Ultrasound part deux

Monday was our 12 week ultrasound, which the State of CA recommends in our to test for down syndrome. Cool. My husband would get to come along and we were both pretty excited.

First I want to say that my OB is really growing on my and Robert liked him as well. Baby started out by really cooperating with the ultrasound, giving a great profile. Eventually he rolled away and never did give us that profile again. However, we saw a lot of great angles and even better, I didn't pee myself even though the doc kept shaking my belly trying to get baby to give us a better view. Yay!

Doc was showing us at the all limbs were in place, "there's the right arm, there's the left arm. Four fingers, there's his thumb. Left leg, penis, right leg."

Um, huh? Robert and I look at each other to see if we hear correctly and the doc confirms. He also says that even though it looks like a penis to him, we shouldn't tell anyone until our 20 week scan when he can be 100% certain. Still, he said it so casually and there was so clearly something sticking out between what were clearly legs. I'm a little taken aback because I'm thinking about 3 different couple friends of ours all with babies due this summer who have decided to keep the sex a surprise. We were planning to find out, so we're pretty psyched to have the news earlier than expected, but Doc never asked us if we'd want to know. What if we didn't and he just blurted it out like that? I think we probably would have guessed because after all there's something sticking out between his legs. But still...

In other news I had a scare this morning when I rear-ended an SUV on the way to work. My Doc graciously allowed me to come in for a quick check on the baby with the doppler and the heart rate was strong and steady. Thank goodness. So I took the day off of work to rest and deal with my car.

I told both my bosses and one co-worker about my pregnancy yesterday, which turns out to have been rather lucky since my desire to run to the doctor after a little rear-ending wouldn't have made as much sense without that context. Both the bosses were really excited for me, and I even got a hug from my boss who has told me in the past that he's not a "hugger". I felt really lucky and so excited to be "out". Now that he knows, I feel like I can put it on Facebook...when I'm ready.

The purpose of posting

Robert and I are waiting in the SEA TAC airport for our flight home to LA. It doesn't leave for a couple more hours, so I decided to try to knock out a post before we get back and regular life makes it more difficult to recollect the events of the last few days.

First, I've decided to resume writing here at the urging of two of my dearest friends, both of whom asked "are you blogging?" as soon as I told them I was pregnant. Clearly, they think I'll have some valuable thoughts and I do want to record this time in our lives with some thought. I haven't been writing lately because pregnancy has been somewhat of an afterthought to regular life over the last few weeks.

We had our 8 week ultrasound after all and even though I'm not excited about my doctor I've decided to stick with him for the time being. I have to stop lamenting the loss of my home birth and just get on with deciding how my hospital birth will go. I've been doing a lot of reading the last few weeks about epidurals and pitocin and c-sections, and even though I remain committed to doing an unmedicated birth, I'm happily considering the possibility that it's out of my hands. Having read about the lack of any medical evidence that epidurals are harmful to either mother or baby in the immediate or down the line, I'm comfortable knowing that if I end up in a situation where it medically makes sense, I can say yes without feeling like I'm doing something wrong.

The 8 week photo shows that everything is exactly as it's supposed to be. The doctor considers my due date to be Dec 22, not the Dec 23 that I had originally calculated, though I'll continue to assume Dec 25 for purposes of counting down. I'm now at 10 weeks, just 2 weeks away from the end of first trimester threshold that should have me feeling less nauseous and less tired. I'm not exactly optimistic there.

I continue to gain weight rapidly because I continue to eat for two...cows. The only time I feel ok is on a full stomach and my tastes continue to run toward the unhealthy. When we get back from this trip, I'm going to try to at least find a way to add fruit to every breakfast and a salad once a day. Plus I'm liking tomatoes in both salsa and bruschetta so I plan to incorporate those regularly as well. I'm also looking forward to not traveling by airplane for a while. I kind of hate it right now.

Since my last post we've added several people to the list of those in the know. My Aunt (mom's sister), my Uncle (dad's brother) and my brother all got the news just before my 8 week ultrasound. All are very excited, as I knew they would be. It's also very cool that my parents were so excited to share the news. I haven't really spoken to my dad too much about it so far - I usually talk to mom every night, but dad rarely answers the phone - so I was glad to know he was excited to share the news with his brother. I realized that dad will become a grandpa at age 69, the same age as his brother. Mom, of course, is the last of her siblings to become a grandma. In fact, her oldest niece is already a grandma, so that gives you a sense of how that side of the family does it.

On Robert's side, we told his parents and siblings as well. Sadly, his grandfather (dad's step-dad) passed away before we could share our news, something that really bugs us both. However, in the aftermath of that loss, sharing our good news felt like the right thing to do and it seemed to improve everyone's spirits. We've all been thinking a lot about the circle of life in light of this situation. It's been a tough year all around as this is the second grandparent my husband has lost. Feels altogether like the right and the wrong time to be having a baby.

