The Pre-Pregnancy Checkup - May 13, 2008

Being a responsible person, I figured that I should go to the doctor, get some bloodwork done, have a physical exam, and just generally make sure I'm a healthy person before getting pregnant. So on May 13th of 2008, I headed over to my family doctor for a rundown and to ask her what I should be doing to get my body ready for pregnancy. She ran a variety of tests, checked me over, and gave me a prescription for a prenatal vitamin. Being an overweight individual, I asked her if my weight would be problematic, as that was one pretty major concern that I had. She told me that losing a few pounds are never a bad idea for someone of my size, but that I should not try and loose a large amount of weight at this time. 10 pounds would be good and could only help, so that's the insight that I kept in the back of my mind. She also told me that when I did get pregnant, if I could limit my weight gain to 15 pounds or so, that would be really healthy for me and for baby. Good enough, at least until my hormones are telling me that I MUST eat chocolate every day, with every meal. Heh. So I set out to eat healthier, but not to try and crash-diet. Good enough.

A few days later, my blood results were ready. There were a couple of pieces of unpleasant news there. First, though I had always been borderline anemic, the test showed had crossed over the threshold into full-blown anemia. I had been taking an iron supplement, but not always regularly. The doctor informed me that I could not miss a day - I needed to take my supplement every day without fail, and we'd check my levels again in 60 - 90 days. Fair enough. She also informed me that my thyroid was out of whack, and put me on some medication to regulate it. Apparently that's a pretty big deal for pregnancy. Again, good that we found it early! So, now with three mandatory pills to pop a day, I headed into the trying phase knowing that I was taking care of any issues that may have harmed my baby! Good!

A few months later, I went back for a re-check of my levels. This was after a few months of trying, and after all of those nasty fake-out cycles that I mentioned before. I think this was around August of 2008. My thyroid had regulated (yay!), but my iron was still off a bit. The doctor's orders? More iron-rich foods, less tea, and stop forgetting to take those pills! Somewhere in there I also got several immunizations as well (measles, mumps, & rubella I think? Something with three components to it). I actually had a big angry red lump on my arm from the immunization and we were at my sister's house for something shortly thereafter. I think it was in late May or early June for my niece's birthday party, and I was in short sleeves! I had to make up some story on the fly about the big lump on my arm, and I am a really bad liar. Somehow though, I managed to fudge my way through the time with my family with no one the wiser. Whew!

So the months ticked on, relatively uneventfully, but with us getting more and more frustrated with each cycle that passed by, and each test that came back negative.