I went in to the OB today for my regular check up and to get the Group B Strep test. Sitting in the waiting room I ran into quite the character. A little old lady in a royal blue velour track suit with sparkles on the jacket. Her deep brunette hair was clipped up on her head making a kind of fan of hair. As I sat down next to her she peeked out at me over her cat-eye glasses with her false eyelashes flapping away. "When is your baby due?" I tell her next month. "Oh, because you're really big." Gee thanks. "I mean for being such a small person." Mmmhmmm. "Is your husband big?" Yep, huge! I laugh, tell her more about the baby and then she is called back to the office. Back to my flipping through my magazines.
FInally after waiting a good half hour, I get called back. I am weighed (ugh!) and my blood pressure is taken (135/95) and then back to the room I go. As usual, I slip out of my pants and under a lovely paper sheet. Wait. Wait. Wait. Slowly I feel the room begin to heat up. My fingers start swelling, my cheeks start getting flushed, I am sweating (I hate sweating!). As I sit there, nearly naked and sweating like a pig, I finally decide I can't take it anymore and resort to running a paper towel under the cold water. I can hear Dr. M. chatting away with velour track suit lady in the room next to me. Actually, the woman was doing most of the talking. Finally after a good hour of waiting (waiting room time included), Dr. M. graces me with her presence.
After some discussion of my monster contractions (some of them last up to two minutes) and a very painful/crampy cervical check, she starts in on my blood pressure. Am I having headaches? No. Am I swelling? Only when I'm hot. Any pain in my chest? Nope. "Well I'm going to go ahead and send you for blood work to check for preeclampsia because if anything is going to happen it's going to happen to you." LOL! Always good to have a doctor with a sense of humor. :) She followed up by saying that she was sure if she tested me for it then that would prevent me from actually having it. Oh how I love Dr. M.
So now I have a new thing to worry about. Tomorrow I go in for my blood work and then I see the doctor again next week. Let's all hope the high blood pressure (it's been high the last three visits) is just a fluke. I'm not sure that I really want to deal with another issue with this pregnancy.
Haha that lady sounded like a hoot ~ isn't it funny how friendly/familiar people get with you when you're pregnant?
ReplyDeleteI hope the high blood pressure is a fluke ~ i have heard it's very common for people to get high blood pressure just from being in the doc's office. that when their blood pressure is taken over the course of a day, while at home, it can be totally normal. it's something about the doc's office that makes them nervous or whatever.
Fingers crossed for you!!! <3
The woman totally cracked me up. Is my husband big? lol! I told Dr. M about her and she said that every time she sees that patient she's knows she's in for a long, but funny appointment.
ReplyDeleteAs for the blood pressure thing, it's called "white coat syndrome," I've had it in the past. This whole pregnancy my blood pressure has actually been unusually low for me, but then the last few times it's been up. We have an at-home monitor so I started using it yesterday. Unfortunately it's not going down. I took it this morning as soon as I woke up and it was still high. :( I'm hoping there's still a chance, since it's still technically under 140 which is when they consider it to be officially high.