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It has taken me a while to feel connected with this pregnancy. Between the surprise factor that took me a while to get over and constantly feeling sick, getting to a point where this pregnancy felt real and I felt connected to the new little life I am creating has been a struggle. And, the fact I’ve struggled to find that connection has made me feel horrible. I’ve never struggled to feel connected to my pregnancies before.
Slowly, the various steps of early prenatal care have helped. My first appointment, complete with my first peek at Little #3 helped it feel a little more real. My first trimester screen ultrasound, watching Little #3 do his/her acrobatics on the screen and seeing a little baby taking shaped helped. Hearing the heartbeat with the doppler at my last appointment helped. All these things have helped and yet I still don’t feel like I’m where I should be yet.
Last week I began the feel the tell tale pop pop popping of those first flutters, those first movements. Feeling those first little flutters has really helped build a connection. I wouldn’t say it is where it has been in my previous pregnancies yet, but I’m getting there. I’ve always loved the first little flutters. Those early movements that only I can feel. I didn’t think I’d feel those again so I’m trying to savor them.
The near constant nausea is still hanging around. I had a week or so where it has eased a bit and I thought I was almost out of the woods but it has returned, blah :/ These little flutters sure do help make feeling sick all the time a little more worth it.
I had my second OB appointment last week, the first with my actual OB. My new OB was out of town on vacation when I had my first appointment so I met with her fill in for my first appointment. I was really looking forward to my appointment Friday so I could finally meet my new OB, and make sure I liked her.
My appointment this time was at a different office. She sees patients at two different locations. One here in Issaquah, where I went last time. It is her main office, but she also sees patients in Bellevue as well. Her office in Bellevue is actually a couple of exam rooms borrowed from another doctor so the setting isn’t nearly as nice as her other office. I’ll likely continue to go to the Bellevue office until Maya is done school for the year as it is close to her school and easy for me to get to right after dropping her off in the morning. When school lets out though I”ll definitely go back to seeing her at this office here as the office is so much nicer and I prefer the staff at the Issaquah location.
Anyway, as for Dr. E, I love her. She is down to earth, super friendly and has a ton of experience bringing babies into this world. Since there wasn’t much to do at this appointment just weight, blood pressure, pee in a cup and listen to baby’s heartbeat, we spent most of the visit talking and getting to know each other. I really appreciated how much time she was willing to spend with me, without making me feel like she had some where else to be. She was very open about her experience delivering babies and her thoughts on my experiences and how we should proceed with this pregnancy. I feel like I’ve made a good choice. And, although, I would prefer to have my favorite Dr. C from St. Louis delivering this baby, I think Dr. E is going to be a good alternative.
As for how this pregnancy is coming along she said everything looks great. I didn’t gain any weight, which isn’t a surprise given the constant nausea and daily vomiting sessions I’ve been dealing with. My blood pressure was good and the baby’s heart beat sounded great. She had all the results in from my blood work and my ultrasound a couple of weeks ago. Everything came back great. My risk factors for chromosomal abnormalities came back extremely low, that of a 20 year old. All my blood work looked good too.
Next up is some additional blood work in a couple of weeks, my next appointment in 4 weeks and then the big ultrasound to check on the baby’s development and to find out if The Surprise is a boy or a girl.
This pregnancy seems to be going by pretty fast so far, especially since I’ve been feeling so horrible. I’m already in my second trimester. I’m still feeling pretty crappy most days, but I have some reprieve every now and then so hopefully the light at the end of the tunnel is just around the corner.
Being that I’m now in my 26th week the time had come for every pregnant woman’s favorite prenatal test, the glucose tolerance test. Lucky me! When I had the test done during my pregnancy with Maya I failed (just barely) the 1 hour screening and had to go in for the dreaded 3 hour test, which I thankfully passed. So, this time around I was a little more nervous. I knew what to expect. I remembered the foul taste of that glucose drink. I remembered the waiting. I remembered how much it sucked to hear from my doctor a few days later that I would have to do it all over again.
This time around I’m hoping I pass this first 1 hour test so I don’t have to suffer through the 3 hour test again. Fingers crossed.
I went in this morning for the test. I had to go to a testing facility here in Brisbane, similar to the testing facilities, like LabCorp, that we have in the United States. I met Lorne at his office building and he took Maya to the park for an hour while I headed to the lab for the test. The staff at the lab were super friendly and helpful. A change from most of my experiences at similar labs in St. Louis. They gave me my drink and told me to drink it all within 10 and they’d come back to get in 1 hour for my blood draw.
When I had the test done during my pregnancy with Maya the drink I had to drink was a super sweet, overly flavored, flat orange drink. It tasted like orange soda but without the fizziness. I remember thinking at the time that the drink would be so much easier to drink if it was carbonated, just a bit. The drink I had today was so much better. I wouldn’t exactly call it tasty, but it was certainly a lot better than my previous glucose drinks. This one was lightly carbonated for starters, and I was right, it made it much easier to get down. It was still crazy sweet, but the flavor was much more mild, another thing in its favor. It was easy to get the drink down in the alloted time and I didn’t feel like I was going to throw up right after.
I passed the 1 hour quietly reading in the waiting room. Finally I was called back for my blood draw. Blood draws don’t bother me so that part was a breeze. I chatted with the phlebotomist while she took the required 3 viles of blood for my glucose test and a couple of other screenings being done. It was a pleasant experience for a test that isn’t really my favorite thing to do during pregnancy.
