Saw the doctor today.

First thing she said to me was “You are starting to look pregnant.”

Her nurse responded “I’m sure that isn’t what you wanted to hear this morning.”

And I said “Actually, I thought I just looked fat so I’ll take pregnant.”

Everything looks fine.  The baby was kicking and flipping up a storm.  Too early to determine if it is a boy or a girl (I’m 14 weeks and 1 day right now).  In 6 weeks she wants to do an amnio (or the BFN – Big F*cking Needle – test as Steve calls it).

I continue to want to smack my doctor upside the head.  She is still insisting on weekly appointments.  The only upside of this is that I get to see the baby every week (she does an ultrasound at every appointment).  The downside of this is that she stresses me out.  Her new thing today was she wants to do a cervical cerclage soon.  This is where they basically sew my cervix shut until I reach 37 weeks.  She said she would require me to be on bed rest for the remainder of my pregnancy (that is 5 months).  WHAT?  I’ve done some research on this (she told me to look it up on the internet when I balked in her office so my googling was doctor’s orders) and don’t know what to do.

I hate this.  My initial reaction is absolutely not.  I don’t want to be on bed rest – it was starting to make me feel majorly depressed and physically I felt horrible from the lack of activity.  I don’t believe I meet the criteria for doing the cerclage (a previous second trimester pregnancy loss, a previous cone biopsy or LEEP procedure, or an incompetent cervix).  Both of my previous miscarriages were early and the babies died before the miscarriage (no heart beat…go home and let nature take its course kind of thing).  I’ve never had the middle thingy.  And I have no reason to believe my cervix is incompetent (I will admit to calling my ovaries incompetent in the past when I wasn’t ovulating but we’ve made up) and the websites say it is difficult to diagnose.  When I asked her why she wanted to do this she cited my previous miscarriages but I truly believe it is apples and oranges.  I’ve never made it this far in a pregnancy.  This is uncharted territory for me.  She also mentioned I have a short cervix.  I don’t know what this means but she hasn’t touched my cervix in months so I have no idea how she knows anything about the condition of my cervix.  If we could do it without the bed rest, I might be willing to discuss it.  I can’t face 5 months of bed rest – it isn’t good for my psyche or for Sabrina.

But then there is that little voice in the back of my head that asks what if something happens and I could have prevented it.   Can you get a second opinion on something that is just precautionary to begin with?  Will any one say it isn’t indicated when it is a cover your ass kind of procedure?  Why can’t everyone leave me alone and let me eat ice cream and get fat?

We spent the day wandering around areas to look at model houses and scope out any rentals advertised.  I have to say that I am amazed at the number of buildings without any taste imagination or originality.  We toured 6 model homes.  Out of the 6, only 2 were even marginally okay.  It seems that with many builders, they either give you too much house or not enough.  Steve and I don’t want more space than we will live in – why clean it or pay for it?  But we do want enough space to meet our needs.  Many builders don’t build dining rooms – just tiny little breakfast nooks.  And can you really call an 18 inch deep slab of concrete a front porch just because it is on the front of the house?  Shouldn’t a chair fit on it to advertise it as a porch?  Or they go the other way and provide the breakfast nook and a big dining room and 4 bedrooms and a bonus room and an office.  I don’t need or want all of that space.  Doesn’t anyone understand the happy medium?

Our front runner is still the first model we saw a couple of weeks ago.  But when the time comes, we will still investigate non-development homes because we would really like a bit of yard and these builders are squeezing as many houses as possible on the land they own to maximize their profit (who can blame them?).   (That and my Libertarian husband believes home owner associations are the work of the devil.)

Sabrina’s opinion of the day:

I think this might be the third time I’ve been tagged for this one and it might be the second time I’ve done it but I have the memory and attention span of a gnat these days so I’ll join in with the rest of blog land and do it again. (Tag courtesy of Tam.)

7 Weird things about me

1. I brush my teeth in the shower. I have a very specific order to things in the shower and if I deviate I will forget something (like rinsing my hair). First I shampoo, then condition, while the conditioner is on my hair I brush my teeth, rinse conditioner, wash self, occasionally shave, and done.

2. Pregnancy has made me stupid. A few weeks ago, I was going to the store to pick up 2 things. I had to ask Steve 3 times before I walked out the door what I was going to get. He was actually a little nervous to let me drive – afraid I might forget what to do if the light turns red or how to make the car stop.

3. I am never comfortable temperature wise. I am always either freezing or sweating. This time of year I am usually freezing. I walk around my house in pants, socks, slippers, a tshirt, a sweatshirt, and my bathrobe over it all – and still cover up with a blanket on the couch. Steve has been known to ask if it is healthy for a living person to have hands as cold as mine. He calls me a crocodile because I can’t regulate my own body temperature. Also because I do the crocodile death roll with the covers at night (according to him).  You know how crocodiles roll their prey underwater until they die?  I apparently do that with the covers until they are completely wrapped around me and he has nothing left.  We don’t share covers at all – should that be another weird thing? I have my covers on the bed and he has his.

4. I can’t go to sleep without reading a book or magazine for at least a few minutes. If I try, my brain won’t shut off from the day and I obsess about things to the point of being unable to sleep.

5. I can’t lie down completely flat. If I don’t have a pillow or something to slightly prop up my head, I get an awful headache.

6. I hate tomatoes but I love spaghetti sauce, tomato soup, ketchup, and salsa.

7. I am a peeping tom. No, I don’t want to see what people are doing in their houses, I just want to see how it is decorated. When we go somewhere at night, I am always gawking in windows that don’t have curtains so I can see the furniture, paint color, house layout, etc. I am fascinated by other people’s houses. I blame my mother – we used to spend Sunday afternoons going to open houses just for the fun of it (and I still do sometimes).