Disenchantment

We've only known we are pregnant for 18 days, yet still I've made four trips to the doctor's office / hospital, had blood drawn three times, had one ultrasound, one shot to my ass (okay, hip) and talked with at least three different nurses. The only person I haven't talked to is my own doctor. (Actually, that's a lie. I saw her for a minute today as I left the office and she was in between patients, but that doesn't really count).

At first, I was excited about this pregnancy. But right now, I'm sad to say that it just feels like chore after chore to go through. All these appointments and tests. I've never had blood taken three times in three weeks! I feel like a pin cushion and have two small bruises on my right arm and one massive nasty looking bruise on my left.

Every time I talk to someone, they don't really seem to have an answer for me. Be it two weeks ago when I was looking for an easy to swallow prenatal vitamin or now when I wanted to know if my blood was tested for Rh antibodies. We've had to figure out the answers for ourselves.

As far as that second concern, I went into my in-take appointment with that question being my primary question to ask. The nurse couldn't tell me if my blood was tested for them or not. She looked up the blood work in the computer, but all she could tell me was that the doctor on call had ordered blood typing. I told her that didn't make sense to me since that info was right in my file, so maybe the antibodies had been tested too? She had no clue what I was talking about. I felt she didn't take my concern that seriously either. But, when I read the packet she gave me to bring home, about three lines down it said that during the initial blood work those would be tested. Why didn't this nurse know that if its right there in what she handed me? Maybe I'm being hard on her, but if it was important enough to be on the handout and for it to be one of the in-take blood work tests, shouldn't this lady know about it?

I've also been annoyed that for three appointments I've basically been told when to show up. When the appointment I went to today was made, the woman on the phone was pressuring me to confirm if a time was okay as Natalie is wandering around dropping my mug on the hard floor and yelling. I'm scrambling to find a calander and she's going "So, is 130 on the 11th alright?" like three times. So, I wind up with a 130 appointment forcing me to wake Natalie up from her nap. The ultrasound appointment from Friday had to be at 2 because it was the only opening, again making me wake Natalie up from a deep sleep. Yesterday, I got a call saying that my ultrasound appointment had been made for Monday at 3. This time the time was fine, but we were surprised that it was so soon when the tech had said two weeks.

I just feel like there is no joy in this pregnancy. Instead, its all these tests and annoyances dealing with five different people each time we go in and them all giving information that is somehow conflicting. Go to the lab first, don't go to the lab first. Have a full bladder, don't have a full bladder. Get the new blood work done soon because you'll see the doctor in a couple weeks, then getting an appointment that's a month away! Its also distracting and at times stressful carting Natalie around to all of this. Instead wondering about the new baby, I'm busy keeping her from having a meltdown. She was awesome today. Spent an hour and a half straight in the stroller with very little fussing, but whenever someone asked me something I was distracted by her. It doesn't help that I feel I'm more irritable with this pregnancy than the last, or that my symptoms are causing me to feel nauseous sometimes, but making me lose all my free time to sleeping and wake me up in the night to pee! At least when I'm further along and I have discomfort I'll have the joy of feeling the baby move.

Right now, I'm glad the new ultrasound date is less than a week away. While I'm worried that something may go wrong, and I'm worried that we'll have to go again because nothing is wrong perse (more hassle, more time off for Mike, more money wasted), I will be so happy to finally just see something that looks remotely like a baby and to see or hear a heartbeat. We were spoiled last time to get only one ultrasound and at 10 weeks. Natalie looked like a baby for the most part and we didn't have all this extra hoop jumping to go through.