First let me ask WHY you would offer online pre-registration to the hospital if you are only going to make me complete the exact same form again when I get to the hospital to sign my paperwork? I spent 45 minutes in pre-admitting (making me late for my non-stress test) because I had to fill out the same form again and the poor lady working at the desk seriously struggled with her data entry skills. That combined with the fact that is was about 80 degrees in the office and my feet were sweating in my flip-flops did not make me a happy camper. The last time she told me to take a seat because she had to calculate my estimated payment and her program wasn't open on her computer, I nearly lost it. I informed her that my appointment happened to be 10 minutes ago and I wasn't moving from the counter until she was finished with me. I think I was also panting and fanning myself at that point; she took me seriously and figured out a way to make the process faster. I later found out that Brookwood has seriously screwed up their Admitting department - so plan to spend the afternoon if you have to pre-register there any time soon.
Luckily, the nurse overseeing my non-stress test was expecting me to be late because she knew I had to go through Admitting first, and she had no problem expressing her own frustration with the new "process." I hauled myself up onto the stretcher and she hooked me up to the monitors and brought me a cold Diet Sprite (bless her soul). She explained the whole deal - monitoring my blood pressure, baby's heartrate, my contractions, and that we were trying to see Baby Boy's heart rate accelerate 15 beats above the baseline twice in 20 minutes. He passed with flying colors. At one point, he moved so hard I expected the monitor to pop off my belly. I was afraid he would be napping during the test since he played all morning, but the cold Sprite woke him up. Everything else looked good, too. The nurse said, "The doctor is going to be happy with your strip (the print out of all this activity)." To which I responded, "Good, because he's not going to be happy with my sugar numbers."
He wasn't, but because I was proactive and had already been logging every thing I've eaten in three weeks, he also knew that I've been trying to do the best I can and I have what seems like very little control over this. According to him, the numbers aren't outrageous, but they are still trending upward. He asked if I thought seeing a dietician would help and I felt like bursting into happy tears as I said, "Yes! How much more salad and chicken can I eat?!" So, he's doing one better than that; he's referring me to a perinatologist who has developed a strong program for managing gestational diabetes. He'll be able to help me with meal planning along with the timing of when I eat what/how much (like 30 grams of carbs for breakfast, etc) and when to test my sugar to get the most accurate perspective of what's going on in my body. I'm excited about this. As much as I've tried to educate myself, I really need someone to help me troubleshoot my diet to get my numbers where they need to be. With Ella, simply following the sample diet my OB gave me was enough. This time, that was blown out of the water after the second week. I felt so much better leaving there yesterday than I did last week. Now, I'm just waiting on the perinatologist to call and set up an appointment with me.
The EGR Update
She now has two baby boys growing in her tummy and they are going to "get born" so she can "cuddle them, snuggle them, play with them" (I wish you could hear it in her list-making voice). I've told her we might have too many baby boys running around if they keep multiplying in her tummy. It makes me think of Gremlins. I hope they don't multiply in water because I know she's going to bathe them, too.
For supper last night we had ham, cabbage, squash, and green beans. Grandmother asked me if she eats cabbage and I told her just to put it on the plate and we'd see what happened. Ella promptly pointed to it and asked, "What's that?"
"Cabbage."
"I don't 'ike cabbage."
"That's fine, you don't have to eat it."
Ten minutes later, the cabbage hole was empty. Then the ham, green beans, and most of the squash disappeared. She loves her vegetables, but she also had to be starving because she'd been living off of milkshakes and biscuits for two days since her mouth hurt too much to eat. She has two nicely swollen spots on her bottom gums, but still no molars.
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