All was quiet until....

Let's face it, my pregnancy has been boring.  I have constant morning sickness but with medicine it's managed.  Other than that there's just been nothing to talk about. 

Wrong.

Of course, what I wanted least was my gestational diabetes to return.  I fought it.  I exercised.  I ate as low carb as possible.  It's just in my chemistry. I get pregnant and sometime around 28 weeks my blood sugars go insane.  I've been monitoring them the whole time... and like clockwork at 30 weeks they went crazy.  The endocrinologist I've seen in the past is located in downtown Charlotte.  I'm an hour away.  Her office runs a minimum of an hour behind (they warn you of this when you make appointments) and each appointment lasts about an hour.  Doing the math I'm looking at a minimum of 3 hours to get that done.  And that's once a week.  On top of OB appointments which are also once a week.  I begged my OB for an alternative.  Because my OB is awesome he found me an alternative diabetes center - at a hospital 10 minutes from my house.  SCORE!  My first appointment went fine.  It's the same suggested diet as the other place although for some reason this diabetes center made a point of having a whole page of literature about why I shouldn't have saccharine.  When I promised not to use my time machine to go back to 1974 and have a Tab to drink they seemed satisfied.  I can shrug that off as a quirk of the office. Well, my numbers suck.  My daytime numbers are fine - my fasting number his horrible.  They want it around 80.  Mine is like 115.  I email my numbers to the dietitian assigned every Wednesday.  Of course, I never hear back from her.  I'm concerned because my numbers are so high so I call.  Then she emails me back. Oh yea, you do have high numbers.  We might just make an adjustment to your medication.  Let's see how you look next week.  Because my pregnancy hormones are getting stronger rather than weaker, my numbers the following week were worse.  But nothing.  Finally I have my sit down appointment with them yesterday.  It goes like this:

Them: "Wow, your numbers are bad.  What does your doctor say about this?  

Me: "I haven't seen the doctor in 2 weeks."

Them: "You're going to need insulin."

Me: "okay."

Them: "has your doctor given you insulin yet?"

Me: "No."

Them "I wonder why not."
Me: "I haven't actually spoken to or seen a doctor since I was referred here."

Them: "Oh, we don't have a doctor.  Your doctor will have to control your insulin."

Me; "um, so why do I come here?"

Them: "we just help with diet."

I am incredulous.  What exactly is my insurance company paying exaggerated. insane fees for?  For someone to cheer me in my continued avoidance of out-dated artificial sweeteners?  We both realize that there's no need for me to be there anymore.  They promise to call my OB and have a long talk with them about whatever.  I'm seeing my OB tomorrow anyway so I'm just ready to get out of that office.

I make a quick stop at the grocery store and head home.

Then I hear the sound.

It's the distinctive sound of a flat tire.

Well, there it is. 

I do make it home and as I'm getting the jack out of the back of my car I realize that I'm almost 33 weeks pregnant.  I simply cannot change the car's tire.  I make a few frantic texts to arrange to have my youngest brought home from preschool then sit and wait for 12:30... when my husband would be available to take a phone call.  I needed to know whether to just call AAA and have them change the tire or if he wanted to take care of it.  Of course he wanted to take care of it - but had a meeting from 2-3.  The G needs to be picked up from his school at 3 and that's when things got a little dicey.  Husband drove home by 1:30.  Took the tire off the car.  We drove to the tire shop and dropped it off to have it fixed then drove back to husband's office.  Dropped him off.  Drove back to G's school.  Picked him up.  Drove back to husband's office.  Picked him up.  Drove back to the tire place.  Picked up the new tire.  Drove back home.  New tire goes on the car.  Not in time, though, for us to make it to G's piano lessons.  He's thrilled.  I'm exhausted.  

And so we reach today.  OB appointment day.  I also have my first non-stress-test (NST) of this pregnancy.  It goes with the gestational diabetes territory.  I couldn't get an appointment until 11am.  Which is dicey because NSTs are 20 minutes... THEN you see the doctor and we had the whole insulin crap to deal with.  I arrive 10 minutes before my scheduled appointment and I wait.  And I wait.  And I wait.  Finally at 11:20 I ask what's going on.  The nurse is, apparently, running behind.  You think?  Finally at 11:35 I'm called back.  And it's her.  The nurse.  The BAD nurse who can't ever find my baby's heartbeat.  I brace myself.  This is going to be bad.  

She's wearing a mask.  Either she hasn't had a flu shot or she has had the flu and is contagious.  

Thanks for that.

Also, thanks to the mask, I'm unable to understand anything she's saying to me.

Sweet merciful crap can I just do this myself???

