Special K and Coffee
I don't really know why you'd be here. I mean, I know I'm the single most interesting person, but don't you people have lives? Really, it's quite sad.
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Thursday, November 20, 2008
I'm growing a peanut!
The appointment today went well. As we had figured, I am at just a day or two past 11 weeks, which was even confirmed exactly with the ultrasound. The doctor kept saying how big the fibroid I have is but how it's a "good kind" because it's on the outside of the uterus so, compared with the other possible locations (inside or within the uterine wall), it should cause few problems. His only big concern was whether it might affect the actual delivery, which, obviously, we won't know until we get there.
Paul got there toward the end of the examination, but the doctor did another quick ultrasound so that he could see our little peanut (as I have lovingly termed the image on our ultrasound printoff) and hear the heartbeat, which I already had. We also could see the tiny little heart beating. It was amazing. And this is wonderful news that the heartbeat was so strong because studies have shown that as soon as they can hear the heartbeat with Doppler, then the risk of miscarriage drops dramatically. Paul's been trying for a couple of weeks to hear it with his stethoscope, but hasn't had any luck yet, which isn't surprising since everything I've read says it's about 20 weeks before you can hear the heartbeat that way. Still, he keeps trying every week or so.
Anyway, in other exciting news, it actually snowed for a little bit today in Seoul! It didn't stick or anything, but it was the real deal. That makes me very happy. I miss snow.
And finally, I will leave you tonight with a view of 11 weeks from a slightly different perspective...
It's just that tiny little peanut toward the top that looks like it's waving.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
A few firsts
I think pretty much everyone who reads this knows by now, but for those who don't: Paul and I are expecting to add a little one to the family in early June.
Anyway, I had a request for an update.
First off, I have, overall, been feeling pretty darn good. So far, I seem to have been blessed with my mother's lack of morning sickness and am almost into my second trimester, so I hope this is a good sign. It was really hard to say what would happen with that because her mother (my grandma) had morning sickness all 9 months with all 5 of her kids.I'm just praying that I don't have it come on in a successive trimester.
What has been bothering me, though, is midback pain. It started out just hitting me in the evenings and would go away when I laid down for bed. For about the past week, it has turned into a positional midback pain that is worse when I try to stand up straight or sit up straight. You can imagine, then, how fun it is to sit at a computer working all day.Fortunately, I can take breaks and lie down with my back straight and I get relief, which also means that it's not bothering me at night....yet. And I really hope it never does!
I finally have my first prenatal appointment tomorrow. Yeah, I know, it's late for that. There are several reasons for that. Part of it, admittedly, was laziness on my part, but things with my healthcare over here are not like most military spouses because my husband is unaccompanied. That, in itself, made me a little hesitant and unsure of how to proceed. Add to that the fact that we found out that the medical person doing prenatal care at the TMC is someone Paul didn't want me to have to deal with and I really didn't know how to proceed. Enter Paul's boss, an internal medicine doctor who knows about my pre-existing condition and that this causes me to be an at-risk pregnancy. As a doctor with this knowledge, he put in a referral for me to the Army hospital in Seoul a couple of weeks ago. Then the fun began.
I called up to the OB clinic to make an appointment for my referral. The woman who answered my call said, "can you hold, please?" Natural response? "Yeah, sure." So I sat there on hold and about 5 minutes go by. At about that point I realized that I wasn't sure how much time was left on my prepaid cell phone and I don't know Korean so I couldn''t add time over the air if I wanted to. Finally, someone picked up and took my last four, name, etc. As I was giving my last name....you guessed it: no more minutes. OK, so I had to wait until the next day because I'd have to wait for Paul to get home to take me over to the post so I could add time. No big deal. So I called back the next day and got someone immediately. The woman looked at my information and said, "the doctor hasn't looked at this yet. Can you call back tomorrow?" "Uh...Okay." On to the next day. I call again and get put on hold again for 5+ minutes. When I finally got the receptionist, she looked up my referral and said, "can you hold a minute? I need to talk to the nurse and doctor." "Sure." Seems "call back tomorrow" was a little too soon.What part of "at risk pregnancy" don't you people understand?? That's pushing back my first prenatal exam so far that I might as well wait until I've flown back to the states in mid-December! I also asked at this point whether I really needed to attend the Pregnancy Orientation if we were PCSing in December and I, therefore, would not be giving birth here, and because I don't live in Seoul and I work during the day so having to come up to Seoul kills a whole day and a whole day's work for me and having to do that twice just for one appointment seems ridiculous. Nope. Still the same answer. Whatever. I got set for the stupid orientation and got off the phone with her.
Then I called Paul and told him what had happened. He had the same reaction I did, as did the doctor who referred me. After a few phone calls around from them, I got a phone call a couple of hours later from the OB clinic at Yongsan saying they had canceled my orientation and needed to schedule an appointment. Hallelujah.She ended up calling me back about 2 more times for details on putting in an order for my labs to be done and such, and during every single phone call she asked me if I was taking prenatal vitamins. Do you not know how to write down this information or are you just testing me to see if my answer changes?
So I'm a little nervous and excited about my appointment tomorrow. First off, I hope I'm not yelled at for not having seen a doctor yet. Second, I hope Paul makes it in time from his meeting because I really don't want him to miss it. And third, we undoubtedly will get to see our child and hopefully even hear the heartbeat.I know that's just going to drive it home hundreds of times more than just feeling my expanding belly and disappearing belly button does.
Finally, I leave you with...11 weeks.
And as I hit the 10-week mark last week...
Yep, I hiked there. Nope, it wasn't a breeze but it was breezy up there.
(And, yes, those pictures were taken with our new camera. The top one was on the widescreen setting, which is why it looks cropped.)
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Somebodies finally bought a compact digital camera yesterday....
We've been saying for about 2 years now that we really need one and we finally found one we liked at the electronics market here and they threw in the case, an extra memory card, an extra battery, a screen protector, and a tripod. Yes, it's a Canon. Yes, we prefer Nikon for DSLR (own a wonderful D70), but not for the compact digital cameras.
