I have an issue with doctors. And I know not all doctors deserve me to have issue with them, I've just had a few bad experiences.
It started with my gyno when I was a teenager. We tested and tried for years to get that woman to diagnose why I had very few or no periods at all. We would insist that a lack of or erratic periods were the symptom, and she would say that they weren't the symptom, they just were. So the cause of my not having periods was that I just didn't have periods. I desperately tried to get a reason out of her. A hormone imbalance? Did I just not ovulate very often? WHY were my periods so few? She just refused to come up with a cause and insisted that the symptom itself was the cause.
And being a fat woman, I'm often dismissed. My problems are because of my weight. While I agree to some extent, I can tell the difference between a fat problem and some other problem thank you very much. I don't bother a doctor for a fat induced problem because I figure it's just my own damned fault and I kind of deserve whatever is bugging me. So I get really irritated when a doctor barely looks at me, doesn't listen, and goes straight into the diet and nutrition routine.
I now have a really awesome GP by the way. So I'm not completely prejudiced. I do recognize a good doctor when I find one.
And after my appointment today with my new OB, I'm not sure what I think. It's clear he's very qualified. He used to specialize in extremely problematic pregnancies (from crack addicts and the like) and he's cared for and delivered more twins than he can count, so someone as simple as me will be a walk in the park for him.
But I dunno. Just kinda seemed, like he was listening for keywords in my questions so he could access his database for the answers. I mean, on the outside, he was listening and was addressing my concerns very specifically, but yeah, I dunno. He wasn't exactly in a rush to get out the door, but I didn't get that warm, fuzzy, I really want to get to know my new patient feeling from him either.
It's possible that I have a handsome prejudice. He's rather good looking, slick black hair. I saw him pass by a few times when I was in the waiting room, and I was kind of hoping that wasn't him because he had that slick lawyer look to him. Not that I dislike lawyers, my dad was a lawyer and now a judge and he's awesome, but I'm stereotyping here so just go with it.
I tend to associate handsome with conceited, arrogant jerk. And the last thing I want my doctor to have is an ego. If any professional has an ego, they are limited by their own knowledge. If they don't have an ego, they have access to the knowledge of everyone around them and every resource available because they will immediately consult and ask. So I'd rather have a new guy with no ego than an old pro with a big ego.
So even though the doctor didn't display any of these negative qualities, my prejudices are preventing me from feeling 100% happy with him after my appointment today.
K disagrees. He got all of the answers to questions that he wanted and felt that the doctor was just great. I'm hoping I feel that way after my next appointment in a couple of weeks but we'll see.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
Boredom
I haven't been doing pottery because I didn't feel like sitting all crunched up in the stomach and because I thought watching the wheel spin might make me sick.
But now I've got a hankering and I want to get back into the studio. I think I've squeezed about as much fun out of the internet as I can during this time of laziness and I'm ready to DO something again.
So I sent out a message to a pottery mailing list asking for comfort advice and seeing if there were precautions I should take that I hadn't thought about. Well, about half of the respondents advised that I simply take a break until after the babies are born.
*sigh*
But don't wannnnnaaaaaaaa!!!!!
I've got my big doctors appointment tomorrow so I'll check with him and see what he advises. But I'm gonna be a real unhappy camper if I can't engage in my one major hobby for the next year or two.
So I'll just reminisce for the moment. Plug my other blog and my shop just in case you want to see what I'm usually doing when I'm not cooking up little ones.
 |
| Buster, my pottery pal |
 |
| Casserole dish lid still on the wheel |
 |
| Pagan platter still on the wheel |
 | |
| Finished blue agateware mug |
Friday, October 22, 2010
Back in the saddle again
I refer you to the Sex post on 10/16/10 if you don't know what I'm talking about.
So now to figure out how to give you an idea of how my body is reacting (because it is relevant to the topic at hand) without my husband feeling like his performance is being reviewed in public (which is not relevant to the topic at hand).
But we decided to give a nice ride another go. We discovered that I can get to about an 8 or a 9 and then my body starts to threaten cramps. So if we get right up to that 9 point and don't cross over into 10, I can enjoy myself without it being followed with a lot of pain. So, yeah. The goal for me is now about 9 so I don't really resent my husbands 10 like I thought I might.
And no upsetting aftermath like last time! Yay!
