I'm not going to lie. At first I was utterly terrified of my prospective OB. I have Kaiser Permanente for my medical, and when I called in to set up my first prenatal appointment they assigned me to the doctor that was available. This available doctor happened to be a dude. I know, they are just as capable as medical professionals, even for parts that they don't possess, but I had never had a male doctor so I was about five shades of worried. I knew that if I didn't feel completely comfortable with him I could always change doctors, but I didn't want to be labeled a "picky patient." (Not that I think there is a labeling system, but you know what I mean.) I also didn't want to have a different doctor for each appointment. So I decided to tough it out and meet this male obstetrician.
My first appointment finally arrived, and I was so nervous my blood pressure was way up. One, this would be the first time I got to see my little jelly bean, and two, dude doctor was going to be all up in my business. The moment he walked in the door and introduced himself I was completely put at ease. He just has that extremely sweet and caring attitude about himself; something that I had always felt tended to be lacking in the current medical industry. After all the introductions and basic information exchanged, we got down to the nitty gritty not so fun parts of the appointment which actually weren't as bad as I had expected. After that stuff was out of the way we had a great chat about my concerns with the pregnancy.
My biggest issue/concern (and he naturally agreed with me) was my weight. I explained to him that I had originally planned on waiting on the baby thing until I lost another eighty pounds or so (he was over the moon proud of my weight loss accomplishments thus far). I then asked the truly terrifying question: How much weight would I be expected to gain over the duration of the pregnancy? His answer locked down my decision to stick with him for the pregnancy. He told me that at my weight I'm not really "expected" to gain any weight. Ideally, maintaining where I am would be best, and that I could even continue to lose weight as long as I am eating healthy and the baby is growing properly. I was so relieved. I had heard horror stories of other plus size women (including bigger than me) being told by their doctor that they weren't going to starve the baby just because they were fat and that they needed to gain the amount recommended for women at healthy weights (roughly thirty five pounds).
Another point he made while we were discussing my weight that gave me more confidence that he was the best doctor for me: The baby is a parasite. It will take what it wants and needs with little regard for the host. I 100% agree! Go parasite fetuses!
He also covered all the basic dos and don'ts that you would think would be common sense in this day and age. But then again I think about our society and I am not as shocked that they still have to remind pregnant women that they shouldn't smoke, drink, or use drugs.
Every appointment I have to go to will be with him, and so far every appointment I have had with him has been great. He's got a great sense of humor (as I am sure you could deduce from the parasite comment), and he always seems happy to talk to his patients. He doesn't talk down to them either.
At my last check up I finally asked THE question: Would he be the one to deliver the baby? I didn't want to have a Knocked Up moment where I was told he would be it and then him not be there. Sadly, the answer is, "Probably not." He does works shifts at the hospital, but there is no guarantee that he will be on a hospital shift when I pop. Sad face. After he left the room I looked at my tummy (at this point we still didn't know the gender) and told the baby in the strictest of tones that he or she could only come out if my doctor was on shift. Yea, we'll see how that goes.
Other than the protein level scare at the beginning, my pregnancy has his stamp of approval of going perfectly fine so far. Fingers crossed that we keep this up! :-)
Now I am going to go drink a glass of cranberry juice and pretend it's red wine (come on you can't tell me you didn't do that as a kid) and peruse my 2014 IKEA catalog!!! My next post will hopefully be soon. I am thinking the topic will be about awesome baby stuff and the "style" I think ROCKS!
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