15 Week Midwife Appointment

I had my 15 week appointment yesterday. It was definitely a full crowd as all 3 kids wanted to come, my mom was in town, and I also dragged Gary along. As before, it was a very relaxed, calm visit with plenty of time to deal with kids in between taking care of the actual prenatal visit. We arrived in a rush after running around and picking up kids from school and meeting my mom. She gave us a mini-tour of the facility again. Josh seemed very impressed about the kitchen in the office! The kids immediately put a movie on and playing with the many toys Rebecca has available.

I peed in a cup, then we asked for another ultrasound so my Mom and the kids could see the baby. The baby was head first towards my back (so its feet were pointing at my tummy) so we had quite the time getting a good face or profile shot. The kids loved to see the baby jump and wiggle and squirm though. Rebecca then used the doppler to get the baby's heartbeat which proved impossible. The funny way the baby was laying meant we just couldn't pick up the baby's heartbeat over my own. She remarked she was glad she had the ultrasound since otherwise there would have been quite the panic, not sure if the baby was okay or not. (Which would not have been a good visit to bring the kids to!)

Then I weighed myself, and we decided to do the internal exam. I had my mom go out into the family room with the kids for this. :) No use scarring them! Rebecca was very professional and let me know everything she was about to do. She also did a breast exam, and taught Gary how to perform one. Apparently 70% of lumps in breasts are noticed by partners! After this, she asked questions about how I've been feeling (tired, sore in my pelvis) and suggested I pick up a bella band for pelvis support. I had no idea those things were good for anything but holding up your pre-pregnancy jeans!

I got dressed again and we sat on the couch and chatted about any questions and concerns I may have had. I asked her specifically about childbirth classes. From what I hear, Hypnobabies is wonderful, except that I can't get past the "hypnosis" thing. Which means hypnobabies wouldn't work for me at all. So we talked about some other options, and she gave me the phone number of a woman who has taught basically all the classes, and combines them. I really like the idea of a class that gives me a handful of exercises or tools I can use in labor, rather than just one option, such as hypnosis. This way if something doesn't work for me I can discard it and just try something else. Rebecca did mention this woman is rather hard to get into a class so if it works out, I'll post my thoughts about it.

We talked for a few minutes about scheduling the "big ultrasound" (I simply can't believe we're talking about it already!), since if I end up going to an IHC hospital, I need to schedule now. She asked if I was interested in AFP (AFK? AKP?) testing. Since it has such a high false positive/negative rate, and a positive would mean I'd have to do that scary test with the super long needle into the womb... we passed. The ultrasound will check for some of those same problems and honestly, if there was a problem? We'd just stress and worry till the baby came. I vote for blissful ignorance, thank you.

So that was our visit. My mom feels a little more confident in this crazy plan of mine, I hope. Gary was impressed that Rebecca remembered his name! When I'm in Rebecca's office, surrounded by pictures that Rebecca has assisted in bringing into this world, natural childbirth seems so do-able and not at all scary or psychotic. Which is a nice feeling!

I need to post the ultrasound picture and a belly pic soon! I stopped posting them every week because I felt like I needed to see a difference, and there really isn't that much change from week to week right now. But I'll get on that soon and be back to post more adventures from the womb.