pass

"You passed all your tests with flying colors, so we won't need any more of your blood before you're in the hospital..." Phew, yeah, little-veins-that-don't-appear (for frantic phlebotomist that is trying to cut off arm circulation) are happy to hear that. I don't feel like they've taken blood very often, but I guess she doesn't want to get a reputation as Dracula Doctor. Then the next thing I'm struck with is how she is referring to the hospital visit as a near future reality. I scheduled the rest of my doctors appts (they are now from every 4 to every 2 weeks and very soon they will be every week) which somehow equals less than 7 appts. She checked in with us on picking a pediatrician (we've chosen this women referred to us by friends and by her-they went to med school together at Brown), whether we'd signed up for birth/infant classes (which we needed to do a long time ago if we had a chance of getting a spot in the hospital classes, but luckily I didn't wait and we're all signed up), and let us know that at 35 weeks she's "really" going to check in. She looked over her glasses and told me she was going to take a strep culture that time, so "go ahead and read about that so you know what to expect" - uhok. Don't panic me by not going into the details - is it really that bad? Can't be, but I think she is squeamish about talking about that stuff in front of J or something...who knows. She covers my belly when she takes the heart beat so he can't see. I once had a skirt on and she got out the big drape and I told her that he's seen it all before... she said it was "protocol, what she learned about patient comfort" and wasted all the delightful paper cloth. I like having J there and he's flexible enough that he can come to every appt with me, but I wonder how she'll react if he shows up at this appt where she has already warned me that I'll have to expose. I think I'll be much more exposed than that at the hospital and I might as well break him in early ;) I'm actually surprised that they don't do more exams. So far unless you have issues, the appts are preventative measures. They test your urine, the heartbeat, and measure your belly (which seems ridiculously imprecise) and you are on your way. She throws in a good dose of daddy banter. They seem to get along pretty well and after she's gone through her checklist with me, she starts in laughing it up with J. I imagine it pays for her to have a good connection with him while I'm in delirious mode at the hospital, so I'm glad that he can be there to connect with her now.