Posts Tagged ‘medical appointments’

Dearest Rhino,

Today you are now one month old! It has definitely been the most amazing month of my life. Your birth was the most beautiful event I’ve taken part of. Labor was hard, but Daddy and I were well prepared. The very second you were born all the pain drained out of me and I was filled only with love and joy. Daddy and I screamed with excitement and cried tears of happiness as we held you for the first time. It was definitely love at first sight.

The month has flown by so quickly. Daddy had ten days off work when you were born so he could take care of us. And you had a lot of visitors! Aunt Jen, Daddy’s sister, was also here to help out and spend time with you. She decorated our apartment for your arrival, took a lot of pictures of you, and helped Daddy and I out a whole lot. When you were almost two weeks old Grammy, my mommy, came to visit you from Colorado. We took you out to a restaurant for the first time (Chinese food), went to Santa Barbara, had your first bath, and had your two-week pediatrician visit. Grammy also helped Daddy and I out tremendously by cooking some yummy dinners and doing lots of cleaning. While she was here, you went to church for the first time and were dedicated to the Lord. There was a little ceremony in front of the whole congregation where our friend and church elder, Jim, said a very nice prayer for you. Grammy had the video camera to record the whole thing. She did a terrific job and we were very pleased to have a video of the event to share with people who couldn’t make it. But when we got home to look at the video, we found that Grammy never actually was recording! She felt very bad, but it funny now and there will be plenty of videos of you in the future! The day after Grammy left, Grandma and Grandpa (Daddy’s parents) flew in from New York. They brought lots of gifts from family and church members back there. While they were visiting you were held and played with all the time. A bunch of ladies from church also threw you a party where you got so many clothes and nice things! When Grandma and Grandpa left, we got a little break from guests to just spend time with you alone. Then yesterday Pop, my daddy, came in from Texas to meet you. You, Pop and I took another trip to Santa Barbara to pick up your birth certificate and go out for pizza. We also visited the base where Daddy works. Today is my 25th birthday, so Pop took us all out for a nice dinner where you were very good! Pop will be here a few more days before going back to Texas. Other than family members, my friend Denna and her 18-month old son Tyler came to meet you. Tyler loved spending time with you, holding you (with me), patting, and kissing you. You also met people from church who have come over and you have been to our weekly Bible study. You sure have had an exciting month of meeting new people!

You sleep a lot and don’t cry very much. Sometimes you sleep in the bassinet, but usually you sleep with us. I didn’t used to think we’d want you to sleep in the bed with us, but now I wouldn’t want it any other way. I love cuddling up together as you feed, then drift off to sleep. I love even more waking up with you as you stretch and grunt yourself awake. You eat a lot and have grown so much! In the three days you were in the hospital when you were born you lost 10 ounces. By your one-week appointment, you gained it all back and then by your two-week appointment gained 9 more ounces! Everyone thinks you are going to be very tall, just like Daddy. Most people also say you look just like Daddy. I think it’s because you have dark hair like him. We looked at some pictures of me when I was about your age and were very surprised that you look a lot like I did. So now we think you look like both Daddy and I — you have the best of us in you!

Daddy and you are getting along very well! He was worried before that he wouldn’t know what to do, but he is an expert at taking care of you! He is a pro at diaper changes (and asks to do them to give me a break!), holds you in the shower while we clean you (yes, you take showers now!), and talks to you and plays with you all the time. You are very lucky to have such a wonderful, loving Daddy and we are so lucky to have such a sweet baby!

It is a very exciting time for our new family. Daddy was supposed to be transferred to a new job just a couple weeks after you were born! The job is in Japan and that isn’t a good idea to move right away, so we asked to have it bumped back to the end of March. So now we are getting ready to move to Japan for about four years! Your grandparents aren’t quite as excited for us, because they just met you and now they are going to miss you a lot because you’ll be much farther away. We will take lots of pictures and videos of you for them and you have all ready used a video camera over the internet to talk to your grandparents. We will visit when we can and they will even come out to see you! Japan should be a very neat place. Daddy has always wanted to visit there and now we get to live there and see lots of new and exciting things!

We thank the Lord every single day for blessing us with you, such a beautiful, healthy boy. You have made us so happy and we are so excited to get to know you better and grow with you. We will do our very best to take care of everything you need, to love you completely, and to help you grow healthy and strong in body and in faith. We love you, Rhino. Thank you for making us a family!

