Week 18

Here we are at Week 18.  At least, that's what I'm going with.  This week was a rather emotional week for me.  It started out with an absolutely awful visit with my current OB.  I went in for my next check up, expecting the always joyful pelvic, pap-smear, and breast exam that I was told I would have at this appointment.  After waiting for over an hour in the waiting room...again...I was taken back to the nurse's station.  As the nurse was taking my blood pressure, she commented to herself that I was at 22 weeks.  I laughed, and told her unless they knew some kind of voodoo medicine, I was only 17 weeks.  She got all confused, and I had to give her my entire history AGAIN!  Never mind that this same nurse and I spent over a half hour doing that during my last awful visit.  Then she said she would have to track down the results of my pap-smear from my last visit, since the results weren't with my chart.  I told her that would be hard, considering I hadn't had an exam during my last visit, but was expecting one that day.  She said according to the chart, I had my exams the last time I was there.  At this point, I thought I had lost all confidence in this staff's competence.  I didn't know I could fall further...

I finally made it to the exam room, and lucky me I was instructed to dress in a couple different sheet-like dresses for my exams.  The doctor made her way in (the same OB I saw last time), and says hello while looking at my chart.  She says, "Well, 22 weeks!  You're over half way there!"  I sighed and told her I was only 17 weeks, which prompted her to ask, again, for all my history.  I asked to make sure they had the right chart, and apparently they did.  She said that she needed to refer to my ultrasound for my due date, and to verify how far along I was.  I told her that she had ordered an ultrasound that I had two weeks prior, and that the ultrasound verified I was 17 weeks and 1 day, with a due date of August 11.  She shook her head and said, "Oh no, we always refer to the earliest ultrasound for the due date.  According to that ultrasound that I did, you're at 16 weeks today, with a due date of August 19, and that will never change."  So I asked her why in the world she had ordered the second ultrasound if it wasn't to pin down a more precise due date.  Her reply? "I'm not sure why we ordered that ultrasound."  ARE YOU SERIOUS?!  I don't care what she says.  According to my calendar, and how this pregnancy has gone, it makes more sense to me that I'm at 18 weeks, so until someone with a bit more competence tells me otherwise, I'm sticking to that schedule!  How dare she try to take that week away from me! :)

So, she finished my exams while I was fighting back tears of frustration, and then says that she'll finish up her notes outside and I can go ahead and get dressed.  I had some questions I had wanted to ask, so I asked her if she was going to be coming back after I was dressed, or not.  She looked at me kind of blankly and said, "Oh, yeah, what are your questions?"  Seriously, this doctor was going to leave me naked on this table, and not ask me even ONCE how I was feeling, if I had had any concerns, NOTHING!  This is the second appointment in a row that she hasn't asked me one single question about my health.  

To make an already long story just a mite shorter, my questions had to do with whether or not she'd support a VBAC with a midwife, in which she very condescendingly communicated (with as many 4 syllable words as she could muster), that she could not.  After insulting my intelligence a few more times, she was gone.  After a fiasco at the scheduling desk over my next appointment, I finally made it to the car.  Danny was so mad, and I was fighting back tears.  After getting home and spending the rest of the evening with me in tears, we decided that was the last visit with that doctor that I was EVER going to have.

The good thing is that the experience did light a stronger fire in me to make a VBAC happen.  I wouldn't let that woman close to me with a scalpel anyway! :)  I made some phone calls this week, and I talked to a women's clinic in Ogden that is very supportive of VBACs, and I'll be making an appointment today to visit them while we're in Utah for the wedding in April.  Danny is working on seeing if we can switch insurances, so as to have the baby covered if we decide to deliver in Utah, and we meet with the midwives (Karen and Ali) on Monday.  One way or another, we're going to make this happen.  And it won't be in a hospital here in the AV.

Otherwise, this has been a better week sick-wise.  I only threw up after a panic attack on Friday (my first one since Rachel died.), and I really haven't struggled with nausea or headaches.  But I've been OH SO TIRED!  And I don't suppose that will change for a very very long time.  :)  We moved the desk out of Johnny's room on Saturday, and are working towards getting that room ready for a nursery/guest room.  I can't seem to find a cross stitch pattern that speaks to me, which I'm getting a little antsy about.  I need to start working on something for my little guy.  Well, until next week's update, which I sure hope isn't so long...or if it is, I sure hope it's more positive!