One of our first orders of business after the pregnancy test came back positive (beyond vomiting) was to find a doctor. See – we assumed she wasn’t pregnant because she had been getting these cramps, but after she talked to a friend who had the same issue and was pregnant, she took the test (without mentioning that she was going to) and consequently i got no sleep that night. Anyway, the cramps were still somewhat concerning, so we wanted to talk to a professional about it.
Kim called over to a local hospital that we really liked in terms of a delivery center – I had a friend who had his baby there (technically it was his wife’s, but the way he carried on…) and was impressed – and they gave her the names of a few places to try. She tried a few, and found one nearby and gave them a call.
Now, I wasn’t on the call, but she related that it went something like this:
Kim: “Hi, I recently discovered that i am pregnant by means of a home pregnancy test.”
OBGYN: “That’s great – congratulations! Call use in a few weeks.”
Kim: “Ok yeah but i’ve been having these cramps see…”
OBGYN: “Oh. OH. We better get you in and check you out.”
Kim: “…” <FREAK OUT>
Luckily they were able to get us in the next day (Thursday) early, so we didn’t have too much time to exacerbate the “freak out” (thankfully). I, of course, did not want to mention “baby” to the boss (who I believe wanted us to have kids more than we ourselves did) and so concocted a benign story about Kim “having random chest pains” and that i needed to “go with her in case the worst happened.” It seemed innocent enough to me.
We went Thursday morning early and met with the doctor, who is about 2 feet tall and talks like Fran Drescher but we both really liked her. Kim is a bit tall for a girl (5-10), so it was a bit awkward (amusingly so to me at least), but we thought she was great. She wanted to do an ultrasound which we were all about – I suppose in some small sense I expected to see the full grown baby looking back at me, giving me the thumbs up or some nonsense.
First of all, at this early in a pregnancy, ultrasounds are NOT done the way you would think. Let’s just say it’s a bit more “invasive” than the TV version we’re all familiar with. Secondly, 4-5 week old babies look like ultrasound transmission errors. She pointed out a small blob of black and told us that was it. Not terribly exciting. While we were watching i thought it may have been eaten by some large carnivorous mass but it was just Kim’s (very) full bladder.
The only decision we had to make was whether or not to do a blood test to confirm that the baby was indeed growing – they would take a sample now and then one in a few days and compare the two. Regardless they wanted to see us back in two weeks for another checkup. I think both of us had been relieved to see the ultrasound and the doctor didn’t seemed concerned about the cramping, so we decided against the blood test.
So in two weeks we have another appointment, which we think will basically serve as more of a standard “first” visit where they will start doing normal tests, etc.
