'ultrasound dependence' and other fun things.

Mr. Hope and I had our first official OB appointment today. It was...an experience.

First of all, there was a long wait. Nearly 30 minutes before we got taken back to an exam room and another 15 before the OB showed up. We shall call her Dr. Direct, because as Quirky told me ahead of time, she's very no-nonsense - a real straight-shooter. (For the record, we like this.)

The first think Dr. Direct does is say, "I'm sorry they brought the ultrasound machine out. I'm not going to do an ultrasound today. I need to wean you from ultrasound dependence."

Of course, on the ride over, Mr. Hope and I were singing, "We gonna see our baby, we gonna see our baby..." So this made him pout. I wasn't thrilled, but I didn't put up a fight either.

We went over my meds. She told me I could stop the estrogen immediately, but she wanted me to stay on the progesterone until the end of week 12 (so, a week from Wednesday). My butt isn't happy, but I lose weight on progesterone and gain it on estrogen, so I was thinking, "Maybe when I get off the estrogen I'll take off a few pounds!"

But then Dr. Direct told me she wasn't happy that I am taking HCTZ. No one at the RE's office ever questioned it, but it's the second time someone at the OB's office did. She asked me why I was on it. I told her that 9 years ago, I had high BP. They put me on a combo pill. When my BP got under control, they took me off of it...and I bloated up with 13 lbs. of fluid in like two days. My stomach got hard from it and I thought I was having heart failure. Turned out my body just got addicted to the water pill, so they put me back on it. My BP is fine (or, at least it was). No fluid build up.

Now I have to stop taking the HCTZ, starting tomorrow. This terrifies me.

She wanted to put me on a different BP medicine. I asked her if we could wait a week, because my BP was always 120/70 until I started the estrogen. Today it was 144/88. So I go back for a BP check next week, and if my BP has come down, I don't have to start a new med. If it hasn't, I have to start one right away.

This also terrifies me.

I have to start weaning off the prednisone, too. Five days at 10 mg, five days at 5 mg, and five days at 5 mg every other day. Remember what happened the last time I stopped the prednisone? MORE TERROR.

But okay, all of this is doable.

Then Dr. Direct tells us she thinks that we shouldn't go public until 14 weeks, maybe longer. Say wha? We shouldn't have sex for a couple more weeks either. Could we wait until our level 2 u/s? Um, that's not until JULY. Okay, 14 weeks it is.

(Mr. Hope is pouting at this point. Dr. Smiles had said we were released earlier to have sex, but we decided to wait until 12 or 13 weeks. Lately we've both been really randy, so it's been a lot of "Thursday, baby. Just wait until Thursday." Now, no nookie for 2+ more weeks. I. Am. DYING.)

She tries to find the baby's heartbeat with doppler. It's still early and I am "fluffy," she tells me. She'll do a quick scan to assure us the baby's okay.

So we got an u/s after all. It was over the tummy, not transvag, and the images weren't super clear. She didn't tell us the CRL or FHR, just that the baby looked great and had a strong heartbeat. She pointed out its jaw. She pointed out the umbilical cord. Yay, Jellybean!

I told her that Mr. Hope insisted we get a hand-held doppler. She told me I shouldn't use it until I was 20 weeks. If I bring it to my 18-week appointment she'll show me how to use it. Okay, we can handle this.

The results from our MaterniT21 test aren't in yet. When I got home, I called Sequenom, the people who make the test. They couldn't tell me the results, and they couldn't tell me if the test had been completed, but they did call the OB's office to ask them to tell me the results should be ready tomorrow.

What does this mean? Is my baby okay? Why is it taking so long?

I Google a little. It takes most women a week to 10 days to get the results. I stop panicking. But I can't help but feel like something might be off. I have no reason to believe things aren't okay but I need to know that for sure. I JUST WANT TO KNOW.

Other than the BP check next week, I don't go back to the OB until 4.5 weeks from now, on June 12. It feels like an eternity.

And I'm totally stressing about MaterniT21, and my high BP, and pre-e and GD and whether or not I have an incompetent cervix. I just want to feel CALM. How can I get there? How can I *stay* there?

Despite everything I like the new OB. She won't BS me. She read my chart carefully. She asked good questions. She let me ask questions. She spent a lot of time with us.

But.

I am so ready to get these test results. I need want reassurance that the baby is healthy. I've been doing a pretty good job at keeping my anxiety in check, but today it flared up again. Big time.

Does it ever get any better?

avoiding the big O.

On Friday I made not one but TWO appointments with the new OB. The first is for Friday; the practice likes to do a "prenatal counseling" session before your first official visit. The second is for May 12, when I will be close to 12 weeks. But yay! I have an OB! And appointments with said OB!

This is progress, folks.

Yesterday was odd in that I was exhausted until about 3:30 p.m. Like, could barely keep my eyes open, falling asleep every five minutes, etc. And then I got my second wind (more like my first wind, but whatever) and I launched into about three hours of work on the freelance project. I banged out a good chunk, and then, toward the end, I realized I was feeling rather frisky. Not because of the freelance project, but you know, in general.

Dr. Smiles' PA told me no intercourse until I had four consecutive days of no spotting. Another doctor in the practice says no nookie, no orgasms until you're out of the first trimester. I'd been planning on the latter just to be safe. But yesterday, in all of my friskiness, I wondered if I could maybe get away with a little me time, so to speak.

But of course I had to take it to Google. And of course I was immediately bombarded with stories of women who miscarried within hours of masturbating or having sex that finished with an orgasm. One woman went into premature labor at 22 weeks and lost her child. Another lost not one but TWO babies, from two separate pregnancies, because she crossed the finish line. Now she won't have sex during at all while she's pregnant.

Now, I'm a relatively smart person, and I get that this was all anecdotal "evidence." And I read plenty of posts by women who swear they screwed themselves silly while they were pregnant and went on to birth 10 lb. babies that came out swinging like Popeye.

But.

The main touchstone that I and a few of my infertile friends use is this:

"If I do X and Y happens, can I live with the regret?"

So, like, if I take a shower and then, five minutes later, I lose the baby, I'm not going to regret it. There's no way the shower would have caused a miscarriage. I don't even like super-hot showers. So, my normal-hot shower would just be basic cleanliness/grooming. No regrets.

But if I ate a hot dog and lost the baby the next day, I would so totally regret it. Because I didn't need that hot dog. That would be me flaunting conventional wisdom for a momentary craving. And even though it would not be likely that the hot dog caused the miscarriage, there would always be a part of me that would wonder, "What would have happened if I had a salad instead?" So, yeah. Probably a regret.

Play this out with me: If I had an orgasm - a real one, and not the kind that sometimes happens when we're sleeping - and then lost the baby, there would be nothing but regret. And shame. And I'd probably never have sex again, or if I did, I wouldn't be able to enjoy it. Because all I would be able to think is that masturbation/sex/whatever killed my baby. Rational or not, that's how I'd feel.

After my miscarriage, there was one large clot left behind. The u/s tech told me I'd likely pass it in the next couple of days. I didn't, not right away. When I finally did, it was almost a week later and immediately after having an orgasm. No joke. I'd been sex-free for almost three months at that point (remember, Dr. Eyeore was all "no sex, no orgasms" the first trimester). I was also in a lot of emotional pain. So I indulged and poof! Clot passed.

"No wonder they say no sex, no orgasms in the first trimester," I thought to myself after it happened.

So, there you have it. No big O for Agony any time soon. And I'm okay with it. Because I'd rather be a little frustrated in that department than having to deal with the fallout from a second miscarriage that I could possibly convince myself I caused, no matter how true or untrue it may be.