We go through the weight, blood pressure, are you having headaches or swelling dance.

Now it's time for the NST.

For some reason she gets the doppler first. 

Why God?

Why?

She cannot find the heartbeat.
Now I can SEE the baby moving under her stupid doppler.  There is no concern in my mind about the baby.

I'm concerned about who is going to bail me out when I get finished throat punching this woman.

I finally point to the spot where his heartbeat always is and say "you might try right here.  This is usually where we find him."  

She rolls her eyes and moves right to where I pointed and - what do you know - INSTANT heartbeat.  In fact, it was so loud she jumped and moved her hand, then spent a few seconds finding the heartbeat again.

All of this is for naught though as we still have to start the damn NST.

She hooks me up to the monitors (the same ones you wear when you're in labor) and off we go.  Heartbeat is a solid 145 ish.  And the kid is moving.  I have to push a button every time he moves.  I may as well hold down on the button for the first 15 minutes.  He's moving so much that it's making the monitor make all sorts of crazy sounds.  Of course, for some reason, this nurse has the volume up so loud that I can't think, I can't play on my phone, I can do nothing but hold the stupid movement button down and watch the clock knowing I'm going to miss preschool pickup.  Again.  The kid is going nuts in there.  His heart beat ranges from 137 - 185.  The nurse is insisting he has the hiccups by saying "yo bay-bay got the hiccups."  Yea, I've been pregnant before.  This isn't the hiccups.  The kid is moving like crazy.  I finally put my hand on my stomach and shift around  a bit to get him to calm down.  It works.  He goes to sleep the last 5 or so minutes of the NST.

Given the all clear, I have to wait to see the OB.  I make the call to husband.  He needs to do the preschool pickup.  I'm stuck here.

When I finally see the OB (after a different nurse gets fussy because I don't have a piece of paper with my fasting blood sugar from this morning on it.  Apparently ME writing it down and handing her the paper for her to photocopy is way better than her just writing the number 118 on my already updated blood sugar chart) he's tells me that he's going to manage my insulin, this isn't a big deal, we go through it all, bada-bing, bada boom.  It's nice to finally talk to someone who knows what they're talking about.

He did tell me that they will never, not ever, no way, no how schedule my c-section before 39 weeks - so it's up to me to go into labor in that 38th week.  Stupid doctors with stupid ethics and rules.  I'm waiting for a call back to get that scheduled.

All of this is exhausting and frustrating.  If one more person says "but you're almost there" they will die from the burning glare I give them.  Anyone who wants to spend the next 5-6 weeks shooting themselves up with insulin, testing blood sugars, restricting their diet, vomiting or feeling like they will, dealing with the back pain, insomnia, being up from 2am- 4am every night, feeling a baby kick your internal organs so hard that you can actually HEAR things moving inside your body -- all going to the doctor once a week and dealing with 2 active kids and a (admittedly very supportive) husband with a demanding work schedule - they're welcome to trade me places.  Also - if you want to give the baby a name please feel free.  We can't decide. 

NOT AGAIN!

It happened AGAIN.

Regular OB appointment.

Nurse comes in.

Nurse can't find the heartbeat.

I contain rage and anger and horror.

Doctor comes in and says he'll try for a minute but if he doesn't find it he'll just take me to ultrasound as he knows I'm about to jump out of my skin. (As an aside, this is the doctor who saved my life with G, did my D&E, delivered the Bear and who, as far as I'm concerned, walks on water). He plops the doppler on my growing belly and 30 seconds later finds the heartbeat about 4 inches above where the nurse was looking for it.

Relived? Yes.

Amused? No.

I need to hear that whoosh whoosh whoosh of a baby heartbeat or I go to a very, very unhappy place.

Turns out $40 on Amazon will fix that.

Check out the Angel Sounds fetal doppler. I was dubious that it would work so early in a pregnancy but the reviews all suggested that it would work by about 14 weeks and for the money it was worth a shot for the piece of mind.

I added $4 to the Amazon Prime we already have – to have it overnighted – that's just how I decided to roll.

It absolutely need some sort of gel to glide over your skin. I actually ended up using some of the Pure Romance “just like me” lube that we had because, well, it seemed like the right consistency. It worked like a charm. (I do have some actual gel that I ordered with the Angel Sounds thing but I didn't feel the need to overnight it) I found the baby's heartbeat after about five minutes of trying. The machine doesn't give you a reading of the heart rate itself - you just hear that lovely sound that lets you know the baby is still there.

