Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Here Are The Keys to My Vagina.

Well we found her. The woman who I will allow to see and touch parts of me that no one but my husband gets regular access to. I kind of cringe to think what this woman will know about me. I can count on one hand the amount of medical professionals who have had the elite priviledge of giving me my annuals and that is after living in three different states and 7 different cities over the past 10 years. I am a loyal customer, what can I say. I would and have driven over two hours round trip, for a 20 minute appointment with the doctor who has been my pediatrician since I can remember. She knows my parts, I trust her with them. Needless to say, pregnancy is going to be an interesting transition for me. I've had friends who have told me 'when the time comes, you don't care who is down there, as long as they get the baby out before the come back up'. I am sure I will feel the same. I am sure when that day(s) come where I am helpless and scared, I will turn to this woman and maybe say some things, which we all know are in my vocabulary, but that a lady wouldn't say to another lady. But one of the reasons that she is the one is I know she can handle it.
On our way to interview this midwife, Andy and I both thought back to images of Ina May Gaskin with her salt and pepper hair in two long braids or up in Princess Leia buns. Andy asked "what if she smells like patchouli?....(then panic washed across his face) what if she wants to hug me?". Oh Andy, how I love this man. When we entered the suburban neighborhood and made the few turns toward her house Andy said "look for the subaru in the driveway....she has to have a subaru" (he said as we pulled up in my subaru, your fault for not seeing the signs earlier buddy). Sure enough, when we parked in front of the non-descript house with beautiful landscaping, a subaru sat in the driveway. But it was a Baja so he just looked at it and said 'hmm that's cool it has quite a bit of capacity back there'. What a dork. We walked up to the house and braced ourselves for a thin elderly woman in a long silk skirt, maybe barefoot with an ankle bracelet with bells. But who comes to the door, a cute soccer-mom type with sassy blonde hair with red highlights. She welcomed us in and introduced us to her two boys who were playing a board game on the living room floor. I didn't know children learned to play board games anymore. We followed her upstairs to her exam room where she motioned me into a glider and sat at her desk chair. The exam table looked just like a bed. Fluffy with a comforter and pillows. I could have crawled in and taken a nap right there. I pulled out my list of pertinant dates: when I got of BC, when I went to the OB and had hormone tests done, when I started acupuncture, when I think I ovulated. She wrote it all down and said 'wow so you were basically anovulatory'. She worried over my progesterone levels and was glad I had them tested right away, she encouraged me to continue acupuncture because she has found it highly successful at hormone regulation. We went over the insurance procedures and about whether I should continue to see the OB in conjunction with her up until 20 weeks. She has left that up to me; I'm still undecided in case you were wondering, I'll probably write about this later.
Then she opened the floor to my inquisitive ass. I pulled out my 1 inch thick stack of questions and had at her. Wouldn't ya know I loved all her responses. Well except when she brought up two tidbits of factual evidence. When I asked her "Under what circumstances do you recommend inducing labor?" eventually our conversation meandered over to the fact that at 42 weeks she will take me to the doctor if I am showing no signs (FYI after 42 weeks the probability of serious badness happening goes up if they don't get that sucker out of ya). Then she said this 'but I will tell you, the average for first-time moms is to start labor at 41 weeks and 2 days'. Great I am going to be pregnant forever. But I guess the good thing is I can be prepared for it and not be too antsy when 40 weeks comes and goes. Believe me I will be waddling my ass up and down the street everyday and doing all the things people tell you to do to try to start labor. My midwife said sex three times a day seems to do the trick. I like this woman, she is saucy!
The next tidbit came out shortly after when I asked at what point I call her during labor and when she will come over. Answer to that is I call when labor starts, since I am a first time mom, it will probably be at the first signs of anything, and she said she will tell me 'great, go to bed, or cook dinner, or take a walk. First-time mom's usually labor around 24 hours'. She said that it isn't intense for a long time, but that she will be telling me not to focus on it and continue my usual day. Once you start focusing on it, you will wear yourself down and 24 hours of labor will be very draining. So on the one hand, shit! That is a long time to labor, on the other hand, I feel that having her around and being armed with the knowledge of what to expect, when it is all said and done, I can do it. She did tell me 'look I am going to be honest with you, you are probably going to feel a lot of pain, and it is probably going to be very hard for you, but I will also tell you that you can do it'. Shit yeah I can. I asked her a ton of questions and maybe I should write them out in a separate entry for anyone interested. But needless to say I feel insanely comfortable with this woman. There are a lot of unknowns between now and birth. There is a chance that I won't be able to have a home birth, that I could develop preeclampsia or have an incompetent cervix (bitch better not be incompetent!) or one of another number of things. But I trust this woman to look out for me. She will know absolutely everything about me and my pregnancy and if we have to go to the hospital, she will be the best person to have there. Basically, the girl has my back. So I gave her a fist bump and handed over the keys to my vagina.

3 comments:

  1. Yay! I love her! I want her to deliver my baby!!

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  2. YAY!!! I'm glad you found such an awesome midwife. What a relief.

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  3. How cool!

    Psst - I'm a couple of weeks behind you but I haven't said anything on my blog because my husband didn't want me to write about it yet.

    So I'm compromising by stalking other people's blogs and talking about it there. :-)

    ReplyDelete