28 week prenatal appointment today

Today was our 28 week appointment. Unfortunately, T.J. is in Iowa, so I went to this one alone. He didn't miss anything good, though - no worries!

First, the hospital midwife: I saw Kay today, and she was very nice, but not very thorough. My blood pressure was good - 100/60, and she was happy with my weight gain and all that. In fact, she was looking at my chart and just like "wow, everything is going perfectly". So I was happy about that. She listened to the heartbeat with the stethoscope (I got to hear too - very fun) but did not measure it. And she didn't measure my fundus, which I thought was odd. I think I've actually only had it measured once or twice there, though. She felt the baby and I'm very pleased to say that the baby is head down! In her words, the baby was very low - unusually low for a first time mother. She said I have great birthing hips. Niiiice.

After that appointment, I asked for a copy of my bloodwork from last month (they did the glucose tolerance test and I wanted to show Charlotte).

At Charlotte's, I showed her my bloodwork, and I was blown away by the results! My glucose was great - only 85 - but they also measured a bunch of other things and my red blood count, hemoglobin, hematocrit, and platelet counts were all low. And not just marginally low. Like, it seems pretty seriously low! Charlotte was quite concerned, and put me on an iron supplement in addition to my prenatal vitamin and also told me to take liquid chlorophyll, which should increase my platelet count. I'll also be sucking down the red raspberry leaf tea, which can help with iron.

I was pretty baffled at how the doctor's office blew off these results - it's their lab report, and the items that are out of range even get automatically highlighted on the print out. Charlotte told me that it's just not a big deal to them, because if you are at a hospital and have any blood issues they can do a transfusion. Seriously?!? WTF people! I kind of hope this is just her bias against them, but I don't really have a better explanation.

She did say that my feeling of laziness and sugar cravings are most likely tied to these low levels, so hopefully with my supplements I'll be able to get some energy back.

Anyway, besides that, everything is coming along well. All the stuff Charlotte tests for in my urinalysis came back great, and my blood pressure there was 106/64, so it sounds like I can drive in Atlanta without serious agitation. Haha! Charlotte measured the heartbeat at 140 bpm (normal) and was able to get a better feel for the position of the baby. It's definitely head down like Kay said, and it's mostly on the right side of my belly. But it's turned a bit funny so that one leg is splayed out near the left side of my belly button, which is why I can get good kicks there at night. Charlotte actually "grabbed" the leg. Baby didn't like that though - it doesn't like to be pushed around.

I'm going to try and draw a picture tonight of the way I think the baby is in my belly, because I think it's super cool.

Charlotte now has an assistant, Jessica, who seems nice. She'll be attending the birth as well to help Charlotte. In other exciting midwifery news, it sounds like Georgia may push through a licensing program for CPMs like Charlotte which would (1) make it legal for THEM to attend us and (2) make it open to reimburement for INSURANCE! Yey! I love seeing change in the crappy system that is American obstetrics.