Anatomy Scan...and we have a stubborn child.

This morning we had our anatomy scan. It went fairly well. I feel bad for Torin since he had to wait in the waiting room for over 30 minutes while the tech took the pictures she needed and did all of the measurements. It seems like he should have been able to sit next to me in the chair and be quiet especially since he's seem my stomach before, but whatever.

For the most part the ultrasound was painless. The tech did really well with trying not to push down on my very full bladder. (Sidenote...Did you know that they tell you to drink 32 ounces an hour before your appointment and then not pee until after the procedure?) While the tech roamed around my belly with the transducer I zoned out and tried to think positive. I zoned out up until the point she had me roll over. Apparently dear baby was buried head down near my cervix so the tech was having some problems getting the head measurements. Despite my moving and the tech trying to move the baby, s/he was not budging. After the measurements were completed we got to see the baby for a  a little bit. The tech explained some of the anatomy and printed off a couple of pictures. My little stubborn child stayed in the same "praying" position for the whole time we got to see him/her. A few times s/he started to roll over and changed his/her mind. I think s/he knows we are team green and is helping keep it that way.

Anyhow, the radiologist is supposed to look at the pictures and get back to my doctor in the next couple of days. However, if in fact they didn't get everything they needed I'll get a call today and I will have to come back in.

Update...I have to go back in next week for another scan to get the pictures they didn't get the first time around or at least that is what they are telling me.

Our Praying Baby

Midwife visit #3...

We had our third midwife visit this past Tuesday. I should have the written the post out Tuesday, but I was too irritated with the whole appointment to blog about it.

Let's see the whole thing started off badly. We always request for the first or second appointment of the morning since we both have to commute at least 30-45 minutes to work and it's a hassle for both of our schedules to try to get off early to come to an appointment.

So...we scheduled this appointment for 9:15am, the second appointment of the morning. We get there at 9:10 and wait to be checked in. Of course I get in the line where the woman doesn't realize 5 people (ok just 3) are standing behind her and wants to call all of her husband's telephone numbers to check and see if she can take this appointment. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about having your husband there with you and checking his schedule but don't you think you can be a little considerate of the people behind you and write down some dates and then talk to your husband or call your husband and figure out his schedule before you get in line?

Hmmm...maybe that is way too much to ask of people. Anyhow, the minutes continue to tick by and by the time I actually check in it's 9:25. I'm not terribly behind schedule and it's only a 15 minute appointment it shouldn't take them that long to call me back. WRONG. It took the nurse(CNA, whatever) another 20 minutes to pick up my paperwork (9:45) and another 15 minutes to call me back into the room to get my vitals checked (10:00) and request my urine sample.

While checking my vitals, she asks if I have the lab form for the second part of the integrated prenatal screening. I tell her no and she begins to look for it. I guess at this point she couldn't find it since she stopped looking and told me to go the exam room. In the exam room, she enters all the information and does a dip strip test on my urine. Before leaving the exam room, she tells us that it will be another 10-15 minutes before the midwife would be in since she is still seeing another patient.

WTF...Are you serious right now? Who the hell is she seeing? The 9:00 patient still or have they moved on and started seeing the later patients? By this point I'm livid (I really should write a separate post about my temper these days) and pacing in the little ass exam room. I was irritated enough that Torin actually got up and proceeded to dance with me in the room just to calm me down. Gotta love the man especially since he hates dancing.

Anyhow, promptly at 10:15 the midwife walks in...no apologies for running late...just hi how you doing like we haven't been waiting an hour to see you. The rest of the visit was uneventful. The baby had a steady heartbeat in the high 150s again. I'm (aka my uterus is) measuring on track, there's no protein or sugar in my urine (yes I had to ask) and my weight gain is good. She tried to figure out why the last midwife wanted me to change my ultrasound scan that was scheduled for next week...Lady I have no idea.

I was also told I needed to get labs drawn for the second part of the fully integrated prenatal screening. She went off to get me a new form when she realized I didn't have one with me.(Apparently they lost my form before and had to fill out a new one.) Of course, the midwife wanted me to do it that day since I was already here and have time. I really wanted to reply "Umm...I really don't have time. I would have had a lot more time if y'all weren't messing around for an hour." (sigh) But instead I was passive aggressive about my complaint and said I would try to stop by the lab today but I really didn't expect to be here for over an hour especially since my appointment was scheduled for 15 minutes. Her response...I know, I'm sorry.

Prenatal Visit...

Our second monthly visit went well.

At check in I was asked for a urine sample. WTH?? I don't carry urine around with me and no I'm sorry I don't have to go to the bathroom right now. I just went 15 minutes ago before I came to the appointment. I know you're thinking well you should have known that they would want a sample since all the baby books mention that you will be screened to make sure your not spilling sugar and/or protein in your urine. I would have been well prepared for this moment but no one and I mean NO ONE told me I needed to A.) not use the bathroom before coming to the appointment or B.) if I were to use the bathroom to bring a urine sample in, at my last appointment or at my reminder call. The check in woman and a nurse were kind enough to remind me without questioning me and provide me with a specimen cup and bag just in case I could not wait until I come to the doctor for next time.

