Today I am 8 weeks pregnant! Woo hoo! It's still very unreal for me. Luckily, I requested an early ultrasound and my doctor didn't mind. So on Feb 18th, Tyler & I will hopefully be hearing the beating of one or two babies' hearts (still pushing for twins!). I think that'll help bring a little more realism to the situation for us.
I can't remember what I've already written about, so forgive me if this is review, but my regular doctor is retired from obstricians so I "had" to get a new doctor for the baby process. I was quite okay with this as, although I love that my doctor is female, she leaves a lot to be desired regarding her bedside mannor. Tyler & I got to meet with my new doctor, Dr. Phillpot, on Thursday. She normally doesn't accept new patients, though luckily for us, her husband says they need a new house so she's taking on a few more.
A little history I learned about Dr. Phillpot: SHE is 38 and just returned from mat leave with her fourth child. Her husband is a stay at home daddy and Dr.Phillpot seems to generally love what she does. She told us that she's excited to have a "new" family again that is going through the pregnancy for the first time as a lot of her patients are on there third and fourth kids and aren't really into the appointments etc. She's probably considered 'overweight' but she isn't super large and she just looks normal. Not super hot & not super ugly. She was really high energy with us during our appointment and very very nice.
Some of the information/guidelines she game me:
-she gave me a prescription for some prenatals. The have more folic acid in them and are geared for women with larger BMI's. I get to take a pink one in the morning & a blue one at night. Since they are prescription I'm hoping that means that our insurance will reimburse us for the cost! That would be a nice bonus as they are $45/month.
-ideally she wants me to keep my entire pregnancy weight gain to 10-15 lbs as I am already overweight. She would even be okay with me not gaining any weight or losing weight if I was still healthy. I completely get where she is coming from with these numbers as I've been doing some of my own research online and it coorelates with that.
-I am to avoid deli meats & unpasturized cheeses. The recent 'maple leaf' blunder brought to the public's attention that there is a chance of bacteria living on deli meats. This has always been true and is normally not a big deal but when you are pregnant you do have a lower risk tolerance.
-She gave me a name "Par X" to look up for a quiz to assess my physical ability and what kinds of exercise I should do. I was also told not to do waterslides, horse back riding...some of the more classic things to avoid.
-In terms of resources she said "Today's Parent" is a great magazine. This is awesome as I have a year's subscription sitting in my basement LOL
-She also suggested we check out http://www.earlyriskassessment.com/ to decide is we are going to do any pre-screening.
-We also found out there is an early education class for what it means to give birth in Red Deer (every city/town can have their own idiosyncrasies).
My first prenatal appointment is booked for Friday, March 13th but I have some routine bloodwork to do on this upcoming Tuesday. Having the bloodwork & ultrasound beforehand will be nice as she'll have data to draw from at our next appointment.
Now...the moment you tell people you are pregnant, you are opening the floodgates for advice. Some of it is greatly appreciated & comes from love but some of it is just downright annoying!
For instance, yesterday my sort've sister in law Kim was here and we mentioned we had gone for Dim Sum. She goes "you have to be careful what you eat you know". Thanks?! I, of all people, am pretty good at researching information. And for MOST pregnancy stuff, it boils down to your own personal risk/benefit scale. Her particular issue was over the potential for MSG and Mecury from any fish I might eat. I looked this up (as I love shrimp) and babycenter (a reliable resource I think) says that the Mercury scares come mostly from the larger fish that would be living in the ocean for longer periods of time and thus more suspectible to mercury. It says that most pregnant women can enjoy fish (tuna packed in water, shrimp) as most anyone does, up to three times a week. And that it's even good as there is so much Omega 3 in fish. The main things to avoid are things like shark & raw 0ysters. Really we should all avoid "raw" animals regardling of whether or not we are pregnant!
I guess I find this especially annoying because it's coming from the woman who drank coffee routinely, often indulged in a can of beer when I saw her & also has no fear of hot tubs during her pregnancy! Again, back to the personal risk/benefit scale. There are MILLIONS of things we can be concerned about when we are pregnant. Each woman has to do her only personal analysis of the risks and the benefits of the items in question and where it is worth it to her to take that chance.
For instance, I am currently taking anti-depressants. While it is usually best to be on zero medications when you are pregnant, my psychiatrist put it to me this way:
-you can be on a (more) even keel emotionally & pregnant or you can be like you were before and pregnant. Would you rather enjoy this pregnancy or possibly suffer through it? Also for the particular anti-depressent I'm on, Effexor, it is considered a very safe drug and shown no harm to fetus'. Since I suffer from depression I am also much more likely to suffer from post partum depression so I have to watch for sign of that (& have my loved ones watch for signs also).
So for me & my circumstances it is probably best to be on it. However, that being said, I do think it is effecting my nausea!!
Another item of arguement is Caffeine. For me, I am not planning on cutting it out entirely. I have curbed my coffee drinking for a while now so I don't really crave it but I still have some tea sometime and definitely chocolate! A lot of the info out there says that <300>
So I just totally threw up. Despite my bouts of nausea it was my first time actually throwing up. It was disgusting LOL I ran from the computer desk and barely had time to make it to our kitchen sink. I had a stomach full (tuna wrap & some pineapple I had been eating) and it ALL came up. The good news is that I felt better afterwards. I had read that the nausea can be hormonal so throwing up doesn't actually relieve the nausea. I'm happy to state in this instance, it did relieve it!
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