I’m feeling a bit reflective this week as we head into Mother’s Day, a holiday that used to be a real bummer for us. It turns out that having a cardiac arrest the day after Mother's Day imprints some pretty weird sensory triggers, like the specific way a tree buds or the smell of spring air.

Joining Kristin and I to talk about motherhood, medicine, and the messy "long view" of family life is Dr. Rebecca N. Thompson. Dr. Thompson is a family physician who took the concept of a memoir and turned it into a massive, 10-year collaborative project called Held Together. She didn’t just write her own story; she captured the voices of 21 other women to explore how families are sustained through pregnancy loss, rare diseases, and the general chaos of raising kids.

We also dive into the "all-you-can-eat buffet" of compassion and why grief shouldn't be treated like a contest. Becca shares the "painfully poetic" story of how she became "20 minutes pregnant" right as she started a surprise second residency, which she only got because another intern saw the hospital on a hill and decided to bail. It’s a fiercely optimistic conversation about finding meaning in the "in-between moments" of life.

Takeaways:

Why Dr. Thompson believes Public Health and Preventive Medicine should be at the very bottom of Will’s "specialty respect ladder".

The concept of a "shared memoir" and why hearing the first-person perspective of 21 different women is more powerful than a standard anthology.

The "Spaceship" hospital in Oregon that allegedly scared a resident so badly they turned their car around and quit on the spot.

Why Will and Becca agree that "compassion is not a pie" and there is plenty of room for everyone’s grief at the table.

How Becca managed to write a full-length book over 10 years by utilizing 20-minute chunks of time in car pickup lines.

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