An evening with the doctor

1/10/13

We love going to the doctor's so much, we decided to spend over 2 hours there tonight, and scheduled another 5 hours worth of appointments for next week too!!!  Yuck!!!

No worries, mom and baby are doing fine!!!  Our appointment tonight was for the preliminary glucose test.  We had to arrive an hour early in order for Laura to drink some tasty stuff, prior to giving blood.  While waiting, we had an exam from the doctor, which neither of us anticipated.  During this exam, we were again assured that all is going well and that Laura is a rare patient who is experiencing a "low risk" pregnancy!!!  However, we also discovered that the doctor couldn't feel the baby's head, so she ordered another ultrasound for us.  Based on Laura's feelings over the past week, and the doctor's thoughts, the baby may not be sitting in there just right, so we just need to check it out to see what the little dude/dudette is up to.  Earlier in the week, Laura said it moved and it felt like the arms and legs outstretched in the opposite directions at the same time...much to the delight of her stomach wall!!!  On a positive note to all of this extra ultrasound stuff, we will soon find out the gender of our baby!!!  After confirming 9 weeks ago that the baby is indeed ours because of its stubbornness, we'll soon see if there'll be another Mr. Lemke coming along to spread a crazy sense of humor to the rest of the world!!!

The glucose test, on the other hand, gave us a result that requires us to have a more extensive test beyond this preliminary one.  The level came back a little high (which is a common thing for women), so we'll have another test to check for gestational/pregnancy diabetes.  This one will be really fun...I think Laura has to drink another delicious cocktail followed by a serious of blood draws over the course of a 4 hour time period.  I think she's least excited about fasting prior to the test...luckily for her (and the rest of the world), she will not need to be out in public while fasting because she has an early morning appointment!!!  Unfortunately, with her commute and an available ultrasound time slot, she'll have to take a day off of work next Tuesday for a morning of needles and boredom and then return for a late afternoon ultrasound.

We were also told that we need to start monitoring the baby's movement and tracking it.  We were told to count the kicks for 1 hour a day through the end of the pregnancy to ensure the baby is doing fine.  We should be able to feel 10 kicks an hour; if not, we need to call the hospital. We were also warned that if she begins having contractions and she has more than 8 an hour, we will also need to call the hospital.  So...it's fun to know that the baby is developing and becoming more active inside, but now also nerve racking that we need to be very focused on these things to ensure our child is doing ok.  I don't know if it's totally hit me yet, but I think tonight is the first night that I've worried about our baby.  The tests were fine, but we need more...something no one wants to hear.  And that we should be keeping track of a finite number of movements and need to call the hospital if those aren't felt...definitely kind of a stressful thing to hear as well.  To go beyond worry about the baby, now I'll be making sure that Laura is being fed extra healthy meals by her chef!!!  Finally, we will now be having doctor visits every 2 weeks until the final month or so when we'll be visiting each week!!!  Wow...all these trips to the doctor's office makes me thankful that my life up to this point has been very healthy, and makes me appreciate our health much more...well, not including all those ER trips when I was younger...

However...to mark the end of a long night and some disappointment in having more doctor visits to come, we were greeted by an ecstatic Lexi when we let her out of the kennel!  She was jumping all over us and her legs were flying in the air during her belly scratches!  Now that our late dinner of Burger King is through, I need to go and spend some time with my girls...one is slobbery and the other whiney...I'll let you figure out which is which!!!

Until next time, thanks again so much for reading my Daddy Diary.  For some reason this thing isn't letting me upload pictures.  I have a picture of the crib I want to upload, but it's not letting me...that better change because our new, matching dresser is now in and will be picked up tomorrow after school...so much for my lazy weekend!!!  Thanks again for your continued thoughts/prayers and best wishes!!!  Take care!