Week 5:

Well, I'm almost through my 5th week! Moving right along...

Symptoms this week have been pretty much the same as before:

• Heartburn
• Bloating
• Slight fatigue
• Hot flashes
• Being overly emotional ( I totally cried at TBL this week when the whole Grey team was there to cheer on the last woman in from the 5k).
• Increasingly sore boobs/nipples

Some new symptoms this week:

• Appearance of blue/green veins all over my body, but especially on my chest and boobs.
• Tiny red blood capillaries all over my boobs. (I'm pretty, can't you tell? lol)
• All-over itchiness
• More pronounced (pre-existing) stretch marks all over

This whole pregnancy thing is just sexy, don't you know? lol

So, I made an appointment with my OB/GYN for last Friday (4/23). I met with one of the midwives who asked me about our families' medical history and my medical history. She gave me a bunch of information to read over and they took my blood. She was incredibly nice and made it seem like it was no big deal that I am diabetic. The only thing she mentioned about it was that they wanted me to take my blood sugar 4 times a day and bring them into the meetings. Okay, no big deal.

Then I called my regular doctor (who is the one who manages my diabetes) to find out if I needed to come in for an appointment since I'm newly pregnant. I didn't know if she would want to change my therapy course, especially since I have quit and refused to take the Actos that she prescribed back at the beginning of March. The nurse said that she would recommend I come in for an appointment. (Thinking back, of course she wants me to come in so that they can charge me for a visit.) I made an appointment for yesterday (4/28).

I was the first appointment after lunch, scheduled at 1:00 pm. I didn't even go back into the exam room until 20 after. Then, of course, I sat in the exam room all alone for another 15 minutes until she came back. Get this: she came in and said "Congratulations! I don't handle this." Basically, she spent the next 10 minutes telling me that she doesn't handle diabetes during pregnancy, and she wasn't sure who would handle it for me. She left to call my OB/GYN (who I have already had an appointment with, mind you). I could hear her talking to her through the wall (HIPA Privacy? Yeah, right.) and my OB/GYN said she wasn't going to handle my diabetes either.

Thanks, doctors that I already know and like. Thank you very much for kicking me to the curb. Way to make me feel loved.

In the end, they both decided to hand me off to a group of perinatologists at Good Samaritan hospital. Attached to the hospital is the Seton Center for High Risk Obstetrics, and the 8 doctors that I will be rotating between are all directors at the hospital. While I know that this is the best place for me to be with my high-risk pregnancy, it's still kind of disappointing to not be working with a doctor that I already knew. It also sucks that now all my appointments are going to be pretty far away from where I work, requiring a lot more time away, and that Good Sam is at least a 45 minute drive from my house. When I go into labor, I'm not sure how much I'll be looking forward to a 45 minute drive.

Oh well. You do what you've gotta do, right? Right.

So today, I have an appointment with the new perinatologist group. One hour of Diabetes education (which I have already done once, when I first found out I was diabetic), one hour with a dietitian (again, already did this once), and one hour with one of the midwives at the practice. I have known about my pregnancy for less than 2 weeks, and I'm on my third freaking appointment already. I will be amazed if I keep my job throughout this whole thing!

I'll update after my marathon appointment today. Ugh.