a long slog of a day

today was my big first trimester screen & genetic counselling session. i was warned that it would be four hours long, but no one told me that 3/4 of that time would be a complete waste! i am not happy with mount sinai, and very glad that that is not where i'm having the baby.

first they herd half a dozen of us or so into a little room, where we watch the most useless "educational" video ever. it was about fifteen years old (or older, judging by the hideous dress the lead preggo was wearing) and offered the most basic information - the kind i've already seen in umpteen books and articles, and had already discussed at length with my widwife. actually, the info was way more basic than what i'd read and discussed already. did you know that there should be 46 chromosomes per gene? and that a birth defect caused by a gene is called a genetic birth defect? yeah, me too. at least it gave me time to finish my sudoku. what offended me most was the poorness of the script and the acting - i know that "pregnancy brain" is a common affliction (and indeed, it has diminished my sudoku skills), but we're not stupid. good grief!

next, i went to a little room to wait. a volunteer came in to fill out some forms. she asked what number pregnancy this was for me, i said third. she said, "so this is your third baby?" no, first. she got confused. what kind of idiots do they let into the specialty preggo wing who have never heard of miscarriage? hello, don't make this more difficult for me than it needs to be. then she went away, and i waited. and waited. and waited. for an hour. i guess that's what happens when you schedule 6 women for the same time - some of us have to wait. thank god i'd brought a newspaper, since there were no magazines. oh, and since the appointment was for 8 o'clock in the morning, i was exhausted (normally i go into work at ten, and i really needed those extra two hours of sleep) and starving, because i hadn't had time for breakfast. tired and hungry is a bad state when you're not preggo, but tired + hungry + preggo + being made to watch a stupid video and then sit in an empty room for an hour for no reason is extra bad. again: i hate mount sinai.

finally an old man doctor came in with a young male med student. personally, i think male doctors are great for male patients, but until you've grown a uterus yourself, i don't want you coming near mine. he went over the statistics yet again, offering no new insight, and asked what i thought of the film. i said it was a waste of time, didn't tell me anything i didn't already know, and that i'd already discussed everything with my midwife and i would get the nuchal translucency u/s and the bloodwork, but no amnio and no cvs, ever, full stop. "but what if-" no! did you not hear me the first time? then he asks the whole how-many-pregnancies-how-many-live-births question again, apparently because volunteer-girl swallowed my forms in a fit of pique. grr. i really have no interest in discussing this with steptoe and son. our chat was, shall we say, brief. to nonexistent.

they sent me out to wait for my ultrasound, in a waiting room with no magazines. by this point, i was reduced to reading the business supplement. finally, i go in to see the u/s tech. first thing she asks: how many pregnancies? how many live births? honestly, i think i'm going to punch the next person who asks me that. she starts probing, frowning at the monitor. i wait for her to tell me there's a heartbeat. and wait. and wait. the other u/s tech i've had would always start by letting me know she'd found a heartbeat and everything was fine. i started getting panicky and nervous - after all, it was at the first trimester screen for my last pregnancy that i found out i'd had a missed miscarriage. i guess i looked anxious, because the tech asked if i was okay, and i said i was just waiting for her to tell me if there was a heartbeat. she said there was (160 bpm!) and i was so relieved i almost fell asleep! but then of course, the wee one decided he was comfortable where he was, but the tech needed him to move. there was much belly-jiggling and coughing-on-demand to get him to move - and when he did move, he didn't move where he was supposed to! (i fear i know what the next twenty years are going to be like.) finally she got the measurement, everything is a-okay!! good news, for a change.

and off i went to wait some more, in another magazine-free waiting area, for bloodwork. i'd been to this waiting area once before, when i got bloodwork before my d&c last fall. that's right, they put the miscarryers in with the preggos. in fact, while i was weeping in a corner last fall, an entire tour group of expectant couples came through, all rosy and plump and happy. say it with me: i hate mount sinai! anyway, after a half-hour of leafing through the dreaded sports section, i finally got my blood drawn and got out of there, a mere 4 1/2 hours after i'd arrived.

had i known what i was in for, i would have said "no thanks" to the genetic counselling rubbish, and just booked the u/s at my usual lab, and have been in and out in under an hour. grrr!

wow, i'm angry, huh? i guess i should just be happy that the little one seems to be happy and healthy (measuring 12 weeks 6 days, 5 days ahead of where i thought i was!) but it still rankles. it will rankle less when i've caught up on my lost sleep.

in other news, i had a preggo mini-tragedy yesterday - i had worn a cute summer dress to work, one that's snug through the waist (more so now than ever before). at lunch, i thought i'd do some shopping, and tried on a pair of denim capris. the dress has a full skirt, so i didn't bother taking it off, just pulled on the capris underneath. so i was in the change room, bending down to fiddle with the cuffs, when pop! the zipper broke on my dress. leaving me pretty much exposed from armpit to hip on the left side. yikes! i managed to make it behave by quickly running the zipper up and down a few times, thank goodness. i bought a top to go with the capris though, just in case it didn't last the day. i guess that's the end of that dress. till next summer at least!