I told my best friend a few days ago impulsively when I called to touch base. I haven't talked to anyone in weeks because as soon as I open my mouth the news just comes spilling out. As a result, I decided to just refrain from calling people for a while and it totally worked. My friends, as a rule aren't exactly known for reaching out. I can go a whole year without talking to some of them on the phone. We always pick right back up when we're together, but these are the kind of long standing friendships that just don't need that daily maintenance. As such, no one has called me and I've called no one. Until I couldn't wait any longer and called Chelsea. She's a new crowned physician's assistant and her cousin just gave birth to a second baby. Evidently the baby had a rough first few hours and so she also gave me her thoughts on giving birth at a hospital. I guess her little cousin was a little blue after the birth. I would have followed up by saying that midwives carry oxygen and I'm only a 2 min drive to the closest hospital, 10 min from the closest hospital with a huge NICU. Oh well, I'm not having my home birth anyway so no need to argue.

During our trip this weekend up to SF and Seattle, we told Robert's good friends who are expecting in August. Amy was excited to offer advice and commiserate. Her husband seems to be pretty unaffected by all the hub-ub which is nice to see. I feel very disconnected from what's going on inside me and it's nice to see that others feel the same way. I also got to finally tell one of my peeps in person, my friend Sarah who lives in Washington. She was so genuinely excited and just lit up when I told her. It was amazing. It's nice to feel that connection.

I have in mind to finally tell works in about 2 weeks. My boss is out on vacation for the next couple weeks and I hope to tell him when he gets back. It's a really great opportunity for me to get everything right and announce my news when we're all feeling really good about my ability to do my job.

Ok, enough for now. More soon.

My super sketchy OB

So, I've talked a little about my desire to find a better pregnancy health care provider, but I want to do a detailed recap of what I've experienced so far, because this seems nutty to me.

I found my doctor through my health insurance's "find a doctor" link. I did a bunch of research about which local hospital I wanted to deliver at long before I was pregnant and determined that Providence Tarzana was my first choice due to their breastfeed rate, c-section rate, and proximity to our home. Great. My new insurance offers me exactly 2 doctors from this hospital. I googled them both and decided on my current OB based on a section of his website where he basically says "if you want a natural birth, do it at home". At the time, I'd hoped that I could change my husband's mind about home birth, and I wanted a doc who'd be supportive of it if I decided to go with home birth.

I called a day after my positive pregnancy test result. The receptionist took down my info and then declared that I couldn't know I was pregnant yet because I hadn't yet missed my period. I explained that my period had been due that morning (I have somewhat short cycles) but that I'd had a positive test. I had? She didn't seem to believe me. Yes, two in fact. Ok, she said, and so I was shocked when she offered me an appointment that Friday, at only 4 weeks (which really, is just 2 weeks, but whatever). I declined the Friday appointment and went in the following Wednesday.

The appointment turned out to basically be a pap smear and a prescription for a blood test. After the pap, the doctor gave me a stern talking to because I hadn't had a pap in 2 years. I explained, "my previous OB said it was ok since I've never had an abnormal pap." Yes, but that was no excuse not to have a check-up, he said. Uh, well, I had a check-up a year ago, just not the pap. So the doc explained that I should have a pap every year and that it's the insurance companies who simply don't want to pay for my care who are saying that I don't need the pap. This sounded like decent info, so I went along. Ok.

Then we had an odd go round of questions about me and my husband. He wanted to know my husband's occupation. I explained that he's self employee in office work. "Ok, but what does he do?" doc asked. Uh, he works in ticketing and in interior design. "Yes, but what is his occupation? What is his degree in?" the doc pressed while I looked on, puzzled. Uh, he was a poli sci major, but he's just self employed. He works at a computer all day. What the fuck does it matter dude?

And that was the end of my appointment. Come back in 3 weeks and we'll do an ultrasound. I was a little thrown since we hadn't actually talked about my pregnancy at all. What should I do now? What do I expect next? His answer was start eating healthy and come to my next appointment. Ok, and on his way out the door I called out to ask "Um, what should I be looking for if something's wrong? When do I call you and what's normal?" He basically said, call us if you have bleeding or serious pain. He'd see us in a few week and everything would be fine.

I was a little thrown, to be honest. It wasn't at all what I had been expecting. I thought there would be a lot more fanfare. I thought that we'd talk more about...well, more. He didn't even tell me what the prenatal appointment schedule is. He didn't even tell me my due date!

But I figured, whatever, maybe it's just that he likes to cover that stuff after the first ultrasound, so I made my next appointment and went to work.

