Waking Early

Is that how it is for you? There are shoes on the floor in the kitchen, the highchair tray needs to be cleaned off and dishes unloaded from the dishwasher. The bed that I stripped earlier needs to be made, and it’s comforter put in the dryer. It’ll take me at least an hour to complete all the little things that need to be done before I pray and close my eyes to the world. But first, I must blog.

So…

today’s topic: OB visit number 1. 10 Weeks gestation!

My appointment was at 9:30.  The bus picked me up at 8:40 and had me to the hospital by 8:55. The OB/GYN office is really close by the hospital so I decided to pass the time in the hospitals cafeteria, maybe find something good to read. I had a muffin and a nice hot drink. It only cost me a dollar and twenty cents! There weren’t any newspapers or magazines laying around so I just read the hospital information packet.

It’s really not a bad hospital, very family friendly…it doesn’t have a starchy clean feel to it, like big efficient hospitals. As I sat there waiting for time to pass my thoughts helplessly fell back on the hot summer days surround Diederick’s entry into the world. The food from the hospital’s kitchen is quite delicious and I got to have three meals a day for free while there for our four day stay, it was so great. And in the birthing center they had a refrigerator stocked full of upset tummy settling treats available for devouring between meal hours. No outside hospital food allowed in. Oh and the room was so nice too, being half conscious at best I was thankful to have such a friendly helpful staff. All the same, I did wish my mom was there.

Shaking myself out of memory lane I headed over to the OB office. I checked in five minutes before my appointment and settled down with a magazine. I think read the better part of four mags before my name got called.

I’m so happy to be ten weeks! Ten weeks means the outside of the baby looks like a baby, a baby hardly over an inch long, but one all the same. A baby that has earlobes and finger tips, a baby that will have it’s first bowel movement in just one week.

Good news on the cramps, well encouraging thoughts anyway.

The midwife who I saw today, Raine, said that it could be a type of morning sickness. Instead of the internal upset and sensitivity to smells and tastes being manifest in nausea my body is reacting with periodic abdominal spasms. I’m not quite sure if there’s scientific research that says that the two are interchangeable, I know I hadn’t heard anything like that before. However, it was nice to see Raine so confident that I’m OK. She said that I’ve been doing the right thing to take it easy when I feel pain, but not to worry myself about it. If there’s blood then I have permission to worry–fair enough.

We just filled out paperwork. She did it really quickly, like some kind of machine without neglecting to talk as she did it. I appreciated that she was so efficient with it, especially since she’d been half an hour late to the appointment.  You know, come to think of it…the same thing happened on my first visit with her when I was pregnant with Deeder. “I got an emergency call from the hospital” Hmm…Oh well, I digress. I’m not saying that she’s lying, she just must meet up with loads of emergencies.

Raine gave me a lab slip for some blood work and had me schedule an appointment to come back in 3 weeks for my physical. As I scheduled the appointment I recalled that that was the appointment I missed in August. The day before my physical I miscarried, that was August 15th. A shiver ran down my back as I cleared my throat and took the appointment card from the receptionist. She said, “Well, we’ll hope to see you then.”   I said that I hoped so too.  I think everyone’s holding off on the congratulations for another 30 weeks.

I met with the outdoor 40 degree weather just in time for the bus. What a relief to not have to stand out in the cold!!! The bus ride home took forever and a half, or that’s how it seemed to me…probably because I was anxious about Deeder and his mystery illness. The bus driver needed to fuel up the bus (he forgot to that morning!) so everyone had to get off. Then he took his lunch break, thankfully for that we were all able to stay on the bus where it was warm. Now that’s something you wouldn’t find in a big town–a bus driver who takes lunch during a route.

Raine said that at our next meeting I’ll get to hear this baby’s heartbeat.  So I have an appointment card and a lab slip, and the hope of a heartbeat in three weeks.

I got another lab sheet in the mail today from Karen Gilbert my nurse practitioner at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical center, she’s my neurologist for less! We’ve only met the actual neurologist once, she doesn’t do office visits. I’ll have my Lamictal level drawn and my OB blood work at the same time, it’s always great to save a trip.

That’s all for tonight. Can you tell I’m bummed about not getting to hear the heartbeat? Well I am! Really though, if there’s a heartbeat today there will be one in three weeks, right? I can wait.