Our First Appointment

Well the long awaited first visit with the doctor was finally here! When I first made the appointment they said you had to be at least 6 weeks, which at that point was about 2.5 weeks away and I couldn't get the appointment till the end of the week so I think it ended up being the longest 3 week wait ever. Mostly while we were waiting I just wanted official confirmation that there was actually a baby in there, I really didn't believe it, although I think also bc for the most part I really don't have any pregnancy symptoms (more on that later).

We both took the day off from work for the appointment, we didn't know what to expect or how long it would take. Of course we ended up in ridiculous traffic, and at rush hour, and were late to our appointment. And apparently anything over 15 minutes late and they can refuse to see you, we almost thought we weren't going to get our appointment after all. They did inevitably see us but we had to wait a bit to see the doctor.

Finally it was our turn, of course my blood pressure was high bc I was anxious about the appointment and all that waiting. The appointment itself wound up being more of a consult and blood draw than anything. We sat and talked with the midwife (the same one I had seen at my annual appointment two months earlier), and she explained a couple things to us. Today's appointment was really only to confirm the pregnancy with a blood draw. I was expecting the full appointment and work up.

We did get to talk to her which made me feel reassured about some of the things I was worried about. I told her I really didn't believe it bc I don't have any symptoms at all, and she said I may never get any symptoms and not to let that worry me one bit. She said every pregnancy is different and not to worry about all the things that I read in the books. I also asked her about my workouts which was another big concern for me the last few weeks and she said that too should not be an area of concern for me. She told me that to keep doing exactly what I've been doing and nothing is off limits right now. She told me "you can't harm a healthy pregnancy and you also can't save an unhealthy one" and really not to worry as much. That alone made me feel much better. The other thing too is she said the risk of miscarriage goes down significantly after another 2 weeks, at around weeks 8-9, and I'm almost there! The way she said it, it seemed like most miscarriages occur so early and so far so good, I'm at week 7 already, which made me feel better too.

Mike asked her a couple questions as well and we went over the next couple appointments. We'll have our first ultra sound appointment on the 18th which is when they will be able to tell us the size of the baby and how far along I am, including my due date. And then after that I guess I'll have my full work up exam (with all the blood work) on the 28th is when they could get me in the schedule.

The main part of this visit was for my blood work to test for my HCG level, my first blood test. I'm not a fan of needles but it really wasn't too terrible, the nurse was very good and I handled it like a champ Mike said. We promptly got our test results back right away the following morning. I was able to log into my patient portal to get all the results. Although it was just the numbers, it didn't confirm two things for me which made me feel better, one I actually am pregnant (yes I am almost crazy enough to have not believed it) and two, that my levels look good based on my weeks along. In my mind I felt like bc I wasn't having symptoms maybe something was wrong but this made me feel a lot better. So it's starting to feel more real now that it's actually been confirmed by the doctor. Now I can't wait for our next appointment on the 18th, things are getting real!