License Schmicense

We finally swallowed the jagged little pill that we may have to stay in Texas a little longer than we had planned. It's jagged because of the distance between us and all of our family.
More often than not, we were being turned down from jobs because we didn't have licensure to practice medicine in any of the states that we were applying to. We felt the obvious course of action was to first get the job, then apply for the license (mostly because it's kind of an expensive process and why have more than one license?). Not so. Employers want you to be ready to work ASAP - go figure.
On Tuesday this week we finally submitted our papers to become licensed in TX. There were several problems with this because:
1. In TX, paperwork needs to be submitted 30 days before the medical board meets.
2. The medical board meets quarterly (the next one being in early-March)
This means we were already too late to apply for the March meeting. We called to find out the timeline of things and they told us they were "back-logged" and "not to expect it for 60-90 days."
3. We overnighted it with lots of hope - overnighting requires signature confirmation
4. We mailed it to a PO box
Hopefully I don't have to explain this dilemma to you. When we checked the tracking number the next day, it said they tried to deliver it at 7 am with no success and they would try again the following day then send it back in 5 days if it hadn't been picked up ....we were annoyed that the mail carrier just didn't send it back right then.
Yesterday, Steven got an email from TX Medical Board saying his licensure was complete and would be reviewed by the board next Friday, the 2nd. They had only received his paperwork by yesterday! We were under the impression it would be 60-90 days for temporary licensure and up to 120 for the actual license. WE'RE EMPLOYABLE!
We were ecstatic! We were all running around the hotel (we were interviewing in Tyler at the time of the email) screaming with excitement - mostly because we had a great offer pending on licensure. All I can say is this was such a huge blessing for our family. Someone's watching out for us, that's for sure.

As for the 4 am postings, I wake up between 3:30 and 5 unable to sleep. I begin to think about various things which then causes stress and anxiety - so to avoid that, I wake up and am productive in other ways until I think I'll be able to get back to sleep. A little advice for anyone else with the same problem....a warm bath is always a good move.