A Sticker For Me.

Today I went to the doctor and they gave me a sticker. Don't you wish you were as special as me?

Let me give you some back story.

Three years ago before we got married, I was in a ladies' Bible study at my church and asked around about a "doctor." {you know what I'm talking about.} They all seemed to suggest the same guy, so I made an appointment. At first things were fine, which was actually because I saw his nurse practitioner. When I finally saw him, he spent most of the conversation talking about how his son went to the university I worked for. In the back of my mind, I know he was probably trying to make casual conversation to make me feel more at ease, but come on? Do you really think I want to talk about the possibility of running into your son while you're doing that?!

Then he shut down his practice, so I needed a new doctor. Lots of people rave about this certain doctor in Abilene, but she's super popular and hard to get into. Like normally, you have to be pregnant. Which I'm not. I took a chance last May and called to see if she was accepting new {non-pregnant} patients and I was pleasantly surprised that she was! So, I grabbed an appointment up.... for DECEMBER. Yes, it was a full seven months wait.

Fast forward seven months and it's finally time for the appointment. Honestly, I went into it thinking that she better be dang good to be worth waiting that long. I was so thankful to find such a personable doctor who had researched my heart condition and spent the majority of her time talking to me about how we can be proactive and how we will handle my heart condition when the time eventually comes that I get pregnant. I walked out on cloud nine, thankful that I chose to wait the 7 months.

A couple days later, I received a call from her assistant. The doctor spent more time researching my case and wanted to see if I was interested in seeing a geneticist before we get pregnant so I can learn more about what to be prepared for. I was floored. In all my years of seeing doctors and heart specialists, no one has ever mentioned that option to me!

So today, I was lucky enough to get to meet with a geneticist and talk about my heart condition and the possibility of our children having a heart condition. While she initially didn't tell me more than I already knew (normal people have a 2-3% chance of having a baby with a heart condition. ours is 4-6% because I have a condition.) She did however, tell me that they are now able to link some heart conditions with a chromosome abnormality. It's not a huge difference, just a tiny line that is missing from the strand.

These days, when a baby is born with a heart condition, they'll go ahead and test for the abnormality. Back in my day though, they didn't have the test. Thankfully, they knew that they could get insurance to cover the test because I do have a heart condition. So today, they took a rather large (large in my opinion) amount of blood to run some tests to check for the abnormality, cystic fibrosis and some other issues that can come up.

Lest you ever think I'm some sort of a grown up, please know that I had FOUR other adults in the room trying to distract me while they were drawing the blood. Yep... I've been through two open heart surgeries and I am a total wuss when it comes to a tiny needle. They must have thought I did ok though, because I was rewarded with a sticker. There are some small perks to still seeing pediatric doctors!

We should know the results of the tests in about a month. The doctor didn't think the abnormality will show up, but there is still a small amount of fear there that something wrong will pop up. I am worried that we'll find something out that *might* cause complications in a pregnancy, and then we'll only have more reason to worry when I do get pregnant. I am trying to reman positive though, as I don't want to waste the next month on worries.

Cody and I both are so thankful that we have the ability to see doctors and have insurance to cover tests so that we can be prepared for some of the hurdles pregnancy may bring. I didn't know it at the time, but waiting the seven months to see the doctor was one of the best choices I've ever made!