Anxious

I thought I was doing amazing, and then I had my 10 week appointment today and I was unpleasantly surprised how nervous and anxious I felt all day. I literally had a hard time taking a deep breath all day during work (I had an afternoon appointment) and I do this nervous foot shaking thing that is mostly absentminded but sometimes I have to make an effort to make it stop. I knew I was nervous about this appointment but I guess I didn't realize just how nervous I really was.

The thing that threw me for a loop was the nurse we had today. It was the nurse I mentioned here that wouldn't look me in the eye when we went into our pre-surgery appointment. It seemed odd to me that we was being overly friendly until she made a comment that she remembered me. I wasn't quite sure how to take it- did she remember the part where she refused to look me in the eye and judged me too? Or did she remember that after everything we went through, and seeing the support from some of the other staff I felt compelled to write a note to the staff thanking them for their kind words and support and making sure to reference the time that she treated me so horribly? Either way I just felt uncomfortable with her over-niceness and that she was the one handling all my concerns today.

When she took my blood pressure it was high... 120 she even made a comment that I'm too little to have such high blood pressure and asked me if I was anxious. Of course I was anxious! Her being my nurse today didn't help anything. When she asked how much testing I wanted to do today I told her everything- order everything and she did the smallest laugh... and i didn't know how to take it. Was she nervous so she was trying to lighten the situation or is she just a bitch? Either way I knew I would be fighting the urge to cry the rest of my appointment, and sure enough I was.

In my last pregnancy I missed the 1st trimester period where you can do genetic testing- mainly because I didn't know it was available to me. This time I knew I wanted a full work up- in fact it was something my midwife tried to lighten the mood with- she knew how anxious I was. There are small moments in time where I am completely thankful for the people that surround me, even if its for a very small amount of time. My midwife is very sweet and is really funny and she knew before she even came into the room how nervous I was and tried her best to make me feel better.

She succeeded by telling me over and over that whatever I'm feeling is OK and I 'get to feel that way after what I've been through' and that I can call and bug her as much as I want to. She asked me about my blood pressure and I told her I was just nervous about the test results. I joked that maybe I'll feel better once they come back and she picked up on how I was trying to smile during a hard time and told me that typically people in my situation don't relax until I'm holding the baby. She also told me it's OK.

To be honest I haven't felt this kind of anxiety in such a long time that it completely took me by surprise, and even more so that it was showing in my BP... normally I convince myself that things are in my head so when they actually showed concern it made me pay attention. Like I've said in the past, this pregnancy is different and I take each day as it comes but I know that I'll be OK. I am more comfortable with letting myself feel things that maybe I don't like, and I know that I will be better once the test results come back. I just have to wait a little bit...

See... they have a new test that gives the same results as an amniocentesis but the test is much less invasive... like no foot long needle going into my stomach less invasive and they want to send me to do that test at a separate facility. They are also going to do a detailed ultrasound to make sure everything looks good. At this point I don't even care if our insurance covers it, I'll find a way to pay for it, I just want to be sure that I'm exhausting every avenue that is available to me. If my situation can help someone realize how important 1st trimester genetic testing is, then it's all worth it. Even if you would make a different decision than I did, knowledge is power and when your educated on what your going to be facing it makes a world of difference.

So now I wait for this other facility to call me and I will hopefully go in next week. The test can be done at 11 weeks so it should all work out perfectly. They will even tell me all the results of my blood tests from today. Because my BP was high I decided to skip my normal Tuesday/Thursday Zumba class and try to relax. So here I am trying to get every last worry out of my head so I can try to enjoy some time at home with my hubby and my animals. The one great thing from my appointment today was getting to hear the baby's heart beat. It just eased so much of my worries and the look on my husbands face, well that can make almost anything better.

Because I needed to have a therapeutic writing session you can expect an influx of blogs from me this week- I had already preplanned 2 other topics to write about... they just got bumped a little for my little bump ;) I hope everyone else had a great, low BP day!