11 May 2012

Knocked Up - Episode 1

Yup. In dolce attesa, as they say here, although right now as I'm writing this, I've found very little dolce and a lot of confusion, frustration, and those tiny little indignities of a pregnant woman that I'm sure will only increase in the following months.

So, as I write this, I am almost 15 weeks gone, due around the third week of October. As my 2 female flatmates and I tend to follow each other, and they were both late for some reason, I initially didn't think anything of my period being about a week late. Mon Amour was the one who actually pointed out "Uh, maybe we should get a stick to pee on, honey?" Stick peed on, hullo positive test. And cue my hysterical hormonal crying jags all day until Mon Amour finished work and came over. Absolutely totally supportive, he calmed me down and said that he would support whatever decision I wanted to make.

We had already decided to move in together a few weeks prior, so though unexpected and not the best timing ever, our relationship was already moving in the "Marriage and Kids" direction. So we talked it over and that was that. Bring on the huge ta-tas, big ol' belly and roller coaster of hormones.

I know that sounds really flip, and maybe when I go back to edit this before I publish it in the near future I'll add in the smoochy cutesy lovey details, or maybe I'll save it for an entry of its own, but right now I am in an extraordinarily flip cranky mood in general and I'm going to hit the broad stokes and highlights for now. And before I forget, according to those nifty online pregnancy calculators, I most likely conceived around this time. Go figure. (Also, remind me to eventually tell y'all the fun reason why I know exactly which day and hour my last period started....)

So we go to a private gyno at a structure suggested by friends of a friend. Dr. Dippy, as I like to call her, shoved the magic sonogram dildo up my twat in front of Mon Amour, points out a couple of pulsating pixels as the heartbeat and proclaimed us 6 weeks preggo. She made sure I was taking prenatal vitamins (and vaguely tisked over the brand, saying she'd give me others when I finished these...ooooookay...), gave me a list of about 35 blood & pee tests plus a cardio exam and EKG to get prescribed by my GP, sort of waved her hands vaguely over dietary concerns and told us to come back in 2 weeks. Not even 30 minutes, €100 thank you very much.



Whelp, I then had to untangle some red tape issues related to my docs from when my purse was stolen that I had let slide since hey, I am <bad russian accent>healthy like horse</bad russian accent>. No big deal, right? Ha. Not only did I have to run from point A to point B to point Omega, but I had to do it while newly pregnant, which is something that I failed to factor into my logical planning.

I got off lucky with about 2.5-ish weeks of occasional hurling, which I eventually figured out was mainly due to my prenatals; I have to eat right before and right after I take them or else see breakfast come back up along with said prenatals, the sensory memory of which is making me puke a little in my mouth right now.

But the worst was the fatigue. You could not kick me out of bed in the morning with a small crane and an atom bomb. Believe me, Mon Amour tried. This is not conducive to having to be at various government offices between 8-12, nor to getting blood and pee tests done by 9.30am. I salute those of my fellow preggos who had morning sickness because I honestly don't know how the fuck they manage it. I would finally haul my exhausted carcass to the shower to wake myself up, only to need a nap halfway through putting my clothes on. Of course my restricted caffeine intake was not helping matter either.

Oh yes and that brings us to "Shit Preggos Can't Eat," which might as well be re-titled "My Entire Diet". No raw fish (ie sushi & sashimi), no rare meat - only well done (I like my meat rare, as in "slap it on the ass and send it out" rare), no sausage or salami or other insaccati, no raw eggs (bye tiramisu), very little caffeine (bye coffee habit. Hello green tea. Oh wait, no, not even that...) all fruit and veg thoroughly washed (no salads or raw fruit & veg when eating out because you don't know if they've been washed properly), no deli meats (no sandwiches?! are you fucking me?). If you're going by the  US standards, no alcohol; by the European standards, the very very occasional glass of wine or beer, preferably after your first trimester. Thank Deity I had quit smoking right before I got knocked up...Oh yes, and that raw fruit and veg should be washed with either baking soda or Amucchina. For the latter, think "Hand Sanitizer" *gags*

The last straw in this list of verboten was when Mon Amour's sister-in-law (who is expecting their second in June) told him that we couldn't eat pork. Fuck no, you will pry my porchetta out of my cold dead hands. Jesus Harold Christ we are not living in Lower ButtFuck OngoBongo where open sewers are the latest in modernity and eating raw meat from carcasses lying about is a fucking classy night out.

Also, everyone and their fucking trusty sidekick Pancho will volunteer what they/their mother/their sister/their third cousin twice removed told them they could or couldn't eat, but will have no idea if or what the scientific basis is, leaving you to fret over last week's lunch until you can get access to Google. So far I've been told strawberries, the aforementioned pork, and spicy foods when I breastfeed. At this last proclamation, I wonder to myself if Indian, Thai and Mexican women are told to stay away from bland food...

So I finally get the paperwork fixed and we go to get the blood & pee tests on a Friday. Wrong. The computers are down at my local ASL so no go for that day. No big deal, we'll come back on Monday. And we do, and I'm feeling all smug and "HA! I managed to get out of bed today with only 30 minutes of pushing by Mon Amour. We''ll get this out of the way and then tomorrow I can fucking sleep in and breathe a bit."

Nope. We get to the ticket window with my prescriptions and discover my GP has done them all wrong, mixing the payment exempt tests with the non-exempt. They finish taking blood samples at 9.30am and my GP doesn't open until 10am. So with a jar of fresh pee in my purse still, I manage not to have a major hormonal tantrum in front of the ticket window as we wait for him to highlight which tests are payment exempt for preggos and which are not. I shove the prescriptions back in my purse next to the jar of pee and huff out of the ASL before I start chucking my toys out of the pram like a two year old, my poor Mon Amour trailing behind me at a safe distance. Hello uncontrollable hormones.

We finally manage to get the fucking tests done, of which only about a third were preggo-exempt and the other 2/3rds came to about €150. Mon Amour makes a comment about how the higher expense is thanks to Monti and I tell him if we were in the States, he probably could have added another zero to the end of that figure. I schedule our next appointment with Dr. Dippy at the private structure.

Annnnd the structure calls me the day before our appointment and cancels. Since Dr.Dippy only works at that structure once a week, they offer me a spot for the following week...Fuck this shit, and I'm expected to pay a 100 smackers each time for it as well? I head that afternoon over to the consultorio familiare, the Italian SSN version of Planned Parenthood. The doctor isn't in, but the social worker immediately sets me up with an appointment and signs me up for the prenatal classes. Score! Way more information than Dr. Dippy. Should have gone there from the beginning, especially seeing as I am a communist hippie liberal at heart anyways.

Ok, this rant turned super long an I haven't even gotten to today's flashpoint for purging my preggo emo guts out yet. Let's break this up - on to part 2.

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