Tag Archives: Doctor Appts

Random thoughts and observations (20w3d)

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  • The raging psoriasis on my arms is gone. Apparently it’s a common occurrence during pregnancy because of the elevated estrogen levels. (I was surprised that it wasn’t from the progesterone, since that stuff seems to be responsible for everything else!) The stuff on my head is not nearly as bad, but I have been using a medicated shampoo for the first time ever – so I’m not sure what’s fixing that. (For those who don’t know, I have really horrible psoriasis on my arms: unsightly and extremely painful.)
  • I’m still not feeling anything from the baby. Really beginning to bug me. I think I’ve felt a flutter or three, but nothing more than that and not for over a week. Dangit, I’m more than halfway done with this process…. I wanna feel something! Plus, it’s just disconcerting to not feel anything. I want some sort of confirmation that everything is OK in there. I poke and poke at my belly, and I can feel the honeydew melon in there… but no response from it’s tenant. Wah.
  • Speaking of that honeydew melon… bending over is a thing now. Like, I avoid doing it now. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s not comfortable. And I figure if it’s not comfortable for me, it can’t be enjoyable for the baby. I’m noticing it more when I get into bed too these days. We have a fairly high-up bed, so it’s a bit of a climb to get in. Lifting my leg up that high kinda shoves everything up. Maybe it’s time for a little step-stool.
  • I have an appointment to see Dr. Schwartz on Wednesday afternoon. Dr. Schwartz said we could take another look and see if we can find out the sex at this upcoming appointment. I really hope the baby cooperates this time. I’m gonna drink orange juice on the way over to the appointment to wake the kid up. I REALLY wanna find out the sex. I’m pretty sure it’s a boy, but confirmation would be great.
  • I’m gonna talk to Dr. Schwartz about a bit of swelling I’m having in my ankles. Most days my ankles are a little swollen by the time I get home from work. If I put my feet up for a little while it goes back down, but it’s a little worrisome. I’m really concerned about pre-eclampsia, so I’m on watch for any symptoms.
  • Lastly, I’m STARVING. Like all the dang time. Doesn’t seem to matter what I eat, I’m ravenous again within 2 hours. I’m trying to make healthy choices, but it’s still worrisome. I’ve never been this hungry, this often in my whole life. It’s hard to deal with, cuz I know I’ve gained weight. Granted, I know that some weight gain is expected – cuz ya know, the baby is growing… but when you live your entire life trying to avoid any sort of weight gain, it’s hard to get right with this gain. (Plus the books and websites say I should gain somewhere between 0-14lb for the whole pregnancy, which short of living like I’m training for a marathon doesn’t seem possible or realistic.) I wake up a couple times a night to pee and most nights I’m starving for at least one of those trips to the bathroom. Usually I just ignore it and go back to bed, but then come 7:00am’s alarm I’m so hungry I’m nauseous. But eating in the middle of the night just seems so wrong. So yeah, there’s that.

Little Stinker… (17w6d)

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For those waiting with bated breath: WE DON’T REALLY KNOW. Sorry.

Our kid is a little stinker. The baby spent basically the entire time sitting on it’s butt, directly on top of my cervix. The tech tried and tried to jiggle it outta position, but nothing doing. (a couple of Andes mints didn’t help either.) She had a hard time even getting the measurements she needed for the anatomical ultrasound (femur, abdomen, head) because the little critter wouldn’t cooperate. And the couple of times it did move where we could get a look: it put it’s hand(s) between it’s legs.

But the good news is that Dr. Schwartz says everything looks fine. Some of the measurements are measuring “ahead” by nearly two weeks, but Dr. Schwartz says that’s because Paul and I are both tall, so we’re having a tall baby. It’s weight clocked in right at 8oz.

For those interested or who know what on earth this relates to:

  • Head Circumference: 16.25cm (6.4″)
  • Abdominal Circumference: 12.42cm (4.8″)
  • Femur Length: 2.5cm (1″)

The heartrate came in at 161, so according to old wives – it’s a girl. Dr Schwartz and the tech gave us a guess, but they both strongly cautioned us not to paint anything yet. I tried to explain to Dr. Schwartz that I’m a planner and I really need to know… he chuckled, told me to deal, and then listed his favorite neutral nursery colors.

Paul’s mom Jeanne came along today and seemed to really enjoy herself, especially when the tech turned up the sound and the WHOOSH-WHOOSH-WHOOSH of the baby’s little galloping heart stopped our chatter for a moment. I wish the kid would have cooperated a bit more so she could have seen it wave and face us like Paul and I have seen before. I invited her to come to the next appointment if she wanted to, since we’ll try again then to get/confirm the sex.

