Last night ended with my mom sitting tight-lipped in front of me at our kitchen barnter (bar/ counter). I was, as I often find myself these days, feeling rather like I did at 16. We were arguing, albeit nicely, over whether or not I was allowed to drive myself (IN MY OWN CAR) to the doctor. Normally I let her drive me everywhere and Mr. Cubby is shuttled along for the ride. He's logging a lot of car time these days as my number of weekly doctor visits climbs.
We got up this morning with the problem unresolved and no matter how I tried to frame the situation in a consistent, logical way my mom could only picture the 16 year old idiot me trying to borrow the car so I could crash it into a tree for fun. (I never did that but my mom often had that face when I wanted to borrow the car). My appointment was at 12:45, right during Mr. Cubby's sacred nap time. Why on earth would I want my very congested baby to skip his nap so my mom could drive me to the doctor? That's like agreeing to accept two minutes of peace now and a thousand minutes of crying later. Not worth it.
Finally, I get a bright idea and call my OB's office. Normally I would never call my doctor to settle a disagreement; I'd just talk my way into (or out of) doing what I want. But 16 year old me is much less credible than 35 year old me so I knew I didn't have a chance of swaying my mom's opinion of the situation.
The catch with the doctor is she's not in the office on Thursdays. I know this and I psych myself up to beg for professional help. I sit on hold for literally 10 minutes waiting. Then the receptionist gets on and I explain in my stressed-out voice (because I was) that I need someone to look at my file and tell me whether or not I've been restricted from driving. Amazingly she transfers me right away to the nurse practitioner. The brilliant NP tells me that my file says nothing about driving restrictions (which I already know) and that if I promise to drive only to my appointment and then back home - not doing any shopping in between - then it's OK.
Hooray.
My mom accepts this and turns over the keys. As soon as I walk into the garage ALONE at last, I yell, "See ya later, sucker. I'm never coming back." My mom peers out of the kitchen door, smiling. "Aren't you forgetting something?" she asks in her smart-mom voice. (I have one of those too so I knew that I had indeed forgotten something). She still had my credit card. D'oh! My new-found freedom (and a pit stop at the Cheesecake Factory) vanished ... but only temporarily because I needed the credit card to pay the doctor. She was very nice to retrieve it for me and I was sufficiently humbled that I didn't taunt her again.
My date with the perinatologist (high risk doc) went very VERY well all things considered. My only beef with him was that he said my blood sugar levels looked "fine." I thought they looked GRRRRRREAT and I was hoping he'd do his Tony the Tiger impersonation to express his wonder and awe at the magnificent way I was managing my blood sugar through diet alone but he didn't.
My biggest thrill - outside of confirming that we are still having a boy and a girl - came when the doc told me that I could take a 10 minute walk a day. (Great way to start training for the Army 10 miler, right?) I was beside myself with happiness. Honestly. He cautioned that I should stop if I started having regular contractions (duh) and that I needed to be careful since I was walking a fine line between trying to prevent premature labor and control the GD. He was very reassuring about the pregnancy overall and even told me that since I had gone to 38 weeks with Mr. Cubby that I shouldn't have any problems going the distance this time. It's refreshing to hear that after all the warnings and cautions of my OB.
These guys are also optimistic about the babies being born "the regular way" as opposed to a c-section. The girl has been head down for two weeks and the boy is super head down, burrowed into my pelvis, back in pole position ready to get out first when the time comes.
The peri-nate gave me a goal of staying pregnant until 34 weeks. Once most twin pregnancies hit 34 weeks, the babies usually do well. They're still preemies but they do much better. He didn't promise no time in the NICU so we'll try to go as long as we can to avoid that. Also at 34 weeks the plan is to ease up on some of the activity restrictions.
Next week I see the OB, the peri-nate, and the dietitian. Would prefer it to be my stylist, personal shopper, and masseuse. I'll offer it up.
2 comments:
i'm writing this as i'm propped up on the couch trying to reduce the swelling in my ankles since i have a show tonight...i hate, hate, hate swollen ankles so maybe that's the upside of you being on bedrest...no cankles!
i completely understand each and every frustration you have...GD is definitely stupid diabetes...and don't worry about the insulin...that isn't the first thing they'll do to help with sugars...they'll look at your menu/food plan and try to adjust it...but that won't happen b/c you get to walk now...yay!!
cankles are the worst! you have my sympathy. yesterday i took my socks off and had a huge puffy indentation around my ankle. i fear i may soon get a visit from the cankle fairy. i can't believe you're doing shows. you're pregnant and due in two weeks. lay down and watch some tv.
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