Thursday, July 24, 2008

The first OB visit

Now that I have waited a week to post about this, I have probably forgotten half of what I wanted to say! However, I have been in the grips of the nausea monster and haven't felt too much like updating. Sorry!

Let's just say I have gotten spoiled by the way everyone is very attentive and makes sure you feel comfortable at my RE office. My initial check in at the nurse's station began with the requisite weigh in. The nurse made me feel REAL comfortable when she proceeded to announce my weight as a full TEN POUNDS more than it was. I had to, YES MYSELF, walk back over to the scale, confirm that she was wrong and give her the correct weight to enter. Umm, sister, if you can't get that much right I am worried about what else you are recording in my chart. She was also not apologetic about the error nor particularly friendly. That sort of pissed me off.

(When I bitched to my hubby about this, he did point out that maybe I should have ignored her error so nobody would give me crap for gaining too much weight a few months from now. He's right, I coulda had 10 pounds of wiggle room there, eh? Oh well, I would rather my medical records be ooohh, I dunno... CORRECT!)

She then went through the giant packet of info they give everyone. There was a hospital pre-admission packet- HUH??? Are we assuming I am actually going to deliver a real, live baby? These people are soooo presumptuous that they even included portrait package crap from some studio. Wow, have these people ever even MET an infertile???

Anyhoo, after that surreal little detour, we then proceeded to the exam where my OB was very nice but almost freaked my ass out completely. She decided we were going to "see" if we could hear the heartbeat with the Doppler. OK lady, let's not experiment with an IVF patient who was TTC over 3 years before returning to you with a viable pregnancy! I was 8 weeks, 5 days at the time so she did warn me it MIGHT be too early to hear, but that did not calm my ass down when she couldn't freaking FIND IT!!!!! She really should not have gone there.

I think she realized she had maybe had a lapse in judgement at that point. Thank GOD she told me to get dressed and meet her in the sonographer's room. Of course the sonographer was not in and the doc was not the best at operating the machine but she did get me a new U/S at 8 weeks, 5 days and I saw the damn heartbeat! She wasn't able to tell me the heart rate because she was limited in using the machine without the tech, but at least I saw it. I have to give her a little credit for not letting me leave there with my heart in my throat, flipping out over whether all was well or not, but still. She should not have whipped that Doppler out in the first place! (On the up side, I measured exactly with dates, that's good, right?!?!)

Once I found out that the next U/S will not be until 18-20 weeks when they can tell the sex I was actually kind of glad it went down the way it did. How in the HELL am I expected to go TEN WHOLE weeks without another U/S? Yeah, this is gonna be torture. I guess I am going to have to get used to not being followed so closely.

All in all, I felt better when I left. Then later, when I was on the way home from work I realized something. Nobody even told me my projected due date!!! I realize I was given one by the RE and it is probably in my records and my chart, etc. (right there with the CORRECT weight, AHEM). But STILL, dontcha think they could have gone over that little detail, corroborated what the RE told me, etc.? That didn't do a whole lot to instill my confidence in that place either.

That's about it, am I being too hyper-sensitive and spoiled or would these things have concerned you???

2 comments:

Jen said...

OH, I feel ya! Who the hell tries a Doppler on an infertile at 8 weeks?! They did that to me, too. Idiots.
Guess we'll be biting our nails together for the next 10 weeks!

nancy said...

My OB didn't tell me my due date either. But this is my 3rd time there, so maybe they just figured I knew it since I did IVF. I saw she wrote it down and was in my chart, but I wasn't told it. I love my OB to death and would never think less of him for not telling me the due date. I wouldn't worry about this.

As for the doppler - totally common. It's rare that an OB even tries with doppler that early! That's strange, but with the words of "we may not find it", I think she covered at least trying it. Now, if she told you to leave before checking on u/s, THEN i'd be worried!