Kara and I had our first OB appointment yesterday. Of course I was a bundle of nerves.
The appointment did not start off all that great. We were told to arrive to the appointment 15 minutes early to complete new patient paperwork. Not a problem. Of course when Kara and I arrive at 9:15am we hear the words, "We don't have you on the schedule for today." Huh? You called to confirm the appointment two days ago. Of course I immediately start to panic inside. All I wanted was to know whether or not I still had two babies growing in my belly! Turns out ... The front desk girl was looking at the schedule from November 29th and it was November 30th. We were safe!
Of course I immediately started comparing the OBs office to the REs office. You could immediately tell the OBs office relies heavily on income from insurance companies while the REs office gets a lot of income from self-pay patients. How could I tell? The REs office is super duper fancy. The OBs office ... not so much! And the exam rooms? An even bigger difference! Let me tell you though ... it was so GREAT to be in that OBs office. There were pregnant women all around me and it didn't bug me in the least bit. That's a change from a few months ago.
Kara and I only waited about 20 minutes before we were called back by the nurse. I did the standard get weighed, pee in a cup, and take my blood pressure (120/62) for those keeping track at home. I was surprised my blood pressure was decent considering I wanted to puke all over the exam room floor. Kara and I then waited to meet the OB. I was starting to get worried that my records did not get transferred over from the REs office because of comments that had been made by the front desk girl. Plus my file looked really small when the nurse brought us back to the room. All my fears immediately melted away when the OB entered the room with the words ... "Congratulations! And it's twins!" Sweet. They had gotten my records because I had never even mentioned the twin pregnancy to the office. The OB was amazing from the minute she walked into the room. She briefly went over our trying to get pregnant history. And listened to my concerns about miscarriage. And even better ... she did not minimize my concerns and stated, "When you go through any sort of fertility treatments and then add a miscarriage on top of that of course you are going to be concerned. We will do an u/s today." .... I could have HUGGED her! I felt immediate relief. The OB spent a bunch of time going over the plan of action for the pregnancy. It looks like I will be working with both the OB and a high risk doctor (maternal fetal medicine doctor or a MFM). Both doctors then collaborate with one another about my care. My OB has delivered many sets of twins and also a few set of triplets so I feel very comfortable with her overseeing my pregnancy. She also listened to all my concerns that I had regarding a vaginal birth versus a c-section. We will leave my beliefs on both of those for a later date. My thoughts might surprise some people. And even better she was immediately on bored with how I wanted to give birth to these babies. She also expressed the concerns she has with twin pregnancies and I appreciated the fact that she considers a twin pregnancy to be a much higher risk than a singleton pregnancy. We finally discussed my weight gain (or lack thereof) and she indicated that because of my size she is okay with me only gaining between 30 - 35 lbs this pregnancy. If I gain more it is not a problem. It appears that my OB believes most of my weight gain will be all baby. So after all the talk it was u/s time ...
I got to keep my pants on!!! Not once did I have to take my pants off for this appointment. That is a milestone. I had a big girl ultrasound. Kara and I both really liked the u/s tech too. She spread the gel on my belly and immediately both babies popped up on the screen. Her words, "We don't even have to check for a heartbeat on Baby B. He is moving around like crazy." And of course I followed it up with, "What about Baby A? Heartbeat?" and the u/s tech immediately moved over to check on my precious Baby A who was resting comfortably next to his or her sibling. Relief!! It was amazing. Both babies actually looked like babies. They have grown so much over the past two weeks. Baby A is measuring 11w0d and had a heartbeat of 171 bpm and Baby B (our wiggle worm) is measuring 11w2d and had a heartbeat of 176 bpm. The u/s tech also asked us if we plan to find out the sex of the babies. Of course we do! I then noticed she was spending a lot of time looking at our wiggle worm Baby B. She then says, "I wouldn't go painting the nursery blue but if I had to bet I would say Baby B is a boy." Haha! We shall see. Perhaps that means that Baby A who is always super calm is a girl! We should be able to find out in just a few weeks. We got some awesome pictures of the babies. I haven't had time to scan them into the computer but when I do I will be sure to post them.
When we left the u/s portion of the appointment it was time to leave for the day. When I walked out to the front desk to schedule my next appointment my OB was on the phone. She immediately made eye contact with me to see if the u/s went okay. I just nodded my head "Yes" and I got a big thumbs up from the OB. And then much to my amazement ... when the OB got off the phone she immediately came over and gave Kara and me a big hug. It was so sweet of her! I think she could sense my relief.
So our next steps ... We will have an appointment with the MFM in the next couple of weeks. It will give us an opportunity to meet the MFM and also complete our 1st trimester genetic screening. The 1st trimester genetic screening will include an NT scan (basically an u/s that measure the thickness of the back of the babies necks) and some b/w. The genetic screening will give us some percentages in terms of the likelihood of either baby having one of the most common chromosomal abnormalities such as Down Syndrome. Not everyone opts for this test but Kara and I both believe strongly in being presented with as much information as possible. So we have opted to complete this screening. We then have our next OB appointment in four weeks (YIKES). I will have my annual done at this time (not cool because that means the pants have to come off again) and I believe I will have another u/s. I at least know I will have my first cervical length u/s at this appointment (Yep. That means it is back to my pants being off and a date with ole wandy.) so I am assuming we will also get to see the babies at this appointment. Plus my OB mentioned that I will probably get an u/s at every appointment. So that is were we stand.
Please keep growing little ones.
Mary
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