I’m about 18 weeks pregnant, so I figured it was high time to see a doctor. I would have loved to see a midwife, but as they’re not allowed to deliver babies in hospitals in this area (and there are no birthing centers), and Josh has a thing against homebirth (still), it’s doctor+hospital for us this time. I was hoping we’d be in a different city with more birthing options, but none of those jobs worked out for Josh, so here we are. I will be looking up doulas, though. And giving birth in a brand new, pretty hospital with private rooms (but, alas, still no birthing tubs.)
The day before yesterday was my first prenatal appointment. My last pregnancy in with this doctor was a Medicaid pregnancy, and I have to say, I like the insurance pregnancies a *whole* lot better. Medicaid pregnancies have you visiting the health clinic, seeing health clinic nurses, until you are 36 weeks along. Then you get to meet your doctor. And, even better, the first few appointments are group appointments with 20 other pregnant women where they teach you pregnancy basics that anyone who’s ever picked up a pregnancy book would already know. Like, please don’t smoke. Or drink. Or use the illegal drugs. And “this is how your baby will be coming out of you.”
It was a bit demeaning, to say the least.
And the nurses weren’t the friendliest. I actually had one tell me I should not have gotten pregnant so quickly after having my first (so quickly = 12 months later). And then she proceeded to tell me how horrible her older sister was to her and how they never got along growing up. Oh, really? Thanks for your opinion, but shouldn’t medical professionals keep that kind of thing to themselves? And even if it were medically unsafe, it’s kinda late to do anything about it now, dontcha think?
But insurance pregnancies are better. I met with the doctor right away, all by my lonesome (well, Josh and the kids were there, too). I was expecting to hear the heartbeat yesterday and was all excited about it. And then they led me into a room WITH AN ULTRASOUND MACHINE. The health clinic didn’t have any of THESE. Yay. So not only did we get to *hear* the heartbeat, we got to SEE it, too!
The baby is developing perfectly. It measured 17 weeks, 3 days, which was just one day more than the doctor had guestimated using the oh-so-intricate counting-of-days method. He could have told us the gender, but we were undecided as to whether we wanted to know (I wanted a surprise, Josh wanted to know), so the doctor refrained from checking.
He then scheduled ANOTHER ULTRASOUND for two weeks from now. He explained that his practice was to do an initial ultrasound on the first visit, then one at 20 weeks. For me, those are only two weeks apart. So we have two weeks to come to an agreement as to whether we want to know the gender. Should I cave and find out?
Other commonly asked questions:
How are you feeling? Not sick. Yay. I do get tired pretty easily. But other than that, pretty normal! The 2nd trimester is usually the best.
How’s the baby bump? It’s definitely there. Sorry, no pictures. Maybe I have one from Christmas break that I could show you, but I’d have to go through them all, and there’s just no time for that right now. I’m not in maternity clothes yet. I tried on a maternity shirt the other day and pretty much swam in it. My jeans are getting snug in the waistband area, especially when I sit down, but the rubber-band trick relieves that pressure nicely.
Can you feel it move yet? Yep! Starting at 16 weeks, I could feel it roll over, especially in the mornings when I was laying flat on my back. I can feel little kicks from the inside, but have yet to be able to coax it to kick my hand, so Josh has yet to feel it.
Did I miss any FAQs? I have to go now, Josh is attempting to clean the bedroom with two kids, who are screaming at each other for some silly reason.
You’re back!
I’m glad you finally got to a doctor, and that you have insurance this time around, and that everyone’s healthy & doing well. I tend to be the uber-practical one, like your Josh, so I’d want to find out the gender- if nothing else, so that you can stop calling your baby “It”. We need a new pronoun.
I can’t believe you’re to the halfway mark of this pregnancy, practically!
Congratulations on getting to hear/see the heartbeat! I’m sure that must be so comforting. I’m glad that everything is measuring well too. All good news!
Don’t you just love the “How are you FEELing?” question? I have answered it so many thousands of times. It’s really funny at church when I will get it so often that I won’t even have a chance to answer the first person before the second person asks it! I think the emphasis is to let me know that people really do want to know, but it is goofy sometimes. I like to vary my answers, “Great!” “Blessed.” “Kicking.” People don’t like it very much if you say, “A little sick, actually.” or “Sore.”
I know this is #3 for you, but it’s just funny to look at human nature.
I think that if I was pregnant, and already had a boy and a girl, I would wait to be surprised. 🙂
nope. dont find out. the ‘Its a _____” moment is UNBELIEVABLE.
we’ve done it both ways. found out with the first, let the second surprise us on his birthday.
if i could go back, i’d have had our firstborn surprise us too!
congrats on such a great appointment.
