Tuesday, December 8, 2009

37-Week Appt.

First off, this day started off as hell on Earth, due to the FOUR straight hours I was awake last night. And as we all know, I tend to cry a lot when I'm overtired...so keep that in mind as you read on. Also, just to warn you, I'm too tired and fed up to even try to be positive right now, so this is going to be one long, massive rant, and I'm not even going to apologize for it. Consider yourself forewarned...

I woke up not feeling so hot, having slept a total of 3.5 hours, and was in no mood to go to the doc. As I mentioned in my previous post, I was nervous about my doctor not taking my gallstones seriously and so I may have gone in with a bit of a defeated attitude, just feeling like I wasn't getting the help/care I need. Besides being tired and upset, I was also quite hungry, seeing as how I'm terrified to eat anything for fear of another gallbladder 'attack', so that wasn't helping anything, since hunger + overtired + anxious = one bitchy, weepy B.

Anyhow, I get to the office, and am informed that they have made a mistake, and I should've been paying copayments this entire time, despite them telling me otherwise at 28 weeks, and so I may be getting a bill for $30/visit, and have to pay it starting today from here on out. While this isn't earth-shattering news, between my L&D visit Sunday and finding out last night I'll only be paid for ONE week of maternity leave, and that's Christmas leave I would've had off anyways, I'm feeling very stressed about finances and immediately freaked out. Super-effing-duper.

Next, I was weighed. And while this sounds absolutely impossible to EVERYONE, even my doctor who gave me a strange, disbelieving look when I brought it up to him while sobbing my eyes out (further proof that I doubt he looks at my chart at all before coming into the room), I GAINED SIX LBS IN SIX DAYS. Yep, you read that right. Which, as any pregnant woman should know, is a big red flag. But since my BP wasn't through the roof, he just said, "Well you do look puffier, and your weight gain has been so low so far that it's hardly problematic." I just sat there, wide-eyed, sobbing uncontrollably, and finally, after many visits of keeping my mouth shut as to be a good patient, let him have it. I told him how awful I've been feeling, how I never, ever sleep, how little I've been eating the past few days for fear of another gallstone attack and how I lie awake at night fairly certain I'm losing my mind as I plot ways to get the baby to come out for fear I'm going to lose it entirely and test my surgical skills myself. And finally, finally, I got a reaction. My normally laidback doctor finally abandoned his laissez faire attitude to realize that for whatever reason, I am not cut out for this experience, and said that if I am not making progress that would make for a favorable induction on the 28th, and I want an elective c-section, that he will not make me go past the 28th, if I can hang on that long. Frankly, I think he thinks I'm losing my mind. And because of my fear of postpartum depression and psychosis, and my family history of it, his fears are probably warranted. While I know that most women at the end of their pregnancy feel at the end of their rope, I think I may be feeling things that are a bit more serious and desolate than that. While I don't exactly want him to think I'm a nutcase, especially since he wasn't my doctor before I was pregnant and doesn't realize that I'm actually a pretty sane, reasonable, emotionally stable individual, I am happy to have him taking things seriously for a change.

His nurse also scheduled the abdominal ultrasound for me, though it did require me to say, "Even if you don't think it's critical right now, I do, so just do it." And so they did.

In other shitty news, I'm Group B Strep positive. While that means something as silly as just needing antibiotics, it was earth-shattering news to hear in the midst of my mental collapse at his office. Oh, and he forgot to tell me. I overheard the nurse telling the other nurse to notate it in my chart. Good thing I'm a good listener.

Abdominal ultrasound is scheduled for Thursday morning. Until then, I can't eat any meat, dairy, or fat. That's right. Fat free meals beforehand, and fasting after midnight tomorrow. As if I have any appetite at all after gaining a pound a day. He wanted to see me back on Friday, but seeing as how I now have to pay a $30 copay per visit, I just scheduled it for Monday to combine that follow-up with next week's visit.

I am so frustrated and overtired. I'm just praying that the next 20 days flies by, or that my body decides I've had enough beforehand.

2 comments:

  1. Just a word of advice regarding group b strep and the antibiotics - insist on a prescription for some kind of antifungal medication before you leave the hospital. I had group b strep with my third baby, and the massive dose of antibiotics I got through the IV in the hospital gave me a wicked yeast infection...in my nipples, which was a huge contributing factor to completely killing my efforts at breastfeeding.
    Honestly, I'm not trying to scare you (as people tend to want to do to women having a baby, especially their first), but it's just something that I know, from firsthand experience, and it really sucks.
    Now, hopefully your doctor will take you more seriously than mine did, because even though my newborn's pediatrician diagnosed her with a raging case of thrush and gave her nystatin, my doctor's nurse practitioner (they wouldn't give me an appointment with the actual dr. for yeast-nipples) insisted that I did not have yeast infected nipples and refused to prescribe me meds to help.
    At the very least, stock up on lactobacillus capsules and pop 'em like candy to make sure you don't come down with a yeast infection from hell. Because that would suck nipples!

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  2. I second the yeast infection thing. Towards the end I had TERRIBLE yeast infections...for MONTHS, with treatment. It was horrid. If I'd known I could take anything to counteract some of it, I would have.

    All I have to say hun is, do your best not to live in fear of pain. Pain is awful, to be sure. Pain wears you down. But living in fear of it, dreading it everyday, is pointless. If it happens, it happens...gallstones and such suck, but the vast majority of the time there's not a damn thing you can do to prevent it...and there's not a damn thing you could have done differently to avoid it.

    That's not me saying you should go for a natural childbirth or any other nonsense...if you know what your limits are and you have some control of the situation as you do in labor (thank god for modern medicine!) then by all means, do what you need to make yourself comfortable.

    If however, you don't have any control of the situation, then deal as best you can at the time, and when it's over, don't dwell on it. Yes, it hurt like a son-of-a-gun, but it's gone for now, and thus you can function. If it happens again, so be it.

    Living in fear of anything isn't living...and living in fear of pain is pointless.

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