I've had it for about a week now... and believe it or not, I don't use it every day. There's no time for it during the day – and at night I'm busy or exhausted or both. I do love knowing I can check in whenever I want on the little lemon (current estimated size of the baby) and get the piece of mind I need to be comfortable.

Also, since I figured out how to do it in about 30 seconds – what exactly is the problem with the nurses at my OB's office?  I am going to go with "overworked" as opposed to "lazy" as I'd like to give the benefit of the doubt.  Clearly though, they need another doppler-operation seminar!

Limbo

I am now nearly 13 weeks pregnant. I can see the second trimester just over the horizon and I'd sprint there if I could. I keep hearing about the second-trimester burst of energy and not only could I use that, my family would be really appreciative of having mom back instead of this lump of boring who is able to do just enough to keep things going but isn't able to really get into anything.

But a couple of weeks go, it was a different story.

At 10.5 weeks pregnant you're in limbo.

If you're me, you start to look dumpy in your regular clothes but refuse to move on to maternity clothes because it may jinx the pregnancy.

Most of our family and close friends know I'm expecting but it's not out there on Facebook for all of the masses on the interwebs to comment on.

In full limbo mode, I went to the OB's office for the big 10-week work up. This is the long Q&A with a nurse detailing both my husband's and my health histories. This is the third time we've done the work-up. I'm not at all sure why the nurse needs to know about my husband's grandfather's health history or how it pertains to the baby, but here we are.

She drops husband in the room and takes me to the scale. Down 4 lbs, BP was 114/62. Yippee! She then asks in a whisper: “I'm going to ask you some very personal questions. Is there anything you don't want me talking about in front of your husband? We can talk about it now. History of STDs? Abortions? “ I assured her that I had no secrets and we went to the room to get started.

15 – 20 minutes of boring questions asked by a disinterested nurse. When we got to my pregnancy history she went from disinterested to insulting. She couldn't fathom why I differentiated between my miscarriages and a woman having an abortion. The conversation went something like this:

Nurse: How many pregnancies have you had?

Me: 5

Nurse: How many living children do you have?

Me: 2

Nurse: How many abortions have you had?

Me: Zero.

Nurse: Okay, then, um, how many kids do you have?

Me: I have two sons.

Nurse: And you've had 5 pregnancies?

Me: Yes.

Nurse: And no abortions?

Me: No, I've had two miscarriages. One at six weeks. One at 9.5 weeks. I have never intentionally ended a pregnancy.

Nurse: Oh, okay, two abortions.

Me: (sitting on my hands to not throat punch her)

Now, I understand that in medical coding a miscarriage is an abortion. I know that they code my ultrasounds in the 1st trimester as “threatened abortion” because I have a long history of miscarriage. But, word to the wise, abortion in the general world means something else.

That cleared up, the nurse continued her dry, droll questioning. Husband & I are honestly just happy to make it to this point in pregnancy and we're trying to be cheerful and engage her in conversation.

Then she says:

Okay, I'm going to go get the doppler and we'll listen for a heartbeat then you'll see the doctor.

Right. Now, I know that at 10.5 weeks it's unlikely we'll hear one. I have a big tummy and scar tissue from two c-sections. I also know that not hearing one will send me into an anxiety place that I'm not interested in being in. Remember, I'm in limbo and I'm the mom who has been on the wrong side of statistics several times in my pregnancy life. After forever, the nurse comes back in with the doppler and for 15 agonizing minutes tries to find the heartbeat. Nothing. I knew this. I expected this. I hate this nurse. She says:

Oh, there's nothing to worry about. Everything is just fine.

Husband responds:

“How can you say that? You have no idea if everything is okay.”

“Well sir, she is really early to hear anything on doppler”

'Yes, but she has a long history of miscarriage. We just talked about it. Don't say everything is fine. We have been on the other side of fine before.”

I fall in love with my husband again for confronting the nurse and acknowledging our miscarriages.

The grumpy nurse takes us to yet another room and says the doctor will try but again, everything is fine.

I sit in silence for 10 minutes. Fuming. Angry. Hating my scar tissue for blocking the doppler. Hating my fat tummy for blocking it. Hating my husband for calmly playing on his tablet like nothing was wrong. Hating limbo.

The doctor comes in. She'd helped deliver G and was happy to see us again. She says she's gonna give it a shot on the doppler. She means business. She presses gently at the top of my growing tummy and squishes everything up a bit. She searched for less than 3 minutes.

There it was.

The reassuring whir of a baby's heartbeat on doppler We were able to get it for about 10 seconds...  baby's heart  was beating at 151 beats per minute.

I wanted to kiss the doctor.

I feel out of limbo, but I'm still not ready to switch to maternity clothes just yet.