Ultra Cool!

Moving right along… So yesterday was another big milestone for us.  Ultrasound Day!  To explain my experience (since I had no idea what to expect), I will start with the diagnostic center medical building.  We walked in, and we were pretty much the only ones in there.  It was awesome, and the opposite of the cramped little waiting room at my doctor’s office.  We checked in, and then I headed for a chair close to the door that they open to let you into the exam rooms.  Stupid me!  Mike stopped dead in his tracks when he saw where I was headed, and motioned to the other chairs, so he could see the dumb TV.  “Come on!  It’s the show that stars the guy who looks just like me (people say)!”   OMG, yes please, let’s sit wherever you’d like. They called me in right on time.  The ultrasound tech was kind of a bitch.  Or, I guess just really impersonal.  I walked in with her, and she asked, “why are you having this ultrasound”? Uhhh, don’t you have my paperwork? Whatever.  I told her I had orders from my doctor to get this done since I am pregnant, along with bloodwork.  She then said, “well that is very odd, because usually they do an ultrasound at 8 weeks and then at 24 weeks.”  And then she just stopped talking.  Nothing calming about that. So I get on the exam table and she puts this toasty gel stuff on my tummy.  It’s go time!  And then she starts moving around with her little wand thing.  By the by, I don’t know if the techs are supposed to do this, but she was pushing really hard on my stomach with the wand thing!  It actually hurt at one point.  Stupid bitch.  She barely talked to me throughout the entire process, except to say, “I’m kind of struggling to see anything, since your bladder is not full like it should be.”    WTF.  I drank at least 32 ounces of water an hour before.  My bladder certainly felt full.  Especially as she punched directly on my bladder.  Not my problem if she can’t figure out how to do her job the right way.  So she keeps prodding around for a good 10 minutes, and finally says, “okay, I will go get your husband.”  To which I followed up with, “Um, did you find the baby?!” Turns out she did, and we had three lovely photos showing our little bebay.  We were done, and then I had to go give blood (gross).  Turns out, the blood technician was 100x nicer than the ultrasound technician.  She told me not to worry, and talked me through everything and said how much respect she has for my doctor.  So nice to hear. We went out for lunch to celebrate after.  Husband was kind of in shock as to how much the ultrasound picture actually looks like a baby.  Dude was expecting a bean or something that was not very baby-like.  I still don’t think it has set in for either of us.  Maybe when I start showing? The technician did tell me something interesting after doing the ultrasound.  She told me I am actually 13 weeks along, likely.  Making my new due date May 10 (Mother’s Day, oddly enough).  At this point, I actually wanted to cry because if that is indeed true, I should not still feel like complete shit all the time. This morning was a great example.  Got up and went downstairs to get some breakfast together and let the dog out.  Had to RUN for the bathroom.   FUCK THIS SHIT.  I felt gross all day, constantly on the edge of puking my guts out, yet trying to keep down some food.  Even my prenatal vitamin GUMMIES proved to be a challenge getting down.  I know, I’m such a child.  Husband has been great though.  He has been doing all the laundry (he pretty much always did that though, since he doesn’t like how I fold things and I often forget to take things out of the dryer…).  He reorganized the pantry today while I watched reruns of Roseanne.  He let me nap while he made dinner for tonight and another soup for tomorrow.  I am so lucky.  I feel like such a bad wife. I will end with a husband quote before I finish my herbal tea.  I sometimes collect too much of things in the pantry (tea, coffee, candy….he disposed of some Pop Rocks and Fun Dip today…WHO DOES THAT?!  I was totally going to eat that stuff!!) “If you buy any more coffee in the next two years, I’m going to murder you.”

10 weeks – we have a heart beat!

Well, I had the dreaded/ not-so-dreaded first doctor’s appointment today!

I opted to go by myself, since there was a good chance we wouldn’t be able to hear the heart beat at this point anyhow.

So I walk into the office and am immediately super annoyed.  The whole waiting room (small to begin with) was chocked full of people, only two chairs unclaimed, and in between people of course.  I’m sure I’m weird for this, but I usually like sitting on the ends so that I can get up quickly if needed.  Whatever.  I tried to chalk it up to the fact that this was a good sign and that the doctor was in high demand.

I fill out the remainder of my paperwork, and then notice they gave me a flu shot sign-off form.  Um, am I the only one who was told that pregnant women should not be getting flu shots?   DUH.  So I walk up to the receptionist and say, “I’m pregnant, so I’m not going to fill this out, right?”  And she tells me that no, I still need to fill it out completely and then write “DECLINE” at the bottom, but that all doctors are recommending flu shots, even for pregnant ladies.  Whatevs.  I declined that.  There was enough for me to worry about today already.

So, I finally get called in, and met with the nurse first.  She was incredibly nice, so that was a start in the right direction.  Then she gave me a gift bag with some journaling tools, freebies for the baby, etc.  Unexpected!  Then, I had to pee in a cup, as expected.  No problemo.    Then, I made the mistake of asking what was going to go down at this first appointment, since I had heard conflicting reports from other mums.

“You will get a pap smear, and then you will get orders to schedule an ultrasound and for routine blood work”

Ugh, those two phrases:  pap smear and blood work.  CRINGE.

Oh well.  It’s always nice to greet a brand new doctor with the exchange over a pap smear.  Good times.

Here is the best part:  the nurse tells me to strip, and that the doctor will be in shortly.  Shortly = about 30 minutes.  30 minutes are more than enough minutes for me to get my heart racing just THINKING about this pap smear.  I know it sounds stupid, and the whole process is over in like a minute, but I just don’t like random people poking around down there and swabbing me with some random little toothbrush thing.

So in comes the doctor.  I love her immediately.  Very laid back and kind of funny.  “Okay babe, let’s get this hard part out of the way before we talk baby.  We both know you won’t remember anything I said before we get the pap smear out of the way!”   Oh so true.  I don’t even remember what else we talked about before then.  But then it was done.  And I was okay.

Luckily, directly after that, she followed up with a fun activity.  We got to listen for the bebay’s heart!  I already knew this, but she warned me that there was a 50% chance that we wouldn’t be able to hear the heart since it was so early on.   Lucky for both of us, bebay was feeling bouncy today, so after about 30 LONG seconds, she said, “there it is!” and then moved around a bit more to get a better sound.  Oh, I was so happy!  Not like sobbing like you often see in the movies (though maybe I will save that for the ultrasound), but I was extremely happy!  She told me that there is now a less than 3% chance that this could end in miscarriage.  3% is still 3%, but I’m feeling much better about all of this already.  Promptly after that, she got called out to another emergency, and the nurse came in and told me it would be another 30 minutes.  That’s okay, I was still on cloud nine and just opted to stay in the room to go through the little newbie-mom gift bag 🙂

She came back about 30 minutes later, apologized profusely, and went right into where she left off:  foods that I can and cannot eat.  I was half hoping that she would say, “Oh, it’s fine – just eat sandwiches in moderation!”  But she did not.  She said that I could eat Subway if they heated it, first.  So I think Subway is all I can eat now.  (kidding) – She also told me that Oscar Meyer makes nitrate free hot dogs.  I searched the hot dog section for a good 15 minutes at Jewel after my appointment, and no such luck.  Maybe they are a special order?  I WILL FIND THEM – CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

Another glorious thing:  she prescribed me some Zofran – evidently some magical pill that doesn’t make you puke while/ during/ after eating!  I’ve been in good shape today so far, but I still feel like I could sleep for days and be okay.

That’s enough for today!  I’m ready for a nap.

Happy Days!