Birthing Class Goes Halloween...

So Sunday nights' class culminated in viewing the birthing videos. Joy! First we got to see a C-Section, which begged the question of which one of us would pass out first to have to deal with that. Everyone I know who's had one has said that those sheets that they put in front of you are useless and that you can see everything anyway. So here's hoping that's not something I have to deal with! Then we saw a vaginal birth from the 80's in a hollywood birthing center. It was au natural so that was encouraging since the woman didn't kill anyone. But there was something familar about her...and had it not been halloween and had I not just watched Carrie, I don't know if I would have figured it out. It was P.J. Soles -the girl who wears the baseball hat through Carrie and also in the first Friday the 13th movie. Pretty funny. Now we've seen more of her than either of us ever wanted to :)

Belly

'Nuff said :)

Worlds Worst Doctors

I think that I officially have the worlds worst doctors.

Back up for a minute... a few months ago I failed the 1-hour Gestational Diabetes test by 2 points with a cold. By the time I get the order for the 3-hour test, I have full-on bronchitis. I make ten phone calls to the lab, the ob, my dr. etc to find out if I should still take the test. They all say yes. So I spend four hours, not able to eat, drinking something narsty and being poked repeatedly. Results come back high, so I'm sent to a diabetic specialist, a nutritionist and an endocrenologist. The diabetic specialist tells me to test 4 times a day, the nutritionalist tells me I need to stop eating carbs and then I get to the endo. By this point I've become a neurotic monster with bloody fingers and I'm so crazed over what to eat that I'm ready to NOT eat anymore. Everytime I followed my "meal plan" my sugars would be on the high side - still not bad, but higher than when I just ate what I wanted when I was hungry. So I told him I was done and the first thing he says is that I should never have taken that test sick that it always has an effect. Thanks. So he asks me to retake it. No way! I'm not spending another 5 hours like that. So he gives me an A1 test which will show the pattern of my sugars over the past few months and tells me to just watch my sugars one or two days a week. The test comes back...drumroll...abnormally LOW. He thinks it's probably a misdiagnosis and just tells me not to worry about it.

So our crappy Blue Cross HMO makes me go to Facey - which is basically like a kaiser type thing - and they blow. I had my first appointment with the doctor today. Brooks went in to work late so that he could go with me. We were both optimistic since we were meeting with the only woman in the practice (there are 4 or 5 doctors total). WRONG! She kept us waiting in the exam room for 40 minutes. Then she came in and didn't look up ONCE from my chart - no introductions, nothing. She asked about the GD and I told her I was meeting with the endo. She wanted to see my test results and I told her I only test twice a week and she was all pissy and tried to send me for blood work. I asked what for and she said an A1 - I explained the above story to her (and reminded her that maybe she should tell everyone in her office that you should NOT take it sick!) and that my scores came back really low on the A1 that I JUST did. And she asks why I haven't taken the 3-hour test again - I told her I didn't want to spend another day at that damn office fasting and being poked. She was less than thrilled. So then she has me lay down to measure my belly and check the heart rate. She measures me with no comment, heart rate is fine, and then, out of nowhere, she pushes HARD on my pelvis. I screamed and she said "yeah, sometimes that hurts". WHAT?!?! So I asked then why did she do it, and she says that she wanted to check if the baby was head down. Hello! I just had an ultrasound last week and all you had to do was ask and I would have told you that! Or at least you could have warned me! Then she left with a see-you-next-time mumble. Brooks was screaming obscenities before the door even closed.

I think we may reconsider a home birth after this! :)

The Creature

Brooks and I were at the mall the other day and saw this in the window of some lame accessories store. We couldn't resist. Have you ever seen anything so awful? My pregnant bladder almost gave out on me. We were laughing so hard that the sales chick probably thought we were stoned. I had originally planned to give this to someone as a great Christmas gag gift, but now I can't even bring myself to put it away. We get way too much enjoyment out of it. If for some reason this doesn't look ridiculously hideous and make you want to piddle yourself, then all I can say is that it loses something in print, and you should come see it.

Some research shows that it's part of the "Babes in the Wild" Series. If you google that, you can see the whole rest of the line, although none seem this creepy. Well, almost none...

Baby in a box?

Assume The Position!

Life's been more than busy lately, but I had to share some pics of yesterday's ultrasound!

Baby boy is in perfect position for birthing (which was a relief to me) and my placenta has moved up (which is an even greater relief and why I had the ultrasound in the first place).

Check out this cutie...