Early Pregnancy: The First Appointment

Written 3/14/16

It's a relief to have the first doctor's appointment behind me. Mostly because it feels like it wiped away some of the uncertainty I'd been feeling.

First off, I didn't actually feel pregnant for the first several weeks. Sure, I was sleeping all the time and steadily growing hungrier. But there was no morning sickness to speak of and my one day of nausea could probably have been chalked up to over-heating slightly on the metro while I was heading to work. Between the lack of symptoms and my lack of a really conclusive pregnancy test (I had two faint positives followed by two tests where the control line didn't even show up) my only real hint that I was pregnant was my lack of period. It was one big lack.

I also didn't entirely know what to expect from the first doctor's appointment. My regular gynecologist is in the process of retiring, which means he's no longer working as an obstetrician. He referred me to two other practices, and I did a fair amount of online research before picking one. I made the appointment, but I didn't think to ask any questions at the time. And then the internet started feeding me all sorts of conflicting information. I had no idea whether they would do an ultrasound or a blood test. Whether they'd find or even look for a heartbeat. Whether there'd be any physical examination at all or if this would just be a meet and greet and a chance to ask questions.

It turned out that I landed with a group of OBs who do everything, which ended up being a relief. The more information the better, as far as I'm concerned. We went over both mine and Kevin's family history, and then I got a trans-vaginal ultrasound, which was not at all traumatic for me, though I can see how it could be. It was exciting to get to see the kid and it's heartbeat, although the heartbeat is still weird to me. At 7 weeks, 3 days, the embryo doesn't even have a heart or a brain. It was what will eventually become heart chambers, and those are spasming at a rate of about 150 beats per minutes. Still, that's called the heartbeat and after the doctor finds out, the chance of miscarriage drops from 20% to 3%, which is heartening.

We got our first baby pictures and went over the dos and don'ts. I'm absolutely not allowed to scopp cat litter, which will be interesting when Kevin's in Hawaii for 6 weeks. I may just invest in some rubber gloves and a pumice stone, because it seems silly to ask someone to come over and empty the litter box for me.

Then I got blood drawn, and that's being sent out for all sorts of tests. They're even doing an additional level of tests because Kevin's uncle had cystic fibrosis and why not check to see if I'm a carrier. I also got a referral for a first trimester genetic screening. At that point I'll get more blood drawn and have an ultrasound that will determine the likelihood that the kid has Down's Syndrome, trisomy 18 and all sorts of other things that I may have learned about in 10th grade biology. Part of me feels like this is overkill, but a bigger part of me would rather know. And I'm happy to put myself in the hands of trained professionals.

I still don't feel very pregnant, but the ultrasound picture on the fridge is a nice reminder that I do have a parasite growing in my uterus. For the next few weeks I'll mostly just be hoping that I don't miscarry. Then I've got another round of doctor's appointments. This whole thing is a lot of waiting around punctuated with floods of information. It's nice to have time to absorb everything, but it's also already hard to wait. Maybe it will get easier when I pass into the second trimester and I can be a bit freer with telling people about the pregnancy. And when my belly actually starts growing.

In the meantime, I'll continue to eat and sleep more than I've ever ate or slept before in my life.