So glad you’re back. I’m sure I speak for a lot of us when I say we missed you! And it’s hospital/doctor for me this time around too. 😛 Oh well, as long as I get a healthy baby I’m happy!
And for me the finding out part was mostly my husbands decision. He really wanted to feel part of everything going on and without the whole “feeling it move inside you” part, I think knowing really made him feel like it was all real. Plus we got to start calling the baby by name and for us it was a great bonding experience. Now if only we could figure out a name for our little girl!
So glad everything is going well for you!!
Oh yay! Glad to hear things are going well! I’m sorry you live in a poopy city without midwives at hospitals 🙁
When I was in early labor, I could totally see the appeal of home births. After I developed a complication (pre-eclampsia), I was so glad I was in a hospital and because of this, I’ll probably always deliver in a hospital in the future.
I’ve only been unpregnant for 2.5 weeks, and I already miss it! Being pregnant was so fun and good to me, and the hormonal fall afterwards…not so much.
Someday, again.
Anyway, I vote for finding out! I get the whole “surprise” thing, but for me, finding out helped me to bond with my boy a little before hand. If I didn’t know what to expect, I’d probably be disappointed either way. Cuz I’d get a boy, but miss out on getting a girl, or the other way around. Does that even make sense?
You can keep the name a secret so you’ll still have a surprise for everyone later!
Think about it 🙂
I think if i already had one of each I’d let it be a surprise, but the hubs says he’d want to know, maybe Josh can find out and not tell you. I’ve heard of couples doing that.
I’m so glad you’re back! I missed you!
Beth, you don’t know me but I read your blog!
I don’t know exactly where you live, but somehow I thought it was in Indy somewhere?
If that’s true, and I didn’t hallucinate, there is a birth center. http://www.indianabirthcenters.com/indy01.html
I am 39 weeks pregnant and about to deliver my baby at the birth center in Muncie (we live in Anderson, about 25 minutes away from the birth center) but there is one in Indy as well. The midwives there are awesome and I highly recommend them.
If there are complications, they can transfer you to Methodist really quickly (or Ball Memorial in Muncie). And the midwives have access to Methodist, so they could go with you.
Just something to consider. Blessings to you during your pregnancy!
Alissa
Ooo, you have one of each gender, so a surprise might be fun 😀
Good to hear from you 🙂
If you haven’t done a Bradley class, I highly recommend it before you do a hospital/doctor birth. It’s SO worth the money and the time.
glad you’re back — and doing well!
🙂
i’m SO glad everything is good…we missed you around here…
dd was a surprise, ds we knew…and honestly how can you EVER be disapointed…its good either way and don’t let anyone tell you different,
if we have a third (god bless) we’ll try to find out again, cause I (imho) think its great for the siblings to better can acclimated and get to know the new little one…
Nice to see you again. Don’t know if it should be a surprise of not. Of course letting him know wouldn’t work because he would slip and would find out.
I always have to find out if I can, I am terrible with secrets and would much rather know.
Wow, I never had a bad experience with Medicaid like yours. So I hope that everyone doesn’t think that Medicaid is all bad. My Medicaid pregnancy was really no different than my insurance pregnancy. I never saw anyone but the doctor in a private visit, I got to have 4 ultrasounds that I didn’t have to pay for, and they even paid for me to have necessary surgery during my pregnancy with the best doctor in the state. So I really think it depends on your state. And they paid for a necessary c-section. I was never treated like a second class citizen. I had exactly the same treatment that anyone else did. So if anyone here is worried about Medicaid, I would find out from others to see how your state handles pregnancy.
Torey raises a good point. 🙂 Our county is really lopsided with all the Medicaid pregnancies, since it’s a college town filled with internationals and generally poorer people. There just aren’t enough doctors to go around. And doctors are dropping Medicaid left and right because they don’t get paid as much for them and Medicaid tries to force an unreasonable amount of patients on them until they finally say “enough!” and drop it entirely. We don’t even have enough pediatricians that will take Medicaid patients for this reason. Hopefully this is a rarity!
That’s becuase medicaind only pays ten cents on the dollar.
As regards to home birth, as a future ob/gyn, allow me to counsel you against homebirth. Because of the rapidity of onset of complications in neonates and the mother, and the rapidity with which any medical response must be administered, giving birth in a hospital is really the only safe option for both baby and mother. Also, the lurking pathogens in even the cleanest house, pose a severe risk to the neonatal immune system, and have, in some recent papers, been linked to future allergic hypersensitivity, and in one study, even autism.
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