Annoyed but Happy

Here I am at 12 weeks 4 days. Yesterday was my appointment for my NT scan. The appointment did not go well, but not because there's anything wrong. In the end we were relieved to see the heartbeat again and happy to hear from the sonographer, nurse practitioner, and the doctor that the everything looked great on the scan. Unfortunately, in every other way the appointment was incredibly frustrating.

First the baby would not cooperate so halfway through the scan I had to get up, guzzle a soda (for the sugar), and walk around for 5 minutes in hopes that the baby would move so they could see what needed to be seen. Didn't seem to work, but at the last minute the tech got what she needed.

Then after another 15 minutes in the waiting room, they call me back to ask me for the 4th time if I'd had my NT bloodwork done previously. For the 4th time in an hour I explained that, as they'd instructed, I'd been in the office exactly 2 weeks earlier for a blood draw. After 30 minutes, many phone calls to the office and the lab, and a few tears on my part, they determined that IF the nurse had actually done the proper blood test (which seemed questionable), the results were nowhere to be found. So, while we were reassured by everyone that the results of the scan were great, we weren't actually able to get the complete results that we'd been expecting. So they took more blood and the nurse promised to call the lab in hopes of getting the results back a little sooner.

In addition to being pissed off about the mixup with the bloodwork and not getting the full results, the delay in getting the test results means that CVS is ruled out if we wanted to see the results before deciding on Amnio vs. CVS. That's because by the time we get the results I'll be too far along.

By the time we were ushered down the hall to see the doctor, I was still annoyed, but I was actually calming down and looking forward to seeing the doctor and asking all my questions.

And that's when the worst part of the appointment started. I'm still so disgusted about the way the doctor dealt with us that I'm practically shaking just thinking about it! In fact, the more time that goes by the angrier I get.

It started of ok, she was thoughtful enough to apologize for the bloodwork snafu and told us that the results of the scan were beautiful. Then she asked if we had any questions and it went downhill from there. I told her that we were having trouble deciding between CVS and Amnio, and quickly asked if CVS was no longer an option if we wanted to wait for the results of the bloodwork. She confirmed that the CVS wasn't really an option, but then instead of giving us any information on amnio she proceeded to lecture us on how we really needed to think about what we would do with the information we'd get from the test. I have no problem with her saying that, but when we tried to press her on some what ifs with regard to the blood tests and ask her questions on some other upcoming tests, she just kept deflecting our answers and told us we need to stop thinking about worst case scenarios! I actually did say to her that we aren't assuming that something bad will happen, but I am 39 and we want to be prepared and have thought about what we might do given the possibility of something bad. She continued to poo-poo our questions and was blatantly rude to my husband. We finally gave up and left. Since the CVS is ruled out, we will be doing an Amnio, but I'm still furious about the way she treated us.

End of vent (here anyway, it continues in my head at an alarming pitch)!

But again, overall we were happy with the news about the baby and I made my husband take me for my favorite burrito (Crunchy Barbeque Ranch!) for a celebratory lunch afterward.

Now I need to weigh the pros and cons of finding another high-risk practice. Sigh!