Wednesday, March 26, 2008

I am Not Worrying

So. To review: last week my midwife measured my belly and found that its size had jumped from the 80th to 90th percentile in two weeks. She breezily mentioned that we may want to get an ultrasound to investigate this. Why? Because there may be an excess of amniotic fluid, or there may be an excess of gigantic baby. "Oh, well, we definitely want to know if we're having a gigantic baby," I said. "But really, why does it matter about the amniotic fluid?" She responded that if there was an excess of amniotic fluid, it could indicate that there was a problem with the baby's kidneys.

I was all high from the previous two minutes of hearing my baby's heartbeat and did not give this information the attention it deserved. Later, I came home and blogged about it. And that's when I started to really focus all my attention and intent on Not Worrying. It has been a lot of work.

Lillian tried calling the clinic before we left, but it was 4:45pm on a Thursday before a long weekend, and they were not answering the phone. So I spent the entire long weekend studiously Not Worrying. Because obviously if it was something to really worry about, Lillian wouldn't let us go the whole weekend without finding out about it, right? She'd gently suggest that maybe we go to the hospital instead, just to make sure all was well. So. I did Not Worry.

And I took Kat's advice and didn't Google even once over that long weekend. Which was hard because if I'm going to Not Worry, I should at least know what I'm Not Worrying about, right? But no. I resisted temptation. If you listen really hard, you can probably hear the sound of my lack of worry all the way through the Internets. (Hint: it sounds like a low-pitched buzz.)

Then the weekend was over and it was Tuesday and Tuesday came and went and there was no call from Lillian about when my ultrasound was going to be. Well! Surely this was just one more reason Not to Worry, right? Because again, if there was anything to worry about, surely Lillian wouldn't have let SIX FREAKIN DAYS go by without me getting an appointment, right? Nope. No way. Nothing to worry about here. Move along.

And then Wednesday came and I called home to get the messages and there on the voicemail was Lillian's voice, and I was flooded with relief, except not really because how could I be relieved if I wasn't worrying? I wasn't, I swear! Just because I had to look up online the procedure for checking voicemail remotely, because I'd never done it before, that doesn't mean I was worrying. Because CLEARLY I WAS NOT.

So there was Lillian's voice on the voicemail, and she was calling to remind us to bring her the knife for the cutting of the cord, because she needs to get it to the hospital and get it sterilized, and she is going to be away next week so we need to get it done before then.

And... that was it.

Nothing about the ultrasound. Lillian is doing an even better job of Not Worrying about this than I am! I'm going to have to try harder.

So I called Lillian and told her we would drop off the knife tomorrow, oh and also, heh-heh, by the way, I was also wondering about the ultrasound?

And what do you think her response was?

Go on, take a minute to think about it.

If you guessed "Oh, you're wondering if we have results yet?" which is really just a fancy way of saying "WHAT ULTRASOUND?", then you'd be correct.

"Noooo, I was wondering when the appointment was. Because the clinic was closed when you tried to call last week..."

"Oh, yes. I'd forgotten all about that." She went on to explain that she'd been up two nights in a row catching babies, and thanked me heartily for calling to remind her. Which is nice and all. But calling her to remind her about the ultrasound significantly cut into my Not Worrying time, and folks, it's a full-time job.

And after typing all this out I called and checked my voicemail again and the ultrasound is scheduled for April 8th which means I have almost two full weeks of Not Worrying to work on. So I'd better get back to it.

ETA: Still not worrying. But I did Google. Berate me if you want, but if my midwife isn't going to give me any information, I'm damn well going to go get it myself.

Fundal Height Measurement
Excessive Amniotic Fluid
HealthForums
EMedicine
Hydramnios (BONUS: this page contains the words "fetal death"! I'm not worrying!)

3 comments:

Kat said...

Hahahahahahah haahhahahah.

I love you man. You totally made me smile.

And also, please continue your regularly schedule programming of not worrying.

Amberism said...

In order not to worry on your behalf, I had to stop reading all that medical stuff.

April 8th? What the heck? Come to Parksville, you can get in way faster!

Anonymous said...

Really and truly, don't worry. I see this all the time - big jumps in growth and usually ends up being nothing.

To tell you the truth, I don't even order a u/s until there has been consistent big jumps (or no change) for 2 or so visits....

The oh-so-relaxed attitude towards the u/s offers some insight into your midwife's thought process - if she was really THAT concerned about it, you'd have an appt by now

Be well!
Love R

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