The good stuff

Okay, okay. The details!

I am currently about 15.5 weeks pregnant, and am due on April 17. We don't know if we are having a boy or a girl, and since we don't plan to have any more children, we are not going to find out until the baby is born. I sort of feel compelled to do all those things during pregnancy that you can only do when pregnant, like not finding out the gender, and eating pretty much whatever I want. I'm not sure that this last strategy is smart, but it sure sounds fun, doesn't it? <=D

Things are going fairly well right now. The first trimester was pretty rocky, and there were several times when I just wanted to be put out of my misery. That whole thing about eating whatever I want began at about week 6 when I could only stomach eggs, fruit, and bread products. The sight of vegetables made me nauseous, and the smell of garlic almost made me have to leave the house. I felt somewhat ill when I was pregnant with Kate, but never got sick, and I was totally fine with Claire, although tired. With this one, I felt HORRIBLE. Miserable, gross, barfy, and lethargic. I'm sure trying to chase after two small children and act like somewhat of a good parent to them had something to do with it, but man. I am glad that is over. I do not know how other women do it, when they are actually sick throughout weeks of their pregnancy. Because when you're there, you feel like you will never get beyond how you are feeling, and it is sort of depressing. Lucky for me, my ickyness only lasted from about week 6 until about week 12. And I never really had to be anywhere, like work, or upright.

I was super stressed out about the health insurance thing, as you might have read about. In Tucson, I was spoiled: there was no hospital on base, so all pregnant women went off base for OB care. I had the best doctor ever. I delivered in a great hospital. My husband was home and not in danger of being deployed or TDY near or on either birth date. Here, things are different. There is a hospital on base and all prime insureds go there for OB care and delivery, and Tim has a deployment in March (he should be back by the end of the month, but eek! That is cutting it close, in my opinion). I have known too many women who have had not-so-fab experiences delivering their baby at a military hospital (Katie, I am most of all mortified by your experience), and I did not want to go through this.

Then, to top it off, I had a battle of wills with the admin staff on base. I tried to set up my first appointment, and they asked me if I wanted a morning or afternoon class. Class? Um. I tried to calmly and politely explain that I didn't need to attend the class about childbirth, and that I had in fact attended the same class in Korea (I saw a girl here at the hospital with the same book they gave me back then), and I was good, thank you very much. She told me that I had to go to the class before I could schedule my first OB appointment. I explained that I already have 2 children and that I was really okay with not taking the class. I mean, if you have to find childcare to attend the childbirth class, shouldn't that exempt you from the class requirement? They weren't going for it. I scheduled the p.m. class and began frantically calling everyone I knew (who does not live here and therefore wouldn't give my secret away) to ask about everything from TriCare Standard to actually giving birth here at the military hospital. I called the OB clinic back and asked if I could go off base for care. They said I could do so only if I was high risk. I muttered something about hoping I was. Then I changed my time to the a.m. class "because the children would be happier at that time and probably behave better". She told me I couldn't bring children to the class. I told her I was new here and what did she suggest? We went back and forth and I may have hung up on her.

I finally had a flash of genius: I remembered a friend who had just PCS'd from here, who had also had a baby before they moved. I called her and asked her the important question: if you could do it all over again, would you deliver on base here? She said probably not. Problem solved. She put me in touch with a friend of hers here who recommended an OB to me, and when I called to see if he accepted TriCare, they said he did.

I am not sure if I am breaking rules or getting through on some sort of loophole, or if it's just that I am actually considered high risk (I will be of advanced maternal age when I deliver, wouldn't you know), but TriCare hasn't given me any trouble about going off base. Let's all just breathe a collective sigh of relief, shall we? The icing is that this OB is great. I don't know yet if he is as great as my OB in Tucson, but I love him so far.

Kate understands that she is going to be a big sister again, and perhaps more importantly, that there is not a baby in her tummy as well. Claire looks at us like we are kooky when we start talking about the baby in my belly, and looks questioningly at her own tum. She loves babies, though, so I'm sure she will be a great big sister.