25 weeks and 5 days

I really love my OB.

I got my positive home pregnancy test on a Friday night so on Monday morning, I called to make an appointment with a doctor. My new insurance covered my old OB/GYN, but she doesn't deliver at the hospital I now work at. The reason that's significant is because any hospital stay is just covered by my insurance. I only have to pay doctor fees. She also couldn't see me for several weeks and I had way too many questions to wait that long! I hopped on my insurance's web site and called the first doctor that popped up and she could see me a couple of days later.

I went to that appointment and just didn't have a good feeling about the office or the doctor. They had just moved the office and hadn't updated the web site or with my insurance so it was difficult to find. Then the doctor was two hours late with no explanation. I understand things come up, but I think my time is valuable too and all I want is a brief explanation and maybe an apology. Then the exam was just kind of not as private as I would have liked it to be. I thought about it for a couple of days and realized I was in complete control of who my doctor was. I went back to the insurance web site and found another office. I liked it better immediately because it was a group of doctors and midwives and not just one practitioner. There was an after hours number and it just felt better somehow. I called and made an appointment with the first available doctor.

She's from here and moved away for awhile and had just come back. So I am one of her first from the beginning patients and I just think she's fantastic. She's very down to earth and easy to talk to and amazingly helpful. She talks to me like I'm a real person and I feel like we could go have a drink and it totally wouldn't be weird. Ki really likes her too and I think that's important.

At my last appointment she started it off by saying "Hey McNeil, do you think I could put a bunch of Georgia O'Keefe paintings in my office or is that weird or cliche since they all look like vaginas?" I personally think that would be kind of awesome because who would say anything? And if anyone is going to have a bunch of paintings in their office of flowers that kind of look like vaginas, an OB/GYN should be it I think.

Anyway, today I thought I was doing a glucose tolerance test for gestational diabetes. It's pretty common in pregnancy and as far as I know not something you can really prevent exactly. Sometimes the extra hormones in your body trick your pancreas into not working correctly and you have to make diet changes and maybe take insulin to correct it. You drink this super sweet concoction and hang out for an hour and get blood drawn. If your levels are in a certain high range, you then do another test that is three hours long. If I have gestational diabetes, I'm okay with that. It could be a good opportunity to set up some really good healthy eating habits. Mostly I just don't want to have to sit in the lobby for THREE HOURS.

My doctor likes to do this test at 26 weeks. Today I am 25 weeks and 5 days. So, no dice which is kind of hysterical. But also a bit awesome because they just gave me the drink to take home and I can drink it and then hang out at home and go to the office to get my blood drawn instead of hanging out in the lobby for an hour. Friday it is!

I gained no weight so my total for the duration of the pregnancy is 4 pounds. The baby's heart beat is super strong and in the 140s. I can use a heating pad for my achy back which is awesome and I go back in two weeks! I have an appointment with the perinatologist on Thursday for an ultrasound so I'm looking forward to finding out how much the baby weighs. Four weeks ago it was 1 lb 5 oz and now I can actually see the baby moving sometimes, so I figure it's like 10 pounds. Just kidding. But since two days can make such a huge difference in glucose tolerance, four weeks is probably a pretty big deal in the size of the baby, right?