first OB visit

ok, so on July 26th we had our much anticipated first OB visit. The OB office at Kaiser is great, small enough that it feels personal but open and airy with an awesome view out the window. My dear husband and I walked up to the desk and handed over my id card, etc. They promptly checked me in and offered me a label (which I was then instructed to use on the cup for my urine sample – which apparently Kaiser wants from me every time I walk in the door!). I was pointed to the bathroom for the obligatory sample and Greg made himself at home in the waiting area – he holds onto my purse very well!! J I joined Greg and waited to be called. The wait was brief and I was then taken to a scale to be weighed (I made a point to take of my sandals even though the attendant gave me the option to keep them on – come on I don’t need any extra weight recorded!). My weight wasn’t a surprise, so that was nice. I have absolutely no idea what my "pre-pregnancy" weight was (don’t have a scale) so… I told the nice lady that it was probably about the same as the current weight (keep in mind this appointment was at about the 8 week mark). I then have my blood pressure checked – it was apparently very good – yippee. We were then ushered into an exam room and I was instructed to disrobe and put on a gown and hop on the table. I obliged and we waited – me a bit cold – for the nurse. The nurse was great!! I am forgetting her name now, but she was wonderful. She was surprised that I was in for that appointment… I dunno if Kaiser messed up with scheduling, but I was apparently supposed to have a pregnancy confirmation appointment prior to my appointment with the nurse… Well we didn’t care (we knew the baby was there) so the nurse just proceeded with business as usual. She talked to us about possible due dates – based on our estimate it was about March 7th. She talked to us about tests we could do on me or the baby to determine possible pregnancy/birth/after birth risks. She told us she was completely against abortion!!! Yippee!!! (that is a good thing for several reasons, but one being the fact that she is an OB nurse!!) That was also great, as we then knew that she was being honest with us about the need/needlessness of the elective tests. – we opted for only the blood test at 16 weeks (I think its called AFT, or APF or something similar). Greg was very involved with asking questions about the tests and was glad that if something about our baby was found that they were not going to encourage us to "take care of the problem (AKA abortion)" but rather "figure out the best way to address care for this baby!!"
Anyway… the discussion continued with the nurse, again, I didn’t feel rushed at all and I loved that it felt like we could take as much time as necessary and ask questions. It was like the nurse cared about us!! I am not really fond of doctors in general and ask anyone who knows me, I would rather be pretty much anywhere than in a hospital, so I was surprisingly comfortable! I think that has a lot to do with my dear husband being at my side – literally a few inches from me – throughout this whole process! Ok, so here was a funny part of the conversation. The nice nurse asked what kind of birth control we were planning on using after this baby is born… well, we looked at her kind-of dumbfounded and said – "none" and she seemed surprised… "no birth control at all" To which I innocently responded "well, we’re Catholic" I guess she might be used to cafeteria-style Catholics, as she didn’t seem to think being Catholic had anything to do with not using birth control… so we then proceeded to explain to her that we got married in January, we built our house, we conceived this current baby, and are now planning on starting our family – and by starting our family we mean that we are going to continue having children after this first one. She still seemed a little glazed over, so to allay her fears of me coming to Kaiser every 10 months popping out another baby, I told her that we have practiced Natural Family Planning (NFP) and anytime we want to naturally space our babies then we have the knowledge on how to do that. This apparently set her a little more at ease – I think she was familiar with NFP. HAHA! - crazy people living up in the foothills wanting to actually raise a family of children!! We must be insane! J or filled with the love of Christ and in full awareness that children and blessings from God Himself!!!
Ok ok, so the next part was also a but humorous/exciting/slightly uncomfortable. I was stripped down and in a gown during this whole time of conversation mind you, and I am a fairly modest person… so when our friendly nurse proceeded to hike up the table and have my put my feet in the stirrups I kindly informed her that I had only had a "woman exam" once in my life – a few months ago before we got married. She responded almost in the same way as when we told her we weren’t going to use birth control, but then said she would be very gentle and talk me through it. So, to spare you the details – she did an internal exam and determined my uterus was at 8 weeks (HOW THE HECK DID SHE DO THIS???) then, since the baby was little at the point she used the internal sonogram wand – hmm- prior to this visit, I didn’t know that this instrument existed! Well, we were pleasantly surprised when the machine beeped on and the were able to see our baby live!! Greg promptly pulled his chair right up in front of the screen – I could barely see, but I didn’t want to break that too him, so I let him narrate to me what was going on … the baby looked very cute – the nurse was trying to get a good shot to measure from the head to the bottom – so we got to see quite a bit of the baby: legs, arms, head, heartbeat, etc… at only 8 weeks we were just blown away at how amazingly developed this precious life already was!
I had tears in my eyes as the nurse printed off a picture for us and congratulated us on our baby… she scheduled our next appointment and then left to room – allowing me to redress and Greg and I to excitedly oogle over our first baby photo.
Praise God!