Happy New Year!

It's time to end another year, and I can't say that 2008 has been a bad one.(For me, at least.) The hubster and I have no plans tonight, the girls are staying over at their cousins' house, and we're having a quiet evening at home, thank goodness.

The countdown has begun for our first ultrasound, just one week from today. It's kind of strange but I don't really feel pregnant. I've been extremely lucky in the pregnancy symptoms department and I should be thankful that I've been feeling pretty good but it makes me worry. I'm a worrywart anyway, but I know that I'll feel about a hundred times better once I see the little bean on the US. I've been having terrible nightmares lately, which makes going to bed a chore, and waking up and even bigger chore. Maybe they'll let up once I know everything's going as it should.

I hope everyone has a safe and happy new year and I look forward to updating when I finally have the news!

First OB Visit

It occurs to me that I haven't written about my first appointment last week, so that's where I'm going to start. I went in, husband in tow, and we filled out the requisite ream of paperwork and waited to be called in. Thankfully, I didn't have to wait long, I was actually not even done with the last questionnaire when they called us back. The first thing they wanted was a urine sample, to which I thought 'no problem' because I've been peeing approximately every five minutes for the last month. Apparently my bladder had other ideas. I tried to pee, I really did, but I just couldn't do it. After ten minutes (yes ten) of struggling to squeeze a few drops out, I gave up. I drank some water before I vacated the facilities, in hopes that I'd be able to pee after while.

We went to the scale (!) and I got weighed, which is never much fun, but even less so when the office is being remodeled and the scale is in the same place as the check-out line. The nurse took us back to our room, and we answered eight hundred other questions. She was engaging and charming, so I didn't mind talking to her, even though every question she asked was already answered on one of the forms she had in her hand. On her way out, she reached under the table into a magic cabinet and pulled out a hospital gown and a sheet. 'Here, you need to put these on, hon. Disrobe completely and park it on the table, mmkay?' Greeeaaat. The part I was looking forward to the most. /sarcasm

After a short wait, the doctor came in. I *heart* her. She's young, funny and made me and my husband feel very comfortable. I made my hubby move once she brought out the stirrups, because the guest chair gave an awesome view right under my sheet. He was standing to the right of me during the breast exam, arms crossed, looking out the window. I said 'Honey, you can watch this part, it's okay.' Dr. W said 'Watch? Heck, I was going to let him do the other side!' She then proceeded to give him tips on how to do and effective breast exam.

Next came the really fun part. Scooch forward, feet in the stirrups, flop the knees open and relax. Yeah, easy for you to say. I was busy chatting with the doctor about various things while she had her hand in my vagina (which is actually kind of hard to do, small talk while getting probed) and tried to relax. She then started pressing around on my lower abdomen and I instantly regretted not trying a little harder to pee earlier. After the exams, we talked a bit about any questions I had, or any questions that Tony had, and she sent us on our way to go have the blood draws done. Downstairs in the lab, they took 7 vials of blood and my urine sample (yay! I peed!) and sent me packing. I've got my next appointment on 1/12 and I have my first ultrasound on 1/7. I'm pretty excited about that part. I'll get to see the little bean, and hopefully put to bed the notion that I'm having twins. At least, it better.

Pregnancy symptoms

I go in for my first doctors appointment on Wednesday. I'm not quite sure what to expect aside from the poking with the needles and the peeing in cups and the use of a speculum . When I made my appointment, I asked my husband if he wanted to go with, and he said he did, so that's good. Last night, we were talking about it, and I told him that he'd better stay at the north end while the doc's pokin' around in the south forty. I fully expect him to yell into my vagina to see if it echoes. (Not really, although he did blow into it one time, many moons ago, and the escaping air scared him shitless and he hollered that it was growling at him.)

I've felt pretty good so far, and I'm not really sure how far along I am. There are varying estimates as to just how pregnant I am, ranging from 6 weeks to 9 weeks. I haven't a clue when I actually ovulated, and my last 'normal' period was in September, but I had a wacky one that was 3 weeks late in October. That means that the doc will probably have to do a dating ultrasound (which is fine by me, because I'd like to take a peek at the little bean) and give me my due date based on the measurements.

The thing I could do without during this whole pregnancy business is the tiredness. About 3:30 every afternoon, I get so tired that I can barely keep my eyes open. It's really a struggle! I actually fell asleep at my desk last week for around 30 minutes. I sure felt a lot better after my catnap, but I think too much of that will get me canned in a hurry. Contributing to the fatigue is the fact that no matter how many times I go pee before I get in bed, or what time I quit drinking any liquids, I still have to get up multiple times in the night to visit the bathroom. That makes for a really rough night's sleep. I suppose I'd better get used to it now, because I don't see it getting better any time soon.

It's official!

I found out two weeks ago that I'm pregnant. I stopped at Walgreen's on my way home to buy a pregnancy test. It was really just on a hunch, since my period wasn't late yet. I just didn't feel quite right, so I thought I might be expecting. I peed on the little stick as soon as I got home, and as soon as the pee went across that little lines, they turned pink. Two pink lines. Oh shit. Two lines. Thank god that someone thought to put the legend right on the pee stick, cause I lost the directions in the three minutes it took me to pee on the stick and wait for the results.

I called my husband to see how long it would be until he got home, and I just couldn't wait. I told him on the phone. Yes, I wish I would've waited until I could see the whites of his eyes to gauge his reaction, but I just couldn't do it. We hadn't been actively trying to get pregnant, we just simply decided that we'd quit preventing it. Last month. That didn't take nearly long enough. I figured we'd have a few months of good old-fashioned unprotected sex before I actually got pregnant, maybe a few scares before the real deal, but I guess fate had other plans.

The following Monday, I went to my neighborhood walk-in clinic to have a blood test. They wanted to give me another urine test. I had a hard time convincing them that I'd done all the peeing I intended to do and I just wanted the damned blood test to confirm my pregnancy. (There's a reason for that, which I'm getting to.) I get poked and prodded, they steal enough blood to feed a vampire, I pay the outrageous office visit fee and I go to work. They called me that afternoon with the results and said, 'Yeah, you're pregnant all right.' No shit. Four EPTs don't lie.

We're excited about being pregnant and all, but I don't know how the hell we're going to pay for it. I'm uninsured, my husband's insurance is crap (and way expensive to add me to) and we're not exactly made of money. I applied for state aid (hence the blood test to confirm the pregnancy) but unfortunately, according to the state, we are made of money. It was suggested that I quit my job to get aid, cause not only then would I get medicaid, I'd be able to get food stamps too. Quit my job to get on welfare on purpose? What kind of dumbass idea is that?

I've got my first OB appointment next week, and I'm excited to see that everything is going okay with the pregnancy, but I don't want to pay for it. Is there an equivalent to dine-n-dash when it comes to doctor's bills?