Where'd She Go??

Oh, oh! Here I am, over here! See me??

Yea, ok, that was dorky. But really, I'm here. I guess I got a bit carried away with myself and somehow managed to um, forget? to update my blog. Woops!

Anyway, just wanted to let everyone know I had my 16-week appointment on Thursday. All is well, essentially, but I'm really not so sure how I feel about my current OB. I'll explain why, but if you're going to read it, you have to promise me you won't panic. I'm not panicking, and therefore, you can't either.

I went in for my appointment, weighed in... gained three pounds. (That's five-ish, now, all together) They took my blood pressure. 119/60. Nurse left, OB came in and asked how I'm feeling, if I had any questions, etc., etc. I did have a question, and our conversation went something like this:

Me: "I'm still having some cramping. Is that normal?"
OB: (Eyes wide) "You are?! Where? How often? What does it feel like? Show me where you get the cramps."
Me: (Getting nervous) "It's irregular. Sometimes none at all, sometimes once or twice during the day? It feels like period cramps (sorry guys!) and never lasts very long."
OB: "Do you notice it goes away if you drink a lot of water?"
Me: "No?"
OB: "You do realize, you've got weeks to go before your baby could be... viable."

Now let's stop for a second and think about this. I'm more than a little miffed at her choice in how to handle this situation. First of all, why in heaven's name would you use the "V" word with your patient... your patient who is at the appointment alone, who has suffered a relatively late loss not so long ago... why would you SAY that? Second, I'm a little tired of her snarky attitude. She's sort of... well... "w"itchy! Clearly her time is more valuable than mine, and I'm "just another patient" who will pay for her fancy sports car... ugh. Third, seriously? Did this happen to me? Couldn't she just be nice?

Ok... rant aside... she got this information from me, and then proceeded to do nothing about it. She told me over and over again that cramps (which I've come to learn feel just like early labor--who knew?!) just "shouldn't happen" when you're pregnant. Funny thing is, everything I read says exactly the opposite. There's a whole lot of moving and growing going on in there, and really, the logical portion of my brain things this is ALL normal. Mind you, this OB has never had a kid of her own.

So anyway, I left my appointment feeling relatively calm and ok with what she had said, but then the more I thought about it, the more upset I got. Partially, I'm upset because what if something IS wrong? Or what if this is a sign that something is about to go wrong? The rest of me got more and more upset at Mrs. OB's bedside manner. Or lack thereof.

I made it home, sat on the couch for an hour or so, Googling "pre-term labor" and what not, and was feeling pretty ok. Until my mom called... and then I lost it. I cried like a big baby about how freaked out I was. (Note, I'm ok now.) She helped me do a little more research, found more and more about how normal the cramping and what-not can be, etc., etc.

For now, my plan is to document the times and places where these little "episodes" happen. What I'm doing, if I've eaten or had enough water, so on and so forth. If I begin to notice any sort of a pattern or an increase in frequency, then we'll panic.

I think I'll also be shopping for a new OB. Too bad I'm trapped at the same practice... stupid HMO's.