Saturday, March 29, 2003

 
trotted in to see the male dr this morning.

the strangest moment came when I got changed for examination, and had to decide if husband was staying in the room. up until now he always has (female drs). in the end I let him, but it felt a bit weird for some reason.

anyway: was asked lots of the usual questions about past surgery, blood type etc. had my breasts and abdomen prodded and cervix felt.
he said my cervix had good length, which bodes well for incompetence. I worry about a cone biopsy I had 4 years ago - he's going to check with the dr who did that how much she took off. apparently the procedure she did, with a laser, is better. a stitch can be put in up to 16 or so weeks, but it carries its own risk (1-100) of miscarriage. so it's really a matter of playing it by ear and praying (no, I don't believe in God. but I can still pray).

most amazing: he claims the herpes infection, being well established in my body, is very unlikely to pass to the baby during labor and a caesarian isn't necessarily indicated, even if it's active around birth! says the baby will have the antibodies from me. I have NEVER heard this before. he says the risks of a caesar are at least as great. I seem to remember the word "miniscule".

he is surprisingly and reassuringly anti-caesarian, even for breech births. he gets some referred to him at 38 weeks because their drs don't want to go vaginally with a breech. I think this is good, providing he will do a caesar if I do need one. he says the big hospital is far better to be in "if I get into trouble" than the nicer small one. he's right of course. his epistiotomy (sp?) rate is one in three births, depending on dilation and how the woman is going to tear (I have seen him do one of these, with my friend's baby last year. never forget that cutting sound.)

I have blood test orders for down's, progesterone, chicken pox (he seemed to think it was positively odd that I couldn't say for sure if I'd had shots for that), antibodies to type + blood, and various other things. an ultrasound at 12 weeks for down's and another at 19. his home and pager #'s. an appointment with him again at 13 weeks on our wedding anniversary, which I plan to change to the day before.

husband thought he was OK. he certainly seems confident. his nurse was very chatty and nice - a little too much for me, I like to ease into such relationships. we're still going to see the female dr on Thursday, though. he was so serious and focussed and Serth Afriken all through it that husband's last question was: "do you have a variety of funny hats" and dr actually smiled (he's maybe 45). I jumped in with "no, but he has goggles he wears to keep the blood out of his eyes", which will have done husband's queasiness no good at all.

oh, and this morning I got up and got the bucket and put it beside the bed. just in case. slept terribly due to headache, noisy neighbours' guests etc and felt FOUL.

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