And K was really kind of funny about it too. Even though it was late and he had to get up early the next morning, he decided to listen to a few more songs on the tv (one of those music stations that we sometimes leave on) before turning it off and going to sleep. He said he wanted to make sure I didn't get upset again and try to hide it from him like last time. He was spying on me!
I'm still not quite ready to resume our standard schedule, but at least I'm not dreading it for fear of pain and tears anymore.
So now to figure out how to give you an idea of how my body is reacting (because it is relevant to the topic at hand) without my husband feeling like his performance is being reviewed in public (which is not relevant to the topic at hand).
But we decided to give a nice ride another go. We discovered that I can get to about an 8 or a 9 and then my body starts to threaten cramps. So if we get right up to that 9 point and don't cross over into 10, I can enjoy myself without it being followed with a lot of pain. So, yeah. The goal for me is now about 9 so I don't really resent my husbands 10 like I thought I might.
And no upsetting aftermath like last time! Yay!
And K was really kind of funny about it too. Even though it was late and he had to get up early the next morning, he decided to listen to a few more songs on the tv (one of those music stations that we sometimes leave on) before turning it off and going to sleep. He said he wanted to make sure I didn't get upset again and try to hide it from him like last time. He was spying on me!
I'm still not quite ready to resume our standard schedule, but at least I'm not dreading it for fear of pain and tears anymore.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Pregnancy purchases
Ordered my first maternity clothes last night! Mostly because I need a sleeping bra. Da boobies, dey're hurtin! And even though it's early, my stomach is starting to show signs that it's going to round out over the next couple of weeks and I don't want to be caught off guard.
I didn't go nuts though, as much as I like shopping. But it was a flat price for shipping so it made sense to get a few things rather than just the bra. So I got me a pair of maternity jeans with the stretchy panel in front, a belly band so I can wear my regular jeans as long as possible and just hide that they're unzipped, the bra that will be both a sleeping and a nursing bra, some underwear (cuz I swear the washing machine is eating them), and a whole set of jammies with a top and pants and are designed for nursing. I always love new jammies!
I'm kind of hoping that being a plus size girl who has never wanted any clothing to lay against her stomach, most of my clothes will work just fine as maternity stuff.
Once I was convinced that I was actually pregnant, it was time to buy some books! There are just all sorts of things to know and learn.
But I tend to be a worrier by nature. Scratch that, a panicker. And most books have reviews about how alarmist they are and how the book would raise peoples blood pressure with worry. As long as I'm going to panic naturally, I kind of figured that I didn't really need a book to make it worse.
I'm also a very slow reader. I didn't want to buy 20 books if I'm still going to be trying to get through 19 of them when the kids go to kindergarten. And I really don't want to read about week 12 when I'm in week 16 and find out I did something horribly wrong when it's too late to do anything about it.
Besides, there's so much info online that for the time being, my doctors and google can probably guide me along. I might get more books later, I might not. We'll see how it goes.
But I figured that it wouldn't hurt knowing what foods I should be adding and what foods I should be avoiding. That seemed like pretty innocuous information that I could actually use.
So I got -
I liked this one. It's easy to flip through with basic information. It's formatted in such a way that even if you spin the pages like a flip book, you're still going to get some info. Very good to have for general reference.
Seems to have some good info but I haven't invested a lot of time in reading it. To be honest, I don't really remember what I thought of it. I likely started reading it and then set it aside and forgot it. I blame my attention span and not the book itself.
And because it seemed fairly safe and somewhat helpful, I also got
Again, it's light weight info but it has some useful stuff in it. You write in your own pregnancy calendar and I've made notes about when I saw the first lines on the test, first doctors appointment and stuff. And I'm glad I did that because as I'm graduating from the fertility clinic and moving on to a regular doctor, I had to fill in all of that information in my medical history and I would have gotten the dates wrong if I didn't have this to refer to.
This has a questionnaire for several pregnancy professionals (midwives, your OB,etc) so you know what to ask them when you are deciding on who to hire. It also has questions that you should look into with your health insurance.
The front of the book allows you to fill in various contact information so it's all at the fingertips. There are various places to fill in certain information like weight gain charts and stuff.
And there's a variety of little checklists that help you organize your thoughts. Lists of nursery basic necessities versus what's nice to have, what to pack for the delivery, that kind of thing.