A week later I get a letter in the mail from the medical group my primary care doc (oh the joys of HMOs) belongs to telling me that the ultrasound request was denied. Bummer. But by this point I knew that it wasn't a truly necessary procedure so I wasn't totally surprised. So, I called up the doctor's office and explained to the receptionist that I had gotten this note in the mail and I asked if I still needed to come to this appointment. She seemed put out at my question and said "Are you planning to continue with us?" Uh, yes. "Then why wouldn't you come to your appointment?" Inflection is difficult to deliver by blog, but hers sucked. I explained that I didn't know if this appointment was just for the ultrasound or what. "Well, of course it's not just for the ultrasound. It's your regular appointment." I was pretty unhappy with the attitude at this point, so I did something that I rarely do with strangers on the phone - I raised my voice and proclaimed "Well, I didn't know that! No one told me the schedule, so how would even know that?" I must have caught her off guard with my hysterics because she explained that yes, this is a regular appointment and that they would keep arguing with my medical group in the hope that I'd be able to have the ultrasound after all. Cool.

By this time I was already looking into midwives and considering other OBs. But when the midwife thing didn't work out, I resigned myself to going to my 8 week appointment, taking my long list of questions, and really evaluating this doc. Until today...

Today I got a call from OB doc's office and the call went like this:

Receptionist: Alyson, this is the receptionist at Doc's office. How attached are you to your primary care doctor?"

Alyson: Uh, I don't know. Why?

Receptionist: Well, the medical group he belongs to has repeatedly denied our requests for the ultrasound. We work with another medical group and if you switch to them we can give you better care because they approve our requests like this one.

Alyson: Wow, ok. Well, I do really like my regular doc

Reception: (enter previously mentioned bad attitude) Well, that's why I asked you that.

Alyson: (enter prevoiusly mentioned raised voice) I know, but it's reasonable to ask why when someone asks you a question like that. I think I'll call my doctor and talk to him about this.

Receptionist: Your doctor can't help you with this. He doesn't make these decisions.

Alyson: Uh, ok, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but I do want to talk to him before I make a decision like this.

Eventually she warmed up and said, go ahead and call your doc, we'll see you next Monday. Anyway, is it just me or is this CRAZY? I get the sense that doc here prescribes this ultrasound for everyone regardless, and while I wouldn't mind seeing my baby I'm well informed enough to know that it's not strictly neccesary. This makes me wonder what other tests he might prescribe unnecessarily and that worries me because extra tests could mean extra worries and stress for me. I'm not sure that's the approach I want to take. Plus, doesn't it seem a little unethical to call up a patient and make an unsolicited suggestion that she change primary care physicians?

Needless to say, there's NO WAY I can go back to this doctor again. It just feels to sketchy.

Food

I'm SO sick. The nausea comes all the time and though I'm trying to outsmart it, I'm still really uncomfortable a lot of the time. It seems to be tied most often to having an empty stomach. The trouble is that eating makes me wretch, but also not eating makes me wretch. So I'm trying to take small bites and not get too hungry at any one time. I have to find a way to work in some really low calories foods - more veggies really - because at this point I'm eating all the time and I've already gained 3 pounds since finding out that I was pregnant. I could easily gain a pound a week through the end of my first trimester. GROSS.

Our homebirth seminar was fine, but didn't tell us anything we didn't already know. I remain convinced it's the best way to get the outcomes that I want, and my husband remains unconvinced of the benefits and scared of the risks. So I'm back to trying to find a new OB who will have a better bedside manner. I'm focusing on doctors who will deliver at either Providence Tarzana or at Cedar Sinai. Problem with Providence is there are only 2 doctors on our insurance there and the problem with Cedars is a lot of the doctors are kinda far away to be going all the time. So I have a place to start and a plan in my head and we'll just have to see what happens.

One of the baby center posts asks about bonding with the baby. I'm not really sure what that means at this point, so I guess it hasn't happened for me yet. Maybe next week when we hear the heartbeat. Maybe not then. I started out this pregnancy in constant fear of miscarriage and I've definitely found that much of my fear has gone, even though the truth is that miscarriage should still be a real fear. Right now, I just feel lousy. Tired, nauseous, and with terrible heartburn. Nothing about that screams baby on the way.

Symptomatic

This week was all about symptoms. Last Tuesday I had my first bought of nausea. About an hour in to feeling just unable to move, I also felt REALLY hungry, which wasn't all that unusual. So, I decided I better eat something. Miraculously, that totally did the trick and I felt great the rest of the night. As I was getting ready for bed that night I told myself that I'd make an effort to eat frequently and at the first hint of nausea and I was sure I'd be fine.

