Nov
13

B+ For Effort.

Well, that sucked.
First, I drove in rush hour traffic for 45 minutes only to discover my OB had been called away for an emergency C-section, and I would be seeing a nurse instead. Now, I have nothing against nurses, in fact I adore them, and have often times found them more helpful than my doctors. However I hadn’t seen my OB in almost five weeks, and won’t see him again for another three. So I wanted to see him, the one person in the practice who knows my history and oversees my care.
Next, I utterly failed to produce a urine sample, despite having guzzled water all morning in preparation. I have written about my bladder before on this site (and isn’t THAT a sad, sad sentence), about its unwillingness to perform under pressure. I almost didn’t get my current job because of my difficulty with the drug test—in case you are unfamiliar with drug test procedure, they give you a cup and something like 90 seconds to pee in it. My bladder gets stage fright; it took me something like five tries to complete the test. Giving a sample at a doctor’s office should be less fraught, but for some reason knowing they are back in the lab, waiting for me to finish peeing, unhinges me, and my bladder refuses to cooperate. It is always embarrassing, and I wish fruitlessly for a catheter and a tiny, pocket-sized nurse to perform the procedure while I am locked in the bathroom. I thought it would be easier now that I have to pee every five goddamn minutes anyway, but no.
They weighed me and took my blood pressure, and then I saw the nurse. Only it wasn’t a nurse, it was a nursing student, and every time I asked her a question she said “I don’t really know much about multiple pregnancy.” She was very sweet, but not tremendously helpful. She did break out the doppler, and thought she found both heartbeats, but they were too close to tell for certain. I can’t fault her for that, as I have had no luck distinguishing between the two myself.
Anyway, I told her about the pressure I have been having, and she left and returned with another nurse, who seemed concerned and wanted to do a cervical exam.
Now, my cervix is never easy to find, I know. I helpfully told the new nurse to try “down and to the left,” as that seems to help. The good news is that my cervix is closed. The bad news is that the exam hovered around a 12 on the pain scale. I don’t like to brag, but I am quite good with pain. Kidney stones, natural miscarriages, years of debilitating menstrual cramps—I have handled all with aplomb, or at least quasi-aplomb. But this was awful. And honestly, I don’t know that a manual cervix check (in my unprofessional opinion) was particularly useful. Wouldn’t an ultrasound of my cervix have been more helpful if it was my cervix she was worried about?
After the cervical spelunking we went over the rest of my numbers. My blood pressure was higher than last time, 130/52. Apparently it is “something to keep an eye on.” I have always had low blood pressure, so I found that a bit baffling. More distressing, according to the nurse, is that in the past almost-five weeks, I have gained only two pounds. I had just talked myself down about the weight gain issue (Ok, YOU had just talked me down), and now I am all worked up again. Even Scott is freaking out a little, which only makes me more anxious. I wonder if cutting my Metformin dose would help?
I found the whole appointment upsetting. This is going to sound absurd, but I wanted to be good at pregnancy, or as good as someone with three previous miscarriages can be, anyway. I feel like I was terrible at the getting pregnant part, and here was my chance to redeem myself. Only the overwhelming impression I got from this appointment was that I am failing. The clinic was full of other pregnant women who were in and out of the bathroom in minutes with their no-doubt easily and thoughtlessly obtained urine samples, and they all looked happy, and the nurses were smiling at them, probably indicating that they are gaining weight properly and not having frustratingly vague symptoms of “pressure.” Those bitches can probably even take their prenatal vitamins without throwing up.

On my way out I tried again to give a urine sample, and this time, with no one waiting for me, I succeeded. I walked it to the lab and asked if they would call me if there was an infection.
“Oh!” They said, “Do you want us to check for that?”
Really? Seriously? I said yes, that I was having some bladder pressure and the nurse had said they would look for infection. I’m glad I walked it back myself instead of leaving it in the urine vestibule. A very nice lab tech dipped a test strip in my cup while I stood there, and it came up immediately positive for blood in my urine. I asked if they would call me when they got the culture.
“Oh, we can’t culture this one, but if you want to give another sample we could culture that.”
I asked what was wrong with the one they had, and was told it wasn’t sterile. When you give a urine sample, you are told to use one of the plastic dixie cups stacked in the bathroom—apparently there is a different procedure for a sterile sample.
“We should have had you do a sterile sample,” the lab tech said wistfully.
There was no way in hell I was going to be able to collect another cup of pee under these circumstances. I was about to explain all of this—about the bladder shyness, and my mini-nurse and catheter fantasy—when Lo! Who should appear but my OB, back from surgery.
He wrote me a prescription for an antibiotic for the blood in my urine and told me the pressure was probably normal pressure related to my growing uterus. And that was that.

Now I am at home, in pain from the exam and the cramps that started yesterday. I think the cramps ARE round ligament pain, as they seem to be mostly on the sides, with the occasional spear to the vagina. I assume it is normal for round ligament pain to be truly painful? Since the appointment, the right side of my groin feels as though I have pulled some very vital muscle—an unlikely scenario—and it is fiercely unpleasant. I am drinking cranberry juice and trying to ignore the bladder pressure that has not gone away. It is worse in the afternoon, when I am larger and have been on my feet, making the “growing uterus” explanation plausible. And perhaps I do have an infection, in which case the antibiotics should help. Still, I feel weepy and not-hungry and disappointed in myself and furious at my body and annoyed that I won’t see a doctor again for three weeks. And I hate that I am complaining, which I SWORE up and down I wouldn’t do if I were ever lucky enough to get and stay pregnant. Less whining in the future, I promise, unless it is about something important, like what the writers’ strike is doing to my evening plans.

By Alexa | Posted in Ceci N'est Pas Une Ecrivaine |