OB Appointment and Another Ultrasound

So last Tuesday I had a very frustrating and scary OB appointment.   I've been seeing a nurse practitioner that I really like, but she wasn't available this week, so I saw a new doctor. He's looking at my chart and says, "Placenta previa?" What?! I have no idea what he's talking about, but I know that's really bad!  He's confused and says, "Well, they're contradicting themselves. It says here that you have a low-lying placenta and it says that the tip is extending to the os." I have never heard of any of this. I ask him about what that means. "You're at risk for bleeding and other complications." What do you mean? "You could bleed out. The baby could bleed out." He just says it all so nonchanlantly and half-annoyed. I was getting angry. I couldn't get much out of him, except that often (ususally?) it corrects itself.  Apparently it was something that was seen at an early ultrasound and never mentioned to me.  By the time I left my appointment I was mad and scared and had decided that if this particular doctor walks into the delivery room in May, I'll walk (or crawl or whatever it takes) out.  Not impressed.

Unfortunately, the next time an ultrasound tech is in town is mid-February.  I told the doctor that I was going to Thunder Bay the end of the week and asked if he could try to get me an appointment for an ultrasound on Friday.  (Now, for those of you not so familiar with my remote location situation, I will tell you that medical appointments don't always come easily up here.  We travel 3 hours for an orthodontist appointment and 6.5 hours for an immigration appointment.  It's no big deal to most people to travel 5 hours to Winnipeg for an ultrasound or other medical appointment with a specialist.  But you often have to wait a long time for an appointment.)  Somehow, though, they were able to get me an appointment for Friday morning.  That was perfect, because Kendall and I already had to go to Thunder Bay for an immigration appointment Friday afternoon.  (P.S.  It also meant we got a medical travel grant, so our trip was paid for.  Those of us living in the far north have to travel for medical care, so our travel/hotel/food gets paid for by Ontario's health insurance.)

Anyway, I will cut to the chase here by saying right away that everything is looking good in baby's cozy home!  So grateful for that!  The ultrasound showed the placenta to be in a good position.  What a relief.  We found out that if it would have been a severe case of placenta previa, we would have most likely been ordered to move to a bigger city very soon.  In a case like that, they don't want you in Red Lake, where there is no surgery or neonatal unit. 

So as the ultrasound tech was taking a look at the baby and its home, Kendall asked if it was a boy or a girl.  We had heard at the first ultrasound that it was looking like a boy, though she wasn't sure.  I had decided that it was a boy and was feeling more excitement about another cute boy toddling around our home.  So, you can imagine my shock when the tech matter-of-factly stated, "It's a girl."  "WHAT?!" I exclaimed!  (I couldn't help my involuntary outburst.  It just burst out of my mouth.)  My exclamation scared the tech, who was slightly shocked by my shock.  But yes, she was quite sure of Delmar's female status.  I love my boys like crazy and would never trade them in for the female variety, but I have to admit that I came close to tears of joy at the thought of a girl in our family. 

We left the ultrasound appointment so very thankful for a healthy placenta and still in happy shock at the foreign thought of a daughter.  We drove straight to the store, where I picked out three girly little outfits.  I've never thought of myself as super girly nor wanted a daughter to be super girly.  But she'll just have to forgive me someday because I think it will take at least the first 6 months of her life for me to get the pink and purple worked out of my system.  I can't help it.  I'm surrounded by burps and farts and boogers.  I need a little pink and purple! 

Eli saw the pink outfits as soon as we picked him up Friday night.  When we told him that yes, it's a girl, his response was a good-humored, "I'm not impressed."  We think he will actually be very impressed once he gets used to the idea and especially once he meets her.  He just wasn't sure a girl would fit so well into this family because "we're so violent."  Awesome.

Just watch, now that I've stated all this need for some pink and purple in my life "publicly," we'll probably find out at our next ultrasound that it's actually a boy.  I will say that I love having boys and that though I would love to have a daughter someday, I had decided that if God put a boy in there, then that's what it's supposed to be.  And that still stands.  We won't know for sure until he/she comes out.   Of course Evan thinks it could still be tricky to tell at that point.  Here's his quote on that: "What if it doesn't have any hair?  You just tell by its privates?!"