Today I had my first appointment with my OB. Let's call him... BOB. Well, I had SOB for Singapore Obstetrician, so why not BOB for Brisbane Obstetrician?

My cousin actually recommended me to a midwife-led birth centre. "I can just see you there," she enthused, and I was completely sucked in right up until the point where they mucked me around for over a week and eventually reduced me to tears on the phone. Then I realised - I am not a birth centre person. I can see how my cousin made the mistake, with all the drug-free birthing, babywearing, cloth nappying, extended breastfeeding and cosleeping and no-cry whatever whatever, but the truth is I don't tend to react well to that kind of womanly care. No - give me detached, scientific reasoning any day. I'm an obstetrician's girl. Also, I need to be with someone I can reliably contact, who I trust to give me correct information, and who doesn't seem to spend most of their time buckpassing, blameshifting, and just generally being mean. (And whilst I will freely admit that the actual crying was a bit over the top, and can largely be blamed on hormones, the hormones aren't going away before the pregnancy ends, so, I really need a solution which deals with that.)

The downside is that I have ruled myself out of a water birth. And you know, I would have liked to keep all options open at this stage, but there are so, so many steps between me and a water birth, from "not miscarrying tomorrow" all the way up to "actually desiring a water birth, given the choice, at the requisite and still-hypothetical moment", that it just doesn't seem worth it.

In any case, I have decided to see BOB, who is fine, even nice, is happy to do things much the same way as last time (in terms of management technique, I stress, not in terms of the actual course of events which is somewhat out of our control), was able to confirm that our risk of screenable problems is too low to make any real recommendations for further testing beyond the gross anatomy scan at 18-20 weeks, and that the baby was, as of afternoon tea time today, still alive and kicking. And then he wrote me a form for some routine blood tests - the infectious diseases profile we were going to get done at the beginning of the FET cycle, for example - and the above-mentioned gross anatomy scan, which will happen mid-September.

When?

Last time, the twenty-week scan came around so very slowly. It took, literally, years on end, and they were long years, full of long days and long, long hours and minutes. This gross anatomy scan is coming up in slightly under a month and a half. It's going to take a little while to wrap my mind around that one. I'm not sure I even have the time left to do so. My mind may have to go into it unwrapped. (Or is it "unwrapping"?)

There are five more things I want to talk about. I am still hoping to go through the ones I can remember which still seem relevant by Sunday, so stay tuned.

P.S. 13w5d.