All of my visits are set up with nurse practitioners. We set it up that way at the first visit and I think I'm enjoying that decision. If you're wondering why I didn't opt to continue care with my OB/GYN, here's the reason. She's nice, don't get me wrong, but all of my visits with her are straight to the point, no real room for small talk or questions for that matter. I leave with the feeling of how it must be after a one night stand... you know...wham, bam, thank you ma'am, now can you leave because I have things to do. Anyhow, we met with a different nurse practitioner. I like her but not nearly as much as the first one but that is besides the point. She asked how we were both doing, explained what she was going to be doing in this 15 minute visit (really all I get is 15 minutes??). She did an ultrasound so we could see the babe (Hi Baby!!) and found the heart rate (159 bpm). The fluid level was a little low so she reminded me I needed to drink at least 4 ounces every hour. So...I guess that would be roughly 96 ounces of water per day. I definitely need to drink more then. I'm barely getting in 64 ounces of water a day.

It definitely is amazing to see the changes in development. Right before the NP finished with the ultrasound I asked her if she would be doing the measurements. She seemed kind of taken aback that I wanted measurements this far into the pregnancy. I had to explain to her that from the time we found out about this pregnancy they've been doing measurements and for you to just say hey look at the babe with no measurements is kind of a shock and provides us with no real context on how our child is doing and growing. I think she got the point and did measurements after that with no further questions. The babe is growing on track, just a couple of days ahead right now. I know genetics will kick in pretty soon and the measurements will be worthless but for right now I need the reassurance that everything is going smoothly.

I also had to ask her for her to find the heartbeat on the doppler so that we could actually hear the heartbeat. She wasn't as surprised by this request since she did only do the heartbeat on the ultrasound ( ala ekg style) and we couldn't hear it. She was nice enough to even suggest that we record it and waited patiently while we fumbled around for our cell phones to find a recorder. Now I can hear the whoosh whoosh sound of my baby's heartbeat any time I want. It's such a beautiful sound.

Our next prenatal appointment is in 4 weeks (6/15 the day before our anniversary) with the original NP.

NT Scan

OMG...The day we I have been waiting for resulted in a quickie appointment and a run to Taco Bell.

So let's just start this off by saying that 2:30 in afternoon does not make an ideal time for any prenatal appointments for Torin and myself, since A.) we both work at least 30 minutes from the doctors office and B.) I'm pretty much worthless at work because I'm thinking about my appointment.

After 5 hours of waiting patiently (yea right...who am I kidding) for the clock to get to 1:30 to leave, I drive to pick Torin up from the BART station and proceed on to the appointment. Of course today would be the day we have horrible weather and in turn horrible traffic in the middle of the damn day.

Why is it still raining in May in California??? Rain in California means that no one (except a very select few people) knows how to drive. Therefore you have 2 groups of idiots on the road. The idiots in Group A that are speeding, changing lanes, and tailgating like it's not raining and the idiots in Group B that are at the other extreme and driving like their driving Miss Daisy and will not stay in the slow lane to accommodate the idiots in Group A and the rest of the sane people just trying to get where they are going.

I'm way off subject...so we get to the appointment, check in, and are brought to the procedure room. The nurse doesn't leave us so I assume they aren't using the dildocam and ask her what I need to do. She asks me to please not take off my pants but to just roll them down some. Apparently, they get quite a few people trying to get nekkid at this appointment. After prepping and putting the towels in place not to mess up my pants she leaves.

I have to say, they had a very nice set up so that everyone could see the ultrasound. The visitor was positioned so that they could see on the larger monitor on the actual ultrasound machine and the patient could see on a monitor on the wall which was at the perfect angle.

The doctor comes in shortly after. He was nice but very quiet. I mean not a peep out of him during most of the ultrasound which consisted of him rubbing the transducer all around my stomach and clicking on keys on the ultrasound machine. At one point, he was actually prodding my stomach, not sure if he was trying to get the baby to move or to get a better angle but I ended up laughing which causes everything to get distorted. We got to see the babe as the doctor was doing what he needed to do. The babe had its back toward us. I guess that would be the perfect position for the test. You could see it's little legs kicking. At one point it looked like s/he was rolling over...as in "leave me alone, I'm trying to sleep in here." The doctor then finished up and stated "I'm now going to go calculate the risk of your baby having downs syndrome." Talk about mood killer. He rolled off to a computer and started typing away. He then turned around and stated that we have a negative screen for downs syndrome, congratulations. After a sigh of relief, we said thanked him, and discussed a few other things. We found out the baby is measuring at 13 weeks 2 days (yay!!) instead of 12 weeks 4 days and we would get a copy of the report next week at our next prenatal appointment. Despite eating at 1:00pm, I was starving when we left the appointment at 3:07pm and begged Torin to have some food with me before I had to drop him off at the BART station to go back to work. And that is how we ended up at Taco Bell.