Our first doctor's visit

Well, technically it was more of a nurse's visit. We won't actually see the doctor until next time we go. There are 7 doctors at the practice I'm going to, 6 men and 1 woman. I will see a different doctor each time pretty much so I get to meet all of them before I go into labor.

I went in this morning at 8 AM. Surprisingly, I didn't have to fill out 10 pages of paperwork like you usually do when going to a new doctor. Just signed a couple things and got called back pretty quickly. They took a urine sample and weighed and measured me and took my blood pressure. (I'm about 5'7" and 126 lbs right now.)

After that we went and sat in the nurse's office and she went over a whole bunch of stuff with us. Most of it was getting our family medical histories and that sort of thing, but she also gave us a lot to read about common discomforts of pregnancy and some remedies/medications I can use, what to generally expect each trimester, whether we want to do genetic screening, bank cord blood, etc. She also said to sign up early for prenatal classes at the hospital (even though we wouldn't go to that until around 7 months) as well as a one time breastfeeding class if that's what I plan to do (which it is). I walked out with a whole bag full of papers and pamphlets. Talk about a fire hydrant of information.

Next the nurse took 6 viles of blood so they could send them off for routine tests, basically getting my blood type and testing for a whole bunch of diseases that I'm 99.99% sure I would not have. She's only supposed to call me back if something looks abnormal, but she said not to expect a call back and I don't.

I was really happy with my first visit, and I think Matt was too. Everyone there was very nice and informative and the nurse was also very good at taking blood, which is always a good thing.

As far as how I've been feeling, I've been really tired, and dizzy and a little queasy on and off. Also I get headaches on and off, cramps, and cold-like symptoms. It hasn't been terrible though. I know it's nothing compared to how some people get, and the nurse said that a lot of that should go away after about 12-14 weeks. I'm looking forward to it.  :)

Anyways, I'm going back to bed now. Don't forget to mark your calendars for September 21, 2010!!!

[South Carolina OBGYN]