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.