Love,
Mommy

There really hasn’t been too much of interest over here. Pregnancy is going well. I’ve had two appointments since my last update, both of which are fairly uneventful. My strep test came back negative, thankfully. Nothing’s really “happening” yet. We hired our Bradley instructor as our doula. She’s on call for us exclusively since last Friday until Baby is born. The doctor didn’t seem thrilled about our plans, but she doesn’t work for him. Plus, she’ll be spending time with us at home from the time that I start labor, if I like, until a few hours after Baby has arrived. It will be nice for Matt to have some extra support, to have another person “on our side”, and to have someone with us before we head down to Santa Barbara. I’m feeling more confident about the whole experience and am now just getting a little anxious! I don’t mind being late, I just don’t want my doctor to start pressuring us into induction or for things to run too late that getting all our PCS paperwork finished in time becomes too stressful.

The ladies from our Bible study are planning a second baby shower for us, though it will be after Baby is born. I thought it would be nice to plan around when my mom is visiting, but that is so up in the air it would be impossible to plan around. I set it for March 2nd, the weekend that Matt’s parents are visiting, so that will be really nice to attend with his mom. We’re going to do a dedication at the church also, so I picked February 24th (I sure do hope Baby is here by then!) and maybe my mom will be out for that! She sent us some really cute knitted and crocheted christening outfits a little while ago (I’m not sure if she wore them as a baby or if we did) that would be perfect for the occasion.

We had plans last break (Mon-Wed) to visit with our friends Denna and Adam in Ventura then head down to LA to spend some time with Jen. Well, Matt’s monthly training came up on Tuesday, so we weren’t able to make it down to LA on Monday. We did go hang out with Denna, Adam and their son Tyler during the day for chatting, shopping, and dinner before heading back home Monday evening. Then after Matt’s morning training on Tuesday we made the drive down to LA. The weather has been really rainy and crummy out here, so driving 3 hours in the pouring rain was sort of a bummer. Jen’s been out here for a while, but whenever we get together she usually wants to escape the city and visit with us, so we had never been down to see her place! We relaxed at her apartment, ate cookies, met her roommates, and watched some movies. It was nice to just veg and chat with her. Wednesday morning we went to the Apple store to pick up an FM transmitter for our iPod for listening in the car and had lunch at the farmer’s market. I wish we could have spent more time, and this will probably be our last opportunity to go down there, but it was really great to spend some time with Jen. The drive back wasn’t so terrible at first. It was still raining like crazy, but traffic wasn’t bad and we were making really good time until we got just north of Santa Barbara, almost home. We were then sitting at a stand-still for over 2 hours over an accident. Matt took a nap and we watched some Invasion on the iPod and got progressively grumpier. It was a long drive home and we didn’t make it to our Bradley class (Barbara said it’s the most important one, too!). We have our 12th, final class this Wednesday so we should be able to catch up a little. It was a long trip home, but we were safe, just tired.

I’ve been working on school, trying to get as much finished as possible before all my time is taken up with Baby and moving stuff. The term goes until the middle of April, but I don’t expect to get too much finished in March. We have 3 times that relatives will be visiting, will have to take care of all the paperwork for Matt to get his orders and Baby to travel with us, and will be dealing with packing and moving issues on top of recovering and getting used to Baby. I’m really looking forward to it, but I know schoolwork will be the least of my concerns. It’s going kind of slowly, though. I’m doing a big critical thinking paper on obesity in the U.S. and have a handful of calculus papers that I’m thinking about working on. I am just not so motivated right now and it’s not exactly fun stuff for me. My mentor wants me to knock the 3 classes I’m taking out early so I can pick up another before the term is over, but that just isn’t realistic. Once we’re in Japan I’m hoping I can burn through them more quickly, but right now it’s just not going to happen.

We took another photo tonight. This is 35 weeks, 5 days.

I think we’re also pretty much decided on names now, too. If it’s a girl, it’ll be Maia Joy (if we ever have a second girl, then she’ll be Madeline!). If it’s a boy, it’ll be Ryan Lowell. Yes, Lowell just kind of came up out of nowhere recently, and it surprised me that we both liked it. It happens to mean “little wolf” in Old French, and Matt loves wolves, so that’s just perfect. (Here are other names we had been considering.)

We had our 9th Bradley class tonight. We talked about cesarean sections (and watched a video – ick!) and advanced first stage labor and a few other things. We also chatted with the instructor after class about doulas. Andrea asked me about whether or not I think she should hire a doula for her birth and it never really occurred to me. I figured, if you have a husband coach, why would you need one? I brought that up to our instructor, since she is a doula, and she explained the role and the importance of her job. I’m thinking it might actually be a good option for our situation. Since I’m a little worried about whether our doctor is going to bully us around or try and convince us that we need certain interventions which we aren’t interested in, it would be nice to have someone else to sort of stand up for us. She has a lot more knowledge and confidence and would also serve as an assistant coach. Matt will be the main coach, but he will need support, or possibly rest, or she can run errands, etc. We also get a 50% discount because we are Bradley students, which puts the service within a what I think is a very reasonable range for what we’d get. Matt and I are going to talk about it a little more and research some other doulas in the area. And I know our doctor sort of rejected talking to me about a birth plan the first appointment or discussing medication and other options, so I really haven’t brought anything up about what we want and don’t want. He knows that we’re doing Bradley classes, so if he knows anything about that, then maybe he can make some assumptions about what we don’t want. Our instructor mentioned a home birth with a midwife, which has been something on my mind since my second appointment back in August. We’ve switched doctors all ready and really like the hospital in Goleta, so I’m thinking I’d rather not do a home birth anyway. It’s something I’d be interested in possibly for the next birth, but I feel like it’s too late to change now. I still like the idea of a water birth, and I can’t do that in the hospital here, so if I did a home birth later on that would be an option. Anyhow, it’s something I never really considered, but we’re going to be talking about having a doula present at the hospital after all. I think it could make the whole thing with the doctor less stressful. So we’ll see what happens with that.

