(The picture is of the baby at 11 weeks)I had my first appointment at Womack Army Medical Center on Friday, where (if I stick with Army care)I'll be having all my prenatal appointments, screenings and eventually be giving birth. I met with a mid-wife named Marcile. She was a little loopy and I did most of the talking (asking researched question after question) which didn't make me feel too confident, but she was able to answer all of them and was even able to schedule me for an early ultra-sound, which I'll get to do in 2-3 weeks! Not only that, but she was able to find our baby's heartbeat (something we tried at home, borrowing Missy & Brice's at-home-doppler, with no success)! Archibald's little heart is beating at around 168 beats per minute, and I think just hearing that made my heart beat a little faster too.
We get an early ultra-sound, cause we're so cool
Typically, you don't get to have an ultra-sound (at least if you're going through Tricare) until 20 weeks or so, when they do one to track your progress and make sure it all looks good in there and are also able to tell you the sex of the baby at the same time. However, Marcile scheduled an earlier ultra-sound because of the fraternal twins that run in my family on my mother's side (which are hereditary) and because my last period was a little different than all of my other periods (indicating that there's a chance I may be more pregnant than they think I am). My maternal intuition is telling me that we're not having twins and we're probably not more pregnant, but if I get to see the little nugget in there before 20 weeks then I'm all about working the system.
Although I don't think we're actually having twins (although Brian would give me crap for all the naysaying because he'd love to have twins!) the prospect is kind of cool so I looked into some stats.
Here are some interesting facts on the topic of twins:
a. Only fraternal (nonidentical) twins are hereditary. Fraternal twins are produced when you release more than one egg when you ovulate and each egg is then fertilized by different sperm conceiving two genetically different babies.
b. There are a couple of factors that increase your chances to have fraternal twins, only one of the those factors would be THE factor, if we had twins...
1. Your chances of conceiving nonidentical twins rises until the age of 35 and then drops off. This may be due to the fact that as you age you naturally produce more ovulation-stimulating hormones which coud trigger your ovaries to release more eggs each month. Seeing as I'm ten years short of 35, I may be producing multiple eggs each cycle, but who knows...
2. With each subseqent pregnancy your chances of having fraternal twins increases and it seems larger, taller women are 25-30 percent more likely to have them. Seeing as I'm not 5'6" (which isn't even that tall) like I originally thought, and I'd like to think I'm not very large, this is not the factor either.
3. Fraternal twins are hereditary but only on the mother's side. Cha-ching! We've found our factor. While Marcile was squirting the goo all over the doppler before placing the freezing cold instrument on my stomach, she asked if there were any multiple births in my family.
"Uh.. yeah", I said. "My great uncles are twins, my sisters are twins, and not that it would affect us, but Brian's mom's a twin", I said as I focused on her face to see her reaction.
"Well then, let's definitely get that ultra-sound!", she replied, all smiles.
Tough decision, "Should I stay or should I go now"
As you may recall from an earlier post, this appointment was supposed to be the appointment that I requested a referral to a civilian practice. Turns out (surprise, surprise) it's not that easy (not that the chain of events I was expecting were necessarily 'easy').
Marcile spoke with her administrator while I was there and asked how I would go about seeing a civilian practice. Looks like you can't just have a doctor put in for a referral when you're talking about prenatal care. In order to have Tricare pay for civilian prenatal care, you have to switch to Tricare Standard from Tricare Prime. Tricare Standard would allow us to see any doctor we like, but also pay a co-pay and annual deductable, we would also have to file our own claims in some cases. We would have to stay with Tricare Standard for at least a year or more (I'm still looking into the exact details, here). With prime, although the system is a bit annoying, I do like the fact that I know I'll never pay for any prescriptions that I'm presribed and that I can pick them up right there at the Clinic pharmacy, that I never have to file any claims, and of course, never have to pay for any visits - including visits to civilian doctors to which I've been referred.
So, needless to say, I have a decision to make. My primary concern is obviously getting good personalized continuous prenatal care. Since neither Standard (and a civilian doctor) nor Prime guarantees that I'll see the same doctor on delivery day, my gut is telling me to stick with Prime and Marcile and know that I have the option of seeing her for all my future prenatal visits (but could switch to a different mid-wife if I wanted to).
My next formal visit is scheduled for August 24, however I call on Monday of next week to schedule my ultra-sound which will likely happen between August 3 - August 14.
We shall see...
