I had my first “appointment” with my regular medical health provider yesterday (transferred out of the fertility clinic). I put “appointment” in quotes because apparently the way Kaiser does it is they schedule me for a phone appointment first before they would allow me to see an ob-gyn. I received the phone call exactly when it was scheduled, snuck out of the courtroom during our trial and into judge’s chambers, and had my half-hour appointment. It was basically information intake. I guess it’s a good thing to not waste face-to-face appointment time giving entire family histories of women issues, family birth defect histories, lifestyle habits, etc. The bummer was that I couldn’t get an in-person appointment until a week after the phone appointment, and the phone appointment couldn’t be scheduled until 2 weeks away from when I called, so I was delayed 3 weeks and was concerned that I’d be into the 2nd trimester and therefore unable to do some of the first trimester birth defect screenings. But it looks like I slid in just in time. At the end of the phone appointment, the nurse I was speaking with ordered a bunch of screenings and lab tests and told me to just check into any Kaiser with an gyno department anytime I’m able, ASAP, so that the new OB I’d selected (at random over the phone) would have the results to discuss with me at my in-person appointment next week. So we went yesterday after work.

I did a urine test, and like 6 vials’ worth of blood tests. One of the vials was for a blood glucose test, to rule out gestational diabetes. I was told to go on a 1-hour fast before going into the lab, then I was given a cold lemon-lime glucose beverage to drink. The phlebotomist warned me, “I don’t think you’ll like this, everyone says it’s nasty.” It tasted exactly like Sprite, but uncarbonated, and I told her so, shrugging. “Keep drinking, at the end is when people tell me they feel it. You have to finish drinking this in 5 minutes.” It was fine all the way through. I could drink it all day. “You’re the first one,” she said in surprise. “Everyone else says it’s disgusting.” Maybe it’s cuz I don’t drink soda, so my standards for taste are lower. *shrug* I then returned in one hour for my blood draws.

I got an email notifying me of a general blood result within an hour. White blood cells, platelets, and details of red blood cells (size, amount of hemoglobin it holds, etc) are all within normal ranges. However, I’m a tad low on red blood cell count and hemoglobin, so of course my hemotocrit (HCT), which is the amount of volume the red blood cells take up in the blood, is lower than normal range. I guess I’m a little anemic right now, which is consistent with how I’m more easily out of breath in physical activity. Mr. W and I started a bike ride on Saturday with an uphill climb and I thought I was gonna hyperventillate. My prenatal-specializing personal trainer at the ultra nice gym warned me as much, that a large amount of my blood is being used to nourish the developing placenta right now so I’ll feel fatigued more easily, and that by the 2nd trimester, my body would add 3-4 pounds of blood and catch me up, giving me a “pregnancy high” and resulting “pregnancy glow.” I’ll see what the doctor says, but right now I’m not particularly concerned.

I also got the blood glucose results this morning. They’re looking for a number below 130 mg/dL, and mine was 113. Yay, I don’t have gestational diabetes!

I’m sure more results will be trickling in over the next few days, the scariest one being a preliminary screening for certain markers of some birth defects.

I still haven’t thrown up, although I’ve noted that acid reflux/indigestion can send me into dry heaves. I just have to be careful about ingesting sugars (I’m not eating candy, but refined white carbs like Saltines turn into sugars, and those are bad in my tummy) and acid (an orange and Cutie binge sounds healthy, but my body hated me for it). The crazy empty-feeling dizzying hunger spells have gone away. I’m not even hungry in the mornings. The meat aversion is subsiding somewhat, although greasy fatty things still send me on a mental gag. I also had a sprout/salad aversion that came on the same time as the meat aversion, and I was just told by the nurse yesterday that I need to stay away from sprouts, like alfalfa. Whoa. My body knows its stuff. As for weight gain, I initially went from a pre-pregnant 121.6 to 122.4, so I thought I’d gained 0.8 pounds in the 2nd month. However, now at 10 weeks, my weight is 122.0. What’s weird is that I feel pressure in my lower abdomen, like things are expanding and stretching, but my size 2 and 4 pants fit comfortably as they always have. And yet I LOOK bigger and jigglier to myself in the mirror, despite it not showing up in measurements or on the scale. Pregnancy body changes are weird.