Prenatal Visit #1

Picking up where I left off... My first prenatal visit was a week ago, and all-in-all, things went good. Most of the appointment was spent with Kathy, my OB's nurse, answering questions about health history. She went through a packet that was probably more than four pages long of things that "if I've never heard of, I've probably never had."

When my doctor came in, I had my annual cha-cha inspection (everything was fine, in case you're wondering), she explained some of the tests my blood would be drawn for, and then she said, "Let me go see if the ultrasound is available." She came back, ultrasound in tow, and I couldn't have been happier. I got to see the baby, and see it's little heart beating. It was pretty incredible.

Find the baby, and you get a cookie!

After my appointment, it was time to head over to the lab at Sierra Vista to pee in a cup (my second of the day, actually) and have my blood drawn. Now, of course I get a little nervous when I have to have blood work done - if you don't, I'm sorry, you're weird. I don't necessarily get nervous because of the pain - I have two tattoos, and at one time had 11 piercings (all above the neck, FYI) but because my veins are almost always hard to find, and I HATE the feeling of a needle moving around in my arm. *shudder* Anywho, the lab was pretty full when I got there, and seemed to be a little understaffed. There was only one phlebotomist in the lab when I got there, so when she started helping another patient, she called in a second for backup. Well, the lady who came in to help her did not want to be there (when she walked into the lab, she said in a thick accent, "I am busy! I have things to do.") And guess who was going to take my blood. Yay for me.

I got in her chair, signed some paperwork, and she tied the rubber thingy onto my bicep. And she rubbed, and tapped, and pressed all over my arm. No luck. OK, let's try the left arm. Rub, tap, press. No Luck. Back to the right arm. "Have you had a lot of water to drink today?" she barked.

"No," I responded.

"Well, you should have known."

Whoa there tiger, I'm sorry I didn't realize I was dehydrated when I woke up at 6:00 this morning to get ready for my doctor's appointment, and still didn't know when I got to the doctor's office at 8:15, sat in the waiting room for 20 minutes, had my appointment that lasted an hour, and headed straight over here to have six tubes of blood drawn so I could maybe get to work before noon.

Anyway, she finally found two veins. One was on the underside of my forearm, and the other was on the underside of my wrist - yeah, as in teenage angst, want to slit your wrist, part of my wrist. And guess which one was a sure thing? She told me it would hurt, but I did not want to get poked twice, so I told her just to go for it. Honestly, the initial poke did not hurt all that much. She used the tiniest needle possible (which was OK with me), so it took a while to fill up all six tubes. And then came the painful part: apparently, the type of needle she used had a button on it that made it retract really fast (I had never seen this before). When she pushed the button, it made an awful noise, and it seriously felt like the needle broke off in my arm. She put a piece of gauze on my wrist, and proceeded to wrap medical tape 3/4 of the way around - oh yeah, she stuck it to arm hair.

So, aside from the crazy lady at the lab, my first prenatal visit was pretty great. My doctor is fantastic, the baby seems to be developing well and we got to take our very first baby picture.