Life out here

So... I love Montana. Did I mention that before? I haven't been this excited about a "place" in a long time. I am seriously asking Mike to think about this place as a possible place to call home in 5-6 years after I finish residency. Of course, a lot could change in that 5-6 years.

My rotation is going well. I am in the middle of my 3rd week of this 6 week rotation. I am getting a lot of suture time in! :) It is pretty cool.

I am getting more and more nervous about choosing a specialty. A lot of doctors say that I don't need to know yet, which is true... I just need to know by March-ish. Below are the many things that have crossed my mind:

Internal Medicine
Pediatrics
Pediatric Cardiology
Cardiology
Orthopedic Surgery
Pediatric Orthopedic Surgery
OB/GYN
Family Medicine (ONLY if in a small area like Whitefish, big city Family Medicine is stupid)

These aren't really in any specific order. The sad thing about all of this is that I have only done my Internal Medicine and part of the Family Medicine rotations. I won't even see Cardiology and Ortho until after I need to figure out what I am doing. The other thing to think about here is that these specialties are all over the map in terms of competitiveness. I would say that Peds is the "easiest" and Orthopedic Surgery is the hardest (and by hardest I mean that my Step 1 score may not be high enough for me to really feel comfy with my chances). Right now, in terms of lifestyle and specialty, Orthopedic Surgery would be my number one choice. The call schedule isn't too challenging (docs here take call by the week instead of day) and the pay-scale is pretty nice as well. I really want to be able to have a family and support the family well (not that I am discounting anything that Mike will be doing) without having to worry about missing a trillion dance recitals or soccer games.

I am just not sure what to do.