Well, that turned out to be wishful thinking and I've felt some degree of nausea every day since. Sometimes it feel debilitating. The worst of it seems to come in the evenings between lunch and dinner, but I can keep it pretty under control if I eat. So I'm eating constantly. This is a little disconcerting given the fact that I'm trying not to gain too much weight, especially in trimester 1. But I guess being fat is better than being sick, so I'm going with it.

Anything healthy which I was on the fence about before being pregnant seems to make my stomach just roll. The smell of broccoli is just awful. The texture of things bother me. Today I threw away a pile of potato chips for no reason other than looking at them made me feel sick. My sandwich at lunch tasted great, but I'd waited too long to eat so I was nauseated all while enjoying the taste. It was a totally strange experience.

In addition, I'm completely exhausted all the time. I've been trying hard to hold myself together at work since things have been kinda crazy, and will only get worse in the coming weeks. I'm very nervous about how my bosses will take the news since I've only been with the company a few months and will deliver when I've been there about 13 months. They are great and would never in any way not support me, but in a way, I feel like I've let them down by doing this selfish thing. Many, if not most, of my co-workers really live for the job, and only one of my co-workers is a parent. So, I feel like maybe they won't understand my choice or will be frustrated at the ways my leave might set back the team. Anyway, I'm trying to accumulate plenty of accolades before I drop my bomb and being tired at work does not help my plan.

My boobs are finally starting to settle down and I'm no longer wearing a sports bra to bed. However, they've grown a good bit and are already all vainy and gross looking. I basically have a map of the Venice canals on my breasts. Fun.

Tomorrow, I'm meeting with the first of 2 midwife groups I'm considering if we got with homebirth. Sadly, the second one has yet to respond to my email, so I guess I'll have to try to set up an appointment by phone. I called my OBGYN's office today because I got a letter from my insurance saying my ultra-sound request was denied. I asked if I still needed to come in and the crabby receptionist started grilling me about whether I intended to keep using their office and why I wouldn't come to my appointments. She calmed down when I explained that no one TOLD ME what the regular appointment schedule was like and so I honestly wasn't sure. Sheesh! Yet another reason I'm not sure this team is right for me. I'm thoroughly bummed out at the thought that I'm going to have to interview both midwives & OBs before I can make final decision.

In a barely related aside, I was talking to my mom today about why I wanted to deliver naturally and how important breastfeeding is. She said something like "well it's hard because a lot of women don't have enough milk as the baby gets older." I explained to her that while that can be true, it's mostly due to human error and not the body being truly unable. I know that she'll support my choices and she'll listen to me when I explain why my thinking runs against the norm, but it frustrates me to no end that the general population is so unaware of the actual benefits and actual challenges of breastfeeding. I told my mom that while I might have trouble breastfeeding (in fact, I'm kinda figuring that at some point, it'll get really HARD) I don't want her to tell me it's ok to quit. I want her to know that this is more important than my comfort and my struggles and for her to tell me to just suck it up and find a way. I don't know if she can do that, but I know she'll try.

Tomorrow a review of the midwives.

Changing Pad and Pocket from Sewing Republic

Today I spent about 4.5 hours putting together this changing pad - pattern from http://www.sewingrepublic.com/projectPdf/ChangingPadPocket.pdf

I thought it would be pretty easy, but I ended up with a couple tough spots. First, the rounded corners aren't worth the design feature for my level of expertise. I also accidentally rounded all four corners, when the pattern only calls for two corners to be rounded. It might not have felt so frustrating if I hadn't had to do it four times. I also didn't fix the raw edges of the pocket before fixing it to the pad, which is pretty much common sense, but I didn't see it in the instructions.

Also, I continue to have a very difficult time with binding. I think I know what I did wrong this time, so the next time I bind something, I think I'll have a better time with it. Still, with tons of extra binding I somehow managed to end up with exposed raw ends on the "front" of the changing pad.

The great thing about this project was that I completed it quickly and I had everything I needed right here at home without going out for supplies. I'll probably try this again, and try to do a better job making clean stitches and just binding it like less of an idiot.

Stats

One of the books I'm reading is a pregnancy journal ("The Pregnancy Journal") that gives you a little entry for each day of the pregnancy. It also gives you little prompts and asks you to write about symptoms and feelings and whatnot. It also wants you to write down your weight and waist size. The book is brand new and I'd like to be able to sell it when I'm done, so I'm not writing in it.

I'm not willing to measure my waist right now, but my weight this morning was 129.8. I was hoping to finish this trimester at 130 pounds which means I'm going to have to do some calorie control and exercise. I'm only 5'2 which means that my starting weight of 127lbs puts me at a BMI of 24, or just barely south of overweight. I've hovered there for the last 5ish years and always hoped to get a little bit thinner before getting pregnant. It never happened. Anyway, the scale remains my guide and this journal serves as my evidence.