Heartbeat?

On Monday, I was feeling pretty defeated, thinking that I'd never hear from the midwife again. It turns out, she finally got hold of me on Monday night! The first time I had talked to her, she was driving and talking to me at the same time so she never got my phone number. She called the other midwife who referred me to her and got a number to call me, but it was the wrong number. She had been leaving messages for me on someone else's voice mail. To top it off, she didn't get my message because she was in the middle of changing cell phone providers. She finally checked her email and got my correct number and got in touch with me soon after. Whew! What a relief! So we set up an appointment for Thursday (today).

I'll tell more about my appointment with the midwife after I've had a chance to digest it a little more. Maybe tomorrow. For now, I want to share my experience with the gynecologist. I still went ahead with my appointment I had with her yesterday. There are three reasons for this:

1) I wanted to hear a heartbeat as soon as possible.

2) Any lab work I want to get done will be covered by my insurance.

3) God forbid, in case anything happens where I need to go to the hospital I'll have a medical history on file with a doctor, which will make it a little faster to get the care I need in an emergency. Sort of a back-up plan if you will.

My appointment was at 9:00 am and since I've never been there before, they asked me to show up a half-hour early to fill out paperwork. So I got poor Danzo out of bed at 6:30 and we were out the door by 7:30 to make it there on time. As I was pulling into the parking lot at 8:30, my phone rang, but I couldn't answer it because I was driving. Once I parked, I listened to the message. It was the receptionist from the doctor's office, "Hi Tami, if you haven't left yet, please give us a call."

When I heard the message, I knew there must've been a scheduling conflict. I walked in the office and they told me that the gal who scheduled me for 9 am didn't take into account that the doctor would be in a meeting over at the hospital until 9:00 and wouldn't get back to the office until 9:30 at the earliest. They told me I was welcome to wait or, even better, come back at 11:30. I told them that we would go run some errands and come back at 11:30 since that seemed to be easier for them. They looked relieved and thanked me.

Danzo was an absolute trooper as I dragged him along to Wal Mart, Big Lots, and Pet Sense. You see, when you live about an hour or so away from stores, you've gotta get as much shopping done in a day as you can. We do as much shopping in a day now as I used to do in a week when we lived in the "city." Its a big headache for me, but I'm sure even more so for Danzo, but like I said, he did great. I gave him a few snacks here and there and he was happy. No melt-downs.

We got back to the doctor's office a little after 11:00 on the off-chance they might take us in a little early. No such luck. They took us back around 11:30 and had me strip down and get into the ever-dreaded gown that opens in the back and lay a drape over my lap. I sat there for an entire hour trying to keep Danzo entertained in a stuffy, sterile exam room. Again, he was still doing good. He had his new car I just bought him at Wal Mart and he was happy enough. By now, after all this waiting I knew a melt-down was just around the corner. He had a few snacks, but it was well past lunch time and even I was feeling a little woozy from no real food.

Finally, the doctor came in with her prestigious white coat on. She shook my hand then shot a nasty glance over at Danzo as I introduced him to her. It was obvious he wasn't welcome there especially since the paperwork I filled out just before the appointment asks that patients not bring their children to the office with them. The doctor sat down and looked at my chart. Instead of having a conversation with me, she shot question after question at me like I was in an interrogation.

Then, like most doctors do, she assumed that she had a full say over the medical procedures to be performed. She listed off all the things she wanted to do. She wanted to give me a flu shot. When I declined, she tried to scare me by saying a pregnant woman's chances of dying from the flu are double than that of a non-pregnant woman. I still declined since I'm not really convinced that's the truth. I was also pressured to get a Tetanus-Diphtheria-Wooping Cough vaccine. I declined that too. When she got to the mention of a pap smear, I told her a pelvic exam was fine, but I wanted to pass on a pap for now. She looked at me with squinted eyes and said in a piercing tone, "Why?"
Then I started to stumble over my words a little as I explained that I didn't want any more scraping around than necessary. She shrugged and shook her head then said, "Alright, no pap."

I was feeling flustered for even having to explain myself especially since I felt like she didn't really want to know why I didn't want a pap smear. She just wanted to hear how stupid my answer sounded to her. Its like she was pulling rank on me instead of trying to understand me. She probably also didn't like the fact that I kept declining all the things she could do to me to get some quick money from my insurance company.

It was time for me to be examined. Poor Danzo had been so good up until this point. He was at my feet while I was sitting on the exam table.
I said to him, "Okay Danzo, I need you to go sit in the chair now."
He replied as most 2-year-olds do if they don't quite like a situation. He yelled "NO!" and didn't budge from his spot.

Of course he was right in the doctor's way. Then he decided to start messing with that little rolling retractable step at the bottom of the exam table. The doctor was not having that at all. She got flustered and said in a stern voice, "Denzel, that's mine. I need that and I need this space."
He still didn't move and wasn't going to, so with the doctor and assistant standing there glaring at me and me with my naked but hanging out the back of the gown, I got up and physically moved him to a chair.

I laid down and the doctor got the doppler out to hear the heartbeat. She tried for maybe 2-3 minutes then told me she couldn't find anything and she was sending me to the hospital for an ultrasound in an attempt to see a heart beat. After she said that, I don't think I really heard anything else she said. I went into sort of a daze and started to have flashbacks to my first pregnancy that ended in miscarriage. My mind began to work overtime to think of ways to cope with loosing another baby as she proceeded with the roughest, most uncomfortable pelvic exam I've had in my life.

After interrogating and pressuring me, scaring the crap out of me by not finding a heartbeat, then molesting me, the doctor sent me on my way and I was told to schedule my next appointment on my way out. Yeah right. Like I want to come back in two weeks. No thank you. My appointment only ended up being about 30 minutes. The amount of time we had to kill and wait for the appointment was 7 times longer than the appointment itself. Not something I want to experience again anytime soon. 

Besides, I had to get to the hospital asap. I contacted  grandma Cindy to see if she could watch Danzo while I went to get an ultrasound. She was so on-the-ball that she got to the hospital before we did. Danzo got to spend time with his grandma while I went inside to discover the fate of this pregnancy. The hospital staff was very friendly. The ultrasound technician thankfully had a great sense of humor that helped get me get a little bit out of my shell of frazzlement. He got some images on the screen and quickly found a heartbeat! He took some measurements and said that the baby looks completely healthy. I even got to keep a couple images. Unfortunately, they got crumpled by somebody's tiny hands, but you get the idea: