The first order of business was to find someone to watch our son. It just so happened that my fifteen year old sister had the day off from work. I picked her up from work the night before so that I wouldn’t have to worry about rushing around to pick her up in the morning in combination with our 9:30AM appointment.
As we rushed around making breakfast and and coffee (mine is a decaf latte), we were finally ready to go. Once we arrived at the midwives home office, the paperwork began. First she when through her contract with us and explained how she deals with insurance. Next she explained her practice and her relationship to the hospital. She wanted to make sure that we understood that her practice has changed since she delivered my little sister as she no longer has a contract with the hospital. What she does have are relationships with various doctors and nurses. Then she went through our health history and that of our families. Next came the the list of diseases and she needed to know if any of them ran in our families and if so how the individual was related to us. She then went through nutrition (she calls this her insurance policy for a healthy pregnancy and delivery) pointing out the better choices of protein. She also warned against eating too much grain (carbohydrates) because even the “whole grains” turn into to sugar and if not burned are stored as fat (that’s the trick to not gaining to much weight!) A big part of nutrition is of course hydration and by hydration she means water. In the first trimester two quarts of water needs to be consumed daily. In the second trimester, three quarts. By the third semester water consumption goes up to four quarts daily. Yikes! She reminded me about the importance of decreasing stress and the importance of good oral hygiene which includes flossing daily. Finally she talked about the supplements I need to be taking all of which I have two of which I am already taking. They include: prenatal vitamin, calcium, Omega 3, probiotic, and if necessary a vitamin D supplement for insufficient vitamin D levels (this is determined by a blood test).
Amazingly enough this took exactly ninety minutes and after scheduling our next appointment in three weeks, we were on our way to get blood work done!