And the info extends a little bit into having the baby home with you such as a weeks worth of poo charts (with an idea of what to expect each of those days). Did you know that baby poo on the first day is black and tarry? I didn't know that. But apparently that's what I can expect.
Well, I'm clueless about this whole thing so it gives me a variety of starting points to do more research that I might not otherwise have known about. Glancing through this was also the first time I'd ever heard of a doula so I figured I should probably do some googling to see if I wanted one. Not sure I would have ever heard of a doula otherwise.
It seems like a good workbook during the pregnancy and will kind of serve as a scrapbook after the fact once I tuck it away.
Am I jumping the gun with some of these purchases? Maybe. Figured I might as well get a few things before the financial panic truly sets in and I can't justify spending a few dollars here and there.
I didn't go nuts though, as much as I like shopping. But it was a flat price for shipping so it made sense to get a few things rather than just the bra. So I got me a pair of maternity jeans with the stretchy panel in front, a belly band so I can wear my regular jeans as long as possible and just hide that they're unzipped, the bra that will be both a sleeping and a nursing bra, some underwear (cuz I swear the washing machine is eating them), and a whole set of jammies with a top and pants and are designed for nursing. I always love new jammies!
I'm kind of hoping that being a plus size girl who has never wanted any clothing to lay against her stomach, most of my clothes will work just fine as maternity stuff.
Once I was convinced that I was actually pregnant, it was time to buy some books! There are just all sorts of things to know and learn.
But I tend to be a worrier by nature. Scratch that, a panicker. And most books have reviews about how alarmist they are and how the book would raise peoples blood pressure with worry. As long as I'm going to panic naturally, I kind of figured that I didn't really need a book to make it worse.
I'm also a very slow reader. I didn't want to buy 20 books if I'm still going to be trying to get through 19 of them when the kids go to kindergarten. And I really don't want to read about week 12 when I'm in week 16 and find out I did something horribly wrong when it's too late to do anything about it.
Besides, there's so much info online that for the time being, my doctors and google can probably guide me along. I might get more books later, I might not. We'll see how it goes.
But I figured that it wouldn't hurt knowing what foods I should be adding and what foods I should be avoiding. That seemed like pretty innocuous information that I could actually use.
So I got -
I liked this one. It's easy to flip through with basic information. It's formatted in such a way that even if you spin the pages like a flip book, you're still going to get some info. Very good to have for general reference.
Seems to have some good info but I haven't invested a lot of time in reading it. To be honest, I don't really remember what I thought of it. I likely started reading it and then set it aside and forgot it. I blame my attention span and not the book itself.
And because it seemed fairly safe and somewhat helpful, I also got
Again, it's light weight info but it has some useful stuff in it. You write in your own pregnancy calendar and I've made notes about when I saw the first lines on the test, first doctors appointment and stuff. And I'm glad I did that because as I'm graduating from the fertility clinic and moving on to a regular doctor, I had to fill in all of that information in my medical history and I would have gotten the dates wrong if I didn't have this to refer to.
This has a questionnaire for several pregnancy professionals (midwives, your OB,etc) so you know what to ask them when you are deciding on who to hire. It also has questions that you should look into with your health insurance.
The front of the book allows you to fill in various contact information so it's all at the fingertips. There are various places to fill in certain information like weight gain charts and stuff.
And there's a variety of little checklists that help you organize your thoughts. Lists of nursery basic necessities versus what's nice to have, what to pack for the delivery, that kind of thing.
And the info extends a little bit into having the baby home with you such as a weeks worth of poo charts (with an idea of what to expect each of those days). Did you know that baby poo on the first day is black and tarry? I didn't know that. But apparently that's what I can expect.
Well, I'm clueless about this whole thing so it gives me a variety of starting points to do more research that I might not otherwise have known about. Glancing through this was also the first time I'd ever heard of a doula so I figured I should probably do some googling to see if I wanted one. Not sure I would have ever heard of a doula otherwise.
It seems like a good workbook during the pregnancy and will kind of serve as a scrapbook after the fact once I tuck it away.
Am I jumping the gun with some of these purchases? Maybe. Figured I might as well get a few things before the financial panic truly sets in and I can't justify spending a few dollars here and there.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)