Because I was termed 'high risk' due to the miscarriage, my pregnancy was co-managed by Maternal Fetal Medicine, a division of Valley Hospital with an enormous office in Paramus. The office itself was pretty freaking awesome-spacious waiting room with lots of up-to-date magazines, enormous and comfortable exam rooms, on site phlebotomist who was fantastically understanding about my bone crushing medical phobias, genetic counselor who, after seeing our blood work pretty much guaranteed that there was no way on the planet that Warren and I could have a genetically fucked up kid (no, we would have to fuck her up on our own, thank you very much), and very reasonable office hours. Plus, our insurance covered mostly everything, so getting to see the fetus in the lap of luxury was a pretty good experience. Until it wasn't.
At Maternal Fetal Medicine, the sonographer has to run all the data by the in-house doctor before you get to leave. And because I was 'high risk,' that meant doing comprehensive fetal measurements every time. One-hour long sonograms are not that fun-mostly because you have to pee the whole time-but also because the technicians aren't always that friendly and even though you try to strike up a cheerful conversation, you spend most of the time staring at the ceiling or neurotically obsessing over the amount of times she's measured the cranium and OH MY GOD, something must be wrong because she's getting another head measurement and this can't be good, holy crap.
Nothing was 'wrong,' so to speak, until around week 20something (in the mid to late 20s), when the technician asked the doctor to come speak with me. Her information was puzzling: the baby was measuring small. Not scary small or troubling small, but smaller than they would like. Maybe our dates were off. But, worst case scenario, something might be wrong. She recommended having me come every 2-3 weeks so we could continue tracking the baby's progress. She reassured me that I didn't need to freak out, but she wanted to see me more often. Now, if that information wasn't scary enough (and, by the way, this was the appointment I'd gone to by myself-normally hubby or mom would be there), the doctor, as a person, was not reassuring.
Maybe I am biased because of Dr. Dad and his friends or just my dad's medical persona...but this was the least put together doctor I had ever seen in my life. Her hair was completely askew, her clothes were unprofessional (putting it lightly...I saw a lot of thigh and way too much cleavage), and she had no authority in her voice. It was like an overweight, black Valley Girl having a bad hair day was talking to me about my baby, and I didn't even trust her to give me directions to Paramus Park Mall (a few weeks later she tried to give me directions somewhere else, and they were incomprehensible-first impressions are always correct).
So of course I panicked and went to see a specialist (actually, the doctor who delivered me and who was good friends with my mom and dad). We drove to Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx and met with Dr. "D" who quickly became my favorite person in the whole world. He thought everything was fine and our dates were incorrect (even though he was wrong about this I still love him to death), but more importantly, he said, in delicate and understanding language, that my OBGYN sounded like a real moron and of course I could have one diet soda a day-everything in moderation. Did this apply to frozen yogurt too? "Of course." I could've reached across the desk and kissed his aging Haitian face, that is, I could've done that if my father hadn't already changed the conversation to the good old days when he and Dr. "D" were both working at Einstein-ah, the early 1980s in New York City, the Bronx to be precise-who the hell would ever want to reminisce about that?
What followed was a debate between me and my parents about where and who would deliver the baby if something did go wrong. I wanted to stay with my OBGYN and Valley because, even though I was starting to dislike him, my OBGYN had treated me the whole pregnancy and Valley had a level 3 NICU. My parents voted for Dr. "D" and the Bronx. The debate ended once I reminded them that, "I have no idea where the hell I am right now, I have no idea how to get here, and there's no fucking way that hubby can figure out how to get here."
Two weeks later while at Maternal Fetal Medicine I was sent to the hospital-something was very wrong.
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