In the meantime, there’s new pictures that I screen grabbed from the DVD we got today. (I’ll get a DVD of the next appointment too.) They’re mostly body parts, but there’s a couple cool profiles – and an awesome 3/4 full face image from the heartrate image. It’s small, but if you’re good at all for looking at ultrasounds, I think you’ll see it. It’s kinda like the face on the moon… the baby is looking to the left. You can see the chin, lips, nose, cheeks, forehead and a dark hollow where the left eye is.

Blurry face
Labeled blurry face

The rest of the appointment was pretty ordinary. Insulin and one BP med were upped a tad. Weight is up .5lb for a total of 4.5lb in 18 weeks – just fine. My next appointment is in 3 weeks, which is great. The fewer appointments I have for a bit, the less paid leave I have to burn. (Last week’s illness cost me 3 days of maternity leave…) They drew blood for TSH, a1c, and the 2nd part of the quad screening. (Dr. Schwartz took a copy of a bill I got from the lab for $700 worth of “genetic” tests that my insurance is denying from my first visit in November… I LOVE that he’s willing to take on that kind of stuff for his patients.)

So for now I guess we’re looking at more gender neutral stuff, since we might not find out the sex of our little stinker until July!

Little brat. :) (15w6d)

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Today’s appointment would have been very short were it not for the uncharacteristically long waits in the waiting room and in the exam room.

My weight is down a pound, my blood pressure is in a happier range, and my blood sugars are making Dr. Schwartz smile. (For once he didn’t change my insulin dosage!) Dr. Schwartz walked in the exam room, looked at me sideways and asked “How’s your boobs?” (I emailed him last week about a sudden re-occurance of tear-inducing breast pain. Turns out it’s just another Joy of PregnancyTM. But he did offer some advice on bras and whatnot that he assured me he had to research, as opposed to knowing off the top of his head. I’ve linked the worst of the pain to a ridiculous sensitivity to cold, so I’m making sure to stay well covered up, especially at night. Because crying during one’s morning shower sucks.)

We chatted a bit and he reassured me that I’m doing fine, baby is doing fine and if I wanted, I could space my appointments out to three weeks for a while since he’s confident that I don’t need to be ‘checked on’ as often now that we’re out of the scary 1st trimester when so many things can go wrong. (Holy run-on sentence, Batman!) I’ve even been given leave to stop e-mailing him my blood sugars if I don’t want to. (I think I still will though, cuz I feel like I’ve barely got a handle on them.) I think I’ll start spacing out the appointments though, so that I don’t burn any more sick leave than I have to. The more I can horde, the longer I can stay out on maternity leave.

The next appointment is February 10th which will be lots of bloodwork (including the quad-screen to follow up the 1st trimester’s triple-screen) and the BIG anatomical ultrasound – so it should take nearly an hour. We’ll find out the sex, assuming the little critter cooperates.

Speaking of the little brat… We tried to see the sex today, but the critter was having none of it. It turned it’s back to us three times. The tech actually had trouble isolating the heart because the baby wouldn’t stop flopping and flailing around. I was disappointed that I didn’t get much of a look, but I’m OK with not knowing for two more weeks. I’d really like Paul to be there when we do. We’ll be sure to get a DVD of the next ultrasound, and hopefully it will include some good pictures.

No news on sex, but good info (13w6d)

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Quickest appointment yet today. But I guess I’ll be having more like this for the next couple of months.

Took a quick look at the baby, mostly to check the heart rate (160, just like it has been.) Didn’t get a measurement, but the critter obviously bigger than it was two weeks ago! (According to the intertubes, it’s 3-3.5″ or roughly lemon-sized.) It was just kicking back, with it’s arms up, like laying in a hammock. The tech got two pictures, but they’re pretty fuzzy. It was bobbing it’s little head, but not dancing like last time. (This appointment was at 3:00pm, whereas my others have all been before 10:00am… so maybe afternoon is siesta time?)

Dr. Schwartz went over my 1st trimester screening results with me and things are looking great.
Downs Syndrome result is 1:4800 (chances of the baby having DS are one in 4800 similar births.) The baseline chances for someone of my age with my health profile was 1:320, so the actual test results tell a MUCH better story.
Trisomy 18 result is 1:2350, which I guess is very good. Dr. Schwartz says anything over 1:100 is fabulous.
Based on these numbers and the great results on the nuchal fold screening, there’s no need to seek further testing (like a CVS or amnio) at this time.

