she decided we better go. There was no frantic bag packing or speeding through red lights. Just a serene car ride through the heart of Milwaukee's ghetto at midnight on a weekday. We parked in the parking lot, walked in and announced that we were ready to have our baby.

So we got set up in our delivery room and proceeded to watch comedies. The last one we had on before Lily came was the highly inappropriate "Blazing Saddles". We were glad we didn't have any racially/ethnically sensitive nurses helping us out. We took some naps in between movies and Sara finally started pushing around 11:00 AM. It didn't take long. There was no screaming. There were no bodily fluids flying around the the delivery room. No explosions, no gurgles or squishy sounds. Up until the very last moment, it was just me, Sara and our sweet motherly nurse. Finally our OBGYN, Dr. Eiche, and the OB resident came in and "caught Lily". She was so squished up when she came out. Her face was so swollen that her eyes looked "Asian".... yikes.

We spent the next two days, hanging out with Lily at the hospital, teaching her to eat and getting lots of help from the nurses.

Honestly, the entire event was so calm and peaceful. It was amazing to first see Lily's head and then her whole body. To think that she started as a sperm and an egg is just mind numbing.

The last 5 months have been much better than I thought they would be. Her 1st 6 weeks of life weren't all that fun, she cried and cried and cried non-stop. She woke up at all hours of the night. But since that time she has started sleeping through the night, playing with toys, laughing, smiling and just being very pleasant.

Before Lily was born I was expecting life to become sort of boring, or less fun. The fact is that it has gotten better. I still make time to play intramural soccer, ride my bike and go for runs outside. Sara still has time to go for runs, get her haircut, go to movies etc. We are fortunate to have such a sweet little baby, she really does let us get away with a lot. We are more pressed for time than we were before, obviously. But it has helped me to manage my time better, and I am actually getting more done in any given day than I did before. Are there days when I wake up feeling like a new, sleep-deprived parent? Yes. Are there times when it would be really convenient to not have a screaming baby at 4:30 AM? Yes. This is going to sound extra cliche-y, but I honestly wouldn't trade the whole experience for anything in the world. I get so excited every day to come home to my girls (and Dirk I guess).

The funny thing is that I am totally ready to start trying to have another one!!!!