The Daily Hailey

I asked a couple of days ago if anyone was interested in reading about my first prenatal appointment with this pregnancy. A few of you said you would be, so I’m posting it today. It was nice to read back through it and remember my excitement for the months to come. Still so many emotions over here, but nobody said pregnancy is easy, no matter how it turns out. Well worth the risk.

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i had my first prenatal appointment today, marking the beginning of my fifth pregnancy! As much as often people don’t like going to the doctor, its not a secret that I love my doctor, and I really love my prenatal appointments. With Laela throwing up the day before, I had arranged that Brady come home and watch the kids (Dekker was at school) rather than me trying to arrange for someone else to do it and possibly spread the sickness. I would always rather we go together, but this just had to be this way.

With the amount of sickness around here recently, I’ve been struggling with feeling like a good mom. I know sickness happens, but with my hormones starting to rage and the fatigue beginning, I was getting down on myself pretty hard. I drove to my appointment, trying to prepare how I might bring this up to Dr. Guselle without sounding crazy.

I got called back to my appointment a few minutes early. I was weighed, and my number was EXACTLY what I had hoped to start this pregnancy at, so that felt like a small victory. My blood pressure was higher than usual, but I had been working myself up quite a bit on my drive over, so I wasn’t surprised. I only waited in the exam room for a couple of minutes before Dr. Guselle arrived.

The first thing she told me was that the moment she saw me on her schedule, she opened up a prenatal page on her computer. This was before she even saw I was there for a prenatal appointment. She made a joke that she just subconsciously knew. She probably did.

First thing was first. She started gathering the requisitions for blood work and ultrasounds, just to get the paperwork out of the way. As she did that, out of the blue, she began asking about my family, and Brady’s family. Where they all lived, how often we saw them, how our dynamic was. It felt like we were just visiting. I loved it. It was very, very natural. I feel like, if not for our doctor-patient relationship, we’d be really easy friends. Once the forms were printed off, we had a laugh about how quick that part had went (we’re old pros by now) and she jumped into the long list of questions regarding genetic sicknesses, general family health, etc.

When she asked how my mood was, I told her it had been a rough week or so. I tried to roll it off but she pressed just a little. I really wanted to tell her. She feels SO safe. So I did. I told her I felt incapable, and like I wasn’t doing a good job of keeping my kids safe and well. I told her how Dekker’s ear infection medicine ran our four doses early, and that I had been SO careful, yet still we were short, and it made me feel crazy and too disorganized to help my kids when they were sick. She was SO reassuring and told me that one day short on his medicine would be ok. She said the ten day dosage allotted for spills, kids refusing it on and off, etc., and that I was doing better than most for getting nine full days in. I told her next that we were struggling with Solly. He had lost weight at his recent appointment for his shots, and since then we’ve been trying to fill him up, but when he eats more solids, he gets horribly constipated, and when he drinks more milk, he isn’t as full as isn’t sleeping as well. She, once again, was so reassuring and encouraging. She said she wasn’t even going to try to give us advice on that beyond “He’s a baby, and you will find that balance. You WILL figure it out.” She did have to ask if I felt like I was getting too overwhelmed or out of hand, and I could honestly tell her I wasn’t, but that by the end of the day, when Brady got home, I felt finished with the day. “And can you be finished with the day, sometimes, when he gets home?” she asked. I told her I could, and that Brady is quick to get home, change, wash up, and dive in, giving me the best break he can. She seemed to melt into her seat a little as I bragged up my incredible, supportive husband. I said to her, “I know, he’s exceptional. I’m SO thankful he’s not a jerk like so many other husbands.” She nodded a BIG nod and said she and I were some of the very lucky ones 😉 I loved that. She wound up this conversation by saying that, despite how I’m feeling in this case, she thinks I am more than capable, and that we’re doing a fantastic job. It felt really good to hear that.

We made a few more plans before we parted ways. As is the system at her clinic now, I’ll be with a student doctor the entire time, just running into Dr. Guselle once in a while. However, the schedule isn’t made into August yet, and she’d like to pair me off with someone who will be here from the beginning through to delivery. Because we can’t know for sure who I’ll be with, she just made us an appointment together in January, and I agreed to a few med students joining the party. So it will be she and I, two med students (I believe), Brady, and all four kids!! So it’ll be a bit of a mad house. But I’m SO looking forward to it, because that will be our heartbeat appointment!!! She said the medical students usually love coming in for prenatals, so I hope its as much fun then as I feel it will be now 🙂

I handed Dr. Guselle a Christmas card on the way out, and walked to my vehicle feeling positive and uplifted, which is SUCH a special gift every time I see her. I feel cared for, and excited about the future! I feel like my secret of feeling insufficient is out in the open now, which is a huge relief, because in Christian circles, it would be as though I now have an accountability partner. I know she will check on my mood every time we talk, and I can tell her honestly how I’m doing.

Unlike my drive to my appointment, I drove home and sang to my music for a little while, before calling my mom and telling her all about my appointment and how much better I felt. This morning was SUCH a good morning.

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I really really wish we had gotten to that exciting second prenatal appointment, but I hope and pray we’ll get another shot at a prenatal appointment in the future. Hopefully more than one, even 🙂