My a1c is down to 6.3 from 6.5 when I first got pregnant. (The a1c is like a 3 month report card on my blood sugar control. Anything below 6 is non-diabetic territory, so I’m doing fabulous in this regard which basically negates any diabetes-related risks to the baby.) Thyroid is creeping up a little, which is expected. My thyroid meds will prolly get adjusted at my next visit, if for nothing else than to negate the fact that I’ve got 30% more blood volume now. My blood pressure was lower than it has ever been – which means the new med (Methyldopa) that was added to my regimen last time is working. Still on the high side, but Dr. Schwartz was happy to see some movement on that, finally.

I e-mailed Dr. Schwartz yesterday with a couple of questions, so he’d be ready to be interrogated. Got some surprising answers, not what I was expecting from the reading I’d been doing in books and online.

Delivery: Currently Dr. Schwartz is planning on letting me go to 39 weeks – so delivering around 7/10/10. (If I went to 7/11, this would be the 3rd kid in my family with that birthday, which includes my brother!) He wants to avoid a C-section if at all possible. Vaginal delivery has a lot of benefits to the baby, but mostly he doesn’t want me to have to deal with recovery from abdominal surgery. He feels that at my current weight and as a diabetic, recovery would be less than optimal and that I would be in a lot more pain & have a longer recovery than average. He’s totally open to a C-section if it becomes necessary, but has every intention of inducing me first and letting me at least attempt to labor. He said that actually he expects me to do well with a vaginal birth. So YAY for that. I’m not all crunchy granola and ‘needing’ to try to push the kid out – but I’m totally open to the experience. I am also totally open to the epidural as soon as they’ll let me have it. :)

OMG pains: Apparently mostly what I’ve been experiencing in the last two weeks has been “low pelvic pain” as opposed to “round ligament pain” My pelvis is splitting apart and it’s totally normal. Hurts like hell and scares the crap outta me when it takes my breath away or wakes me up in the middle of the night, but it’s normal. So whee and hooray for being pregnant.

Bedrest: Currently not a big concern. Dr. Schwartz says I’m doing fine and that he avoids complete bed rest if at all possible. Apparently high risk pregnant women are at higher risk for DVT (blood clots) when on complete bed rest. He didn’t rule out modified bed rest for the last month or two though – which would mean that if I’m not at work, I’m home with my feet up. (Honestly other than the fact that modified bed rest would mean baby/house prep has to be done sooner, being ordered to go home and put my feet up sounds pretty good actually.)

Next appointment is first thing in the morning on Wednesday the 27th. Dr. Schwartz says we’ll try to figure out the sex at that appointment, but if we don’t get an answer then we will for sure at the next appointment which will be the “big” anatomical ultrasound. So hopefully we’ll know soon!

Little Dancer (11w6d)

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We have quite a little dancer on our hands. It was flipping and wiggling and kicking and WAVING at us. But it behaved just beautifully for the ultrasound tech – even flipping to the other side to give the tech a better angle for the Nuchal Fold screening.

Paul was just slack-jawed the whole time. I was pointing out what we were seeing on the screen and he was just amazed when he finally started to see the little critter on his own. It was pretty awesome! I was laughing and giggling like a loon every time it waved at us! I couldn’t believe how active the little shrimpy thing is!

12 Week profile, over 2 inches!

There’s new pictures in the gallery, and we’re working on putting up the little movies they gave us. (The tech made us a DVD instead of printing out pictures this morning; how cool is that?) Just click the above picture to get to the gallery (or click the “Gallery” link at the top of the page.)

Nuchal Fold screening went just great. The tech & Dr. Schwartz discussed which picture/measurement to submit for review and the “official” measurement. They decided on the largest measurement she could get, which was 1.21mm. Anything under 3mm is just great, so we were very pleased with these results.

They took a bunch of blood for the 1st trimester screening panel, and gave me supplies to (ick) capture all my urine for 24 hours. So Sunday will be fun. But they gotta check for protein and something else, and this gives them a baseline.

Insulin got bumped up a little more (2 units) and Dr. Schwartz is adding another BP med since I don’t think the Labetelol is really doing anything. But he’s OK with my BP where it is, and is happy to see my blood sugars where they are. Nobody had mentioned my weight to me at any appointments so far, so I asked. Turns out I lost 2lb this time, which seems odd to me, cuz I feel puffier than ever and can’t fit into some of my jeans already.

All in all, great appointment. Paul and I are so stoked!!