….it’s another. Sometimes I wonder if my nurse, or doctor doesn’t want to make me miserable on purpose. No, that would be too much attention paid to my case. I suspect rather, that pregnancies are treated a lot more like cows, as I’ve said before. I imagine that we cows are just herded along, and every time we undergo inspection there’s always room for improvement. Either you’re a little heavy, or you’re a little thin. Also, if there’s a “red flag” for anything, the most extreme, worst case scenario is noted, often with little to no real explanation.
I say this because I have already once undergone an unnecessary scare with my RH factor. Being told you have an antibody that might try to kill your baby can put you under a lot of stress. When you find out that it’s really nothing you are so relieved that you forget how angry you should be with the practitioner who (in my humble opinion) handled the situation so poorly.
Now, it’s another. I was so happy to go to my appointment today. I knew I’d gained weight. In fact I told my nurse right away I had complaints to whine to her concerning my new swelling body. My hands are swollen, my feet swell up to a ridiculous level. I figured I was retaining water at a very troublesome level, but thought she would recommend something like taking some water pills to flush my system and of course lowering salt intake. As I’m in my third trimester, I also suspected that now was the real time I was going to start getting heavy with little to no effort.
What I got was much more troubling. After describing my swelling, the nurse looked at my feet, and noted that early in the day I did seem to have a bit of swelling (what she failed to note was that I had only been awake for about an hour at that point). We discussed possible issues such as salt, and then it was on to taking my weight. Ten pounds. She was howling, and I mean she wasn’t doing the “that’s not a good sign,” light pep talk, but actually making troublesome grunts and moans. “Ten pounds!” she whined after it was all said and done. I already felt just dreadful. My heart starts racing as she says she will be right back, and I imagine that she’s going to get the doctor to yell at me.
When the nurse returns, she takes my blood pressure, then says that it has “gone up a little,” as well. She starts going over my diet. What did I have for breakfast this morning?
“Nothing.”
“Why?”
“I was tired and not really hungry.”
“What do you normally have.”
“Eggs.”
So she starts looking over my diet the past couple days, and I admit to having had chips the other day with my sandwich, and ice cream on another occasion. She asks if I drink soda or juice, I tell her I drink tea mainly, and when she asks if I sweeten I let her know it’s typically artificial sweetener.
So after that she returns to her desk, and whines, “I don’t want you to get preeclampsia.”
Well what on earth is that? Like I’m not going to ask!
She ends up describing it as being water weight gain, high blood pressure, and protein in the urine… two of the three symptoms I have for mild case scenario.
I tell her I don’t understand why, it seems like all the people I know gained huge amounts of weight… and they didn’t have all these problems. She responds saying that it’s because it’s water weight. Then proceeds to scare me by telling me worst case scenarios. Such as the possibility of me having to be confined to bed rest… worst case scenario (when you get headaches, blurred vision due to the pressures on the kidney and brain) early delivery.
“Ummm.. isn’t that kind of counterproductive? Like gaining weight but then you get confined to bed? I’d hate lying down all day.”
Apparently, no. Confining a woman to bed, despite the weight I’d probably gain from eating and not moving, is totally reasonable even if it does stress you out. Why? Because it helps to allow for better passage of water through the body.
I told her I still didn’t understand. Sure they’re symptoms, but just because you have them, how can three symptoms of something which (after research) doesn’t even have a clear definition or cause mean you have this problem? Well, those are two red flags.. she replied. Now I have to return to more frequent appointments, and oh yeah, even though I never had a glucose test to begin with, they decided to perform one today to, “make sure we’re not dealing with that,” as the nurse said. `
Oh yes, and I didn’t even get my shot… the important solution to the first issue of the RH factor. No, I can’t have that at the clinic, I have to go to the hospital, have blood work done there, and then get it. So while the nurse decided to give me the order for it today, I said screw it, I’ll go tomorrow and deal with the glucose test today. I didn’t really feel like having all my blood taken and injected in one round.
So I went to the lab, where I had three vials of blood drawn, since they are also running a score of other general analysis at the nurse’s request. I have a bruise on my right arm from the initial draw, then had to drink a bottle of glucose drink and sit in the office for an hour so they could perform another blood test for the after effects.
I can’t help but feel conflicted. The first part of me thinks that this office is just anxious to classify me as a high risk pregnancy, just for the sake of the extra money on the government’s behalf, and because if I am classified high risk, they can pretty much dictate exactly how my delivery will go and when, and I really can’t refuse without seeming like I don’t care enough about my child.
The other part of me just feels guilty. After the nurse telling me about this, I received some scant reading material but was able to look it up online at work. Even though no real cause can be identified, I feel like everything I put into my body is potentially harming poor Cesar. I ate a subway sandwich, and wondered how much salt it had and if it would stress him out. I have to start counting kicks too, she said, to make sure he’s not under stress. I just feel awful, like I’m crushing him or pumping him full of garbage that will harm him and me. Apparently everything is bad for me, which I just can’t follow.
I don’t understand how pregnancy is considered different for every woman, but then doctors insist you fit into categories. When I was early on, I was eating too many carbs… cereal was bad for me.. everything was bad if it had carbs. Now all of the sudden, it’s nuts, yogurt, and fruit I should be eating, along with cereal. Oh and before walking was such a healthy exercise, as was belly dancing and any kind of core work out. Now I should be laying down, I should have my feet up all the time, even when sitting. I can tell she’s even reconsidering her original statement that I would be able to work until delivery, since she asked about my job then openly concluded I was probably on my feet a lot.
It’s just completely disheartening. To tell the truth, I also get frustrated because I don’t feel the doctor knows me very well at all. Today she asked me about scars I had on my stomach, and I replied “Remember? We talked about that at my very first visit.. they are from years ago.” It’s hard, in my opinion, to diagnose someone with anything if you don’t have a solid, accurate picture of the kind of life they are living. I’m not saying I am healthy or that I don’t have this preeclampsia. I just feel that using scare tactics and jumping to worse case scenarios is a little unfair, and I can’t help but feel that the office is not out to protect me, but rather to prove a case. It’s as if they think they have a lead, and now they really, really want to prove it. I feel like once again, if anything goes wrong, it’s all my fault, and they have a case as to why it would be, like they are always on top of covering their own asses.
I can only hope I passed the glucose test to her satisfactory, or else I am going to be hearing about that in the next couple of weeks as well. Oh, who am I kidding… of course I’m going to be hearing about it. I’m sure she’s going to tell me just how bad it is, or how close I was to failing if I managed not to.
To be honest, I sometimes wonder if the stress is worth it. I’m starting to think that if I have another child, I’m better off making few appointments, or making myself readily unavailable to them. And no, it’s not because I don’t care about my children. It’s because after talking with other women, I’m beginning to realize that this practice of making the patient feel some extent of guilt is typical. A coworker of mine describes it as their way of, “making sure that if something does go wrong, they can say they brought it up, that they never promised you a healthy baby or that you were doing everything right.” Another friend reassured me that after watching his wife have three kids, “They just want to make sure you go to your next appointment.”
In any case the best and most accurate advice I’ve been given throughout the day is just not to worry about it. In an effort to make me laugh, after telling my coworker how I had two of the three symptoms of preeclampsia, she said, “You should have told your nurse, ‘Well you act like a bitch. When I come in the office I don’t like you, and when I leave the office I don’t like you. That’s three out of three symptoms of being a bitch so I guess you are one.’”
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