Now I wait, fingers crossed, for the results. Hopefully I don’t hear from my doctor at all and am told at my next appointment in a couple of weeks that I passed the test just fine. If I do hear from him and have to go in for that 3 hour test I may cry. At least I know if I have to do it again the drink is more tolerable this time and the staff at the lab is pleasant to deal with.
On Monday I hit the 24 week mark of this pregnancy. I’m now 6 months pregnant. There are only 16ish weeks left until this baby girl makes her appearance. I can’t believe it, that’s crazy!
I’m feeling great right now. Really I can’t think of any annoying pregnancy symptoms I’m dealing with right now other than having to pee constantly. I have my tiny dancer to thank for most of those trips. Like her sister before her, Baby Girl 2.0 is a very active little baby. However, unlike her sister, who liked to lay sideways and kick my sides, this little one enjoys being breech and kicking my bladder repeatedly. It almost feels like a game she is playing, let’s see how many times I can make mommy have to pee today 
Today I had my 24 week pregnancy check up. I saw a different doctor at the OB practice I’m going to here in Brisbane. He was really nice too. He’ll actually likely be the one I see for the remainder of my visits as the first OB I saw has a pretty booked schedule right now. The appointment was very routine and uneventful. My blood pressure was great, the baby’s heart beat sounded great (although she did try to hide several times while he was trying to listen), and I’ve finally managed to put on a little bit of weight. At my last appointment I hadn’t gained anything in the month since my last check up and thanks to my horrible morning sickness I didn’t put on much during my first trimester. I managed to squeeze out just shy of 4 pounds this month which puts my total weight gain for this pregnancy at 8 pounds. But, since my belly is measuring well and the baby seems great the slow weight gain isn’t an issue.
I thought I’d include a belly shot for you this time around since I finally have one to speak of. It isn’t a great picture but all you want to see is the belly anyway, right!
![4-6-11 My 24 week belly [640x480]](http://www.letstalkbabies.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/4-6-11-My-24-week-belly-640x480.JPG "4-6-11 My 24 week belly [640x480]")
Next up is the big gestation diabetes screening. I’ll go for that in a couple of weeks and then I’ll have another OB follow up in a month. I’m really glad things are going smoothly with this pregnancy (knock on wood), especially since I’m so far from home.
On Tuesday I had my first appointment with the obstetrician I’ll be using while we are here in Australia. It was my 20 week regular monthly appointment. At home that would have meant a super quick and easy appointment that consisted of a urine screen, weigh in, blood pressure reading, fundal measurement and listening to the baby’s heartbeat. In and out in 15-20 minutes tops. However, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect at my first appointment here in Australia. I wasn’t sure how similar their prenatal care is to our prenatal care in the United States. I expected a bit longer visit since it was my first meeting with this doctor but other than that I went into it blind.
I had a hard time sleeping the night before my appointment. I was nervous about meeting the new doctor and what to expect from my appointment. Luckily, we had spent some time over the weekend figuring out the bus route to there and finding exactly where the office was so it was super easy for Maya and I to get there Tuesday morning. It gave me one less thing to worry about. My appointment was scheduled for 9:30 so we headed out the door a little after 8am to catch the 8:25 bus. The bus was running a bit late but got us to the hospital bus station right on time (sometimes you gotta love public transportation and crazy Australian bus drivers!).
Since we had walked by the office building on Saturday I knew it was a very nice looking office and I was anxious to see what it was like inside. It was gorgeous. The office is fairly big, they staff 4 OBs and 3 midwives. The waiting area is full of super comfy chairs, a bathroom (because we pregnant women need bathrooms everywhere!) and a great little play area for the kiddos. Let me tell you, the play area is a godsend for those of us who have to bring our little ones along. Maya had a great time playing with all the toys and reading the books. She actually didn’t want to leave when it was my turn to go back with the doctor.
When it was my turn I was greeted in the waiting room by the actual doctor! I had expected to be called back by a nurse. They actually don’t have any nurses on staff, the doctors and the midwives do everything. I sat with the doctor in his office for a while going over my medical history and reviewing my records from my doctor in the US. He had to pull out his calculator several times because all the weight measurements on my charts are in pounds and he is used to kilograms. It stumped me too when I hopped on the scale and it weighed me in kilograms. He broke out the calculator again to let me know what my weight was in pounds.
After our long talk about my medical history and prenatal care history for this pregnancy the appointment continued exactly like it would have had I been visiting my OB in the US. He took my blood pressure, had me get on the scale to be weighed (I haven’t gained any weight since my last appointment in the US but he didn’t seem concerned), then he felt my abdomen and listened to the baby’s heartbeat with the doppler. He explained what to expect at my next appointments and it sounds like the prenatal care is exactly like it is in the US. The one exception is that they don’t do a urine screen at every appointment, they only do urine screens if there is another indicator, like higher blood pressure than at previous appointments.
After I met with the doctor he had me sit down with one of the midwives so I could get to know her and she could go over the do’s and don’ts during pregnancy in Australia. The midwife was so nice. She went over everything with me as far as what exercise is permitted, the foods to avoid, etc. It is all the same as the do’s and don’ts rules in the US.
It ended up being a great appointment. Everything is progressing well with the pregnancy, Baby Girl 2.0 sounded great and I’m all set for another month. I really liked the doctor, the midwife and the front desk staff. Everyone was super friendly and nice. Turns out I had nothing to be nervous about.