Matt and I decided to switch doctors. I’ve only heard nightmares about the Lompoc hospital and have received an overwhelming amount of advice to switch to the Goleta Valley Cottage Hospital. It seems that the facilities down in Goleta are quite a bit nicer. I was worried about the drive; it takes us 45-60 minutes to get to the hospital from home. I’ve been assured that we’ll have enough time and that the distance shouldn’t be an issue. I’ve also been a little disappointed with the doctor we’ve been seeing. He’s fine and didn’t do anything wrong, but I just didn’t feel warm fuzzies when I went. I felt that he was a little condescending when answering my questions, wasn’t very personable, and every one seemed to be in a bad mood whenever we went. I was also really ticked off that our 22 week ultrasound experience wasn’t quite what I was hoping for. So we picked a new doctor down in Goleta.

The office is really cozy and the nurse was super-nice. I liked that I was more involved in the appointment and was told what my measurements were, what was going on, and was asked questions and if I had any. I’m a little disappointed again because I think the new doctor and I don’t quite see eye-to-eye. I have been looking at birth plans and thinking about what I want and what I don’t when I deliver. I asked when I should bring that in to talk about how it will go. He just flatly says that he doesn’t pay those any attention and there’s “a lot of weird things out there.” I was really interested in a water birth as well, and saw that the birth center has tubs in the deliver rooms. Apparently a water birth isn’t an option either, he doesn’t seem to approve. I brought up medications and how I don’t want any and he just turned away and said “well, we’ll see about that. You’ll change your mind when the time comes.” I very well may change my mind, but I felt like he was pretty rude about it and wouldn’t even talk to me about what I want. There’s a few things that I’d like when the time comes and I know it shouldn’t be a big deal to them, but it is to me, so I’m hoping they’ll listen to me. Matt will have to be my voice, too, and make sure they don’t give me anything I don’t want. I like that we switched doctors because the facilities seem a lot nicer, but I’m not as thrilled as I was hoping I would be with my visit.

So I had my blood test Friday morning at 8 and was told I’d be guaranteed the results within 24 hours. The lab said they’d have it finished by noon. At two I called the lab they said “yup, we have it done, but we can’t tell you anything about it. Call the clinic.” So I called the clinic and the airman on the phone took my name and number and said the doctor will call before close of business. At 4:30 I called back to see if they’d forgotten me and yes, the emergency on-call person told me everyone had gone home and no, she could not look in my file.

We felt pretty confident with our two home pregnancy sticks. It’s more common to get a false negative if you’re going to get a false reading anyway, right? I couldn’t stand to just keep my mouth shut all weekend, so we made our calls. I love our families’ reactions!

This morning I called the clinic to see if a doctor had 60 seconds to read me my results. No, so I left my work numbers and I was told I’d be contacted shortly. Five short hours later, I called back. Nope, I’ll get a phone call by the end of the day but if I want to pick up my lab report, that’s my right. I rushed down to the clinic for my printout. There wasn’t much on the paper, but there was a line on there that read: HCG SCRN. . . . . POS (NEGATIVE) Well, that was confusing. I don’t like faded pink lines or POS (NEGATIVE)s. I need things to be concrete. I tried to ask the airman behind the desk what this was supposed to mean and he told me he couldn’t discuss it with me at all. I protested a little and he told me “a doctor will call you tonight. Then you’ll get set up with an OBGYN and some prescription vitamins. Here’s some papers,” as he handed me an ‘expectant parent’ packet. I was fine with that. I did end up calling again at 4:25 to see if anyone was actually going to call me. I sat on hold for about 10 minutes until an airman jumped on the phone, apologized, told me my test was positive, and hung up. I’m still annoyed, but at least I have an answer. Thank goodness I get a referral to have all my appointments in town rather than having to deal with the on-base clinic.

What an awesome anniversary gift! Thank you, Matt!!

By the way, according to online pregnancy calculators, my due date should be February 7th. We’ll see what the doctor says.