It’s a bad picture because I couldn’t seem to hold still what with the laughing and the crying, but we saw the little heart beat a chugging away in there.
The angel nurse Louise who saved the day got me in to see another doctor, so Bear and I got there about 45 minutes before my appointment just in case they had some time on the front end of the appointment, and sure enough they called us right back and were able to give me the full examination. Unfortunately I think that this means that this doctor is my new doctor.
She was very cautious during the examination, making sure we couldn’t see the monitor until she’d spotted a heartbeat, warning us that we’re not quite out of the woods yet because until it’s old enough that we can hear a heartbeat, there is still a chance that things could go wrong.
I measured at 6 weeks 6 days which is just over a week later than where we thought we were, but that’s par for the course. With Bookcase we knew the exact date of conception and it was really late in the cycle, so no one would believe us when we told them how far along I should have been. I finally had to start lying about the date of my last period.
So then we went into her office to discuss what comes next and the first thing she tells me is that I’m too fat. Ladies and Gentlemen, I am not fat. Before I got pregnant I was 5’9″ and 180 thanks to baby weight from bookcase. A little on the high end of good on the BMI, but still just fine. In the past month, with only changing my eating habits by starting to eat breakfast, I have gained 10 pounds. The same exact thing happened with bookcase. As soon as that peestick turned, boom, I was in maternity clothes. This doctor says that throughout my entire pregnancy I should gain 20 pounds. Just like she did with both of her children.
I go to ask my doctor why I could be gaining so quickly when I’m eating responsibly and I go on walks at night, and before I can even get my question out she cuts me off and says, “If you’re not eating badly, then you must not be exercising. Weight doesn’t come from the air. It’s calories in. That’s the only way.” And then she stares at me as if daring me to argue with her.
I was so taken aback that I just said, OK. And tried to get out of there. First off, Sheesh, thanks for harshing my buzz, lady. We just experience the most triumphant and exciting moment of our lives and you go and call me fat?
Second, after all these years of trying to get pregnant and watching everyone around me succeed while I was still waiting at the bus stop, there is one thing I’ve learned. NOBODY ONLY GAINS TWENTY POUNDS! Even my tiniest sister-in-law who put her own non-maternity clothes back on as she left the hospital, gained 30.
I’m sure I have gained fat because there was one week there where I just could not put food into my face fast enough. I was so hungry one week I was willing to eat anything that held still in front of me. Since then, I’ve been so nauseous that it’s all I can do to shove the food down my throat before it comes back up. But my breasts are also enormous, and I know that the endo is going to complicate fluid retention because of how irritated everything is in there, and that’s what I wanted to talk to stupid Dr. Harsh about, but apparently, she’s a weight nazi.
So far everyone I’ve whined to has told me to run, RUN and get myself a new doctor. Unfortunately, I have Kaiser, so getting a new doctor is really in name only. You pretty much get who you get. Plus, in four weeks I get another ultrasound, and then we should know if things are going to precede normally. And if they are, then I’ll switch to a midwife anyway.
If I was younger, or if I was new to this whole fertility thing, this would probably bother me a whole lot more and I would take steps to protect myself. As it is, I feel like a mother on her third child. When all the neurotic nervousness is gone and you just pick the pacifier up off the floor and stick it back in the kids mouth instead of running to sterilize it twelve times. I know that I am doing the absolute best I can, I’m doing my best to eat healthy, I exercise when I can, and I’m fighting the nausea so that what I do manage to gag down actually goes to the kid. If she expects more than that then Dr. Harsh is just going to have to get used to disappointment.