An objective measure

First of all, if you have a Blogger blog, I have probably been trying to comment. Blogger is being a complete asshole and not allowing comments whether I try to leave them from WordPress or OpenID.

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When I go to the doctor, I tend to have white coat syndrome. Which is just a cutesy name for being nervous, and that nervousness being reflected in the upper blood pressure number (I can never remember which is systolic and which is diastolic. Probably because I don’t really care.) I first found this out a few years ago, when my BP was a little high before a Pap smear and pelvic exam, and the doctor told the nurse to try taking it again after my exam. Voila! Back to normal. So then it kind of became this self-perpetuating cycle of knowing that being nervous would raise my blood pressure, then getting nervous that I’d get nervous and raise my blood pressure, and my blood pressure would just be elevated at the doctor’s office.

Then, enter several years of miscarriage, bajillions of doctor’s appointments where things were being crammed in my vagina, ultrasounds meant images of more dead fetuses, doctor’s appointments were followed up by canceled D&Cs, misoprostol administration, and a major need to drink a glass or 12 of wine. Aside from the chiropractor, that was pretty much all I ever went to the doctor for – pregnancy and miscarriage, pregnancy and miscarriage, ad nauseam. Needless to say, that really didn’t help the nerves/blood pressure issue very much.

Now I’ve been going to the doctor frequently for months. My wonderful, fantastic, amazing doctor has been seeing me at intervals of no longer than 3 weeks all pregnancy, and I’m into the weekly appointments now. (Whoa.) And for some reason that I will never understand but will eternally be grateful for, everything goes well when I go to the doctor these days. I know I’m not walking in for another dead baby appointment, because I know the alien is still alive. I can walk into the doctor’s office and feel RELAXED, not anxious about what news awaits me. And that pesky little “white coat syndrome” stuff? Gone. My blood pressure has been totally normal.

I know that I feel better these days. I know that I’m happier. How could I not be? But the blood pressure at the doctor’s office – that’s a sure indicator of just how much happier and more at ease I’m feeling.

In other objective measures, the alien’s head is enormous. At my growth scan last week (at 35w5d….holy shit), his noggin was measuring anywhere from 37w1d to 39w1d, depending on the angle they measured from. The rest of him is measuring pretty normal – his abdominal circumference was measuring around 35w at that point. So, sure, the ultrasound measurements have a margin of error of 15% and I’m not too concerned…but by all accounts, his head is at the very least outpacing his body. The highlight of the appointment, though, was when I turned to the engineer and said the baby must take after him with a big head and a little belly, and the ultrasound tech stopped what she was doing, looked at him, and said, “Yeah.” Bwahahaha.