Dr. May is on the heels of delivering his 10,000th baby. The man has been an OB/GYN for more than 30 years and is now delivering babies of babies that he's already delivered. (Reassuringly, they're adults now).
Luckily, my appointment was early yesterday. I had some serious nervous/excited stomach issues from the moment I woke up, so waiting for an afternoon appointment would have been a not-so-fun bowel adventure. I arrived at Dr. May's office at Orange County Women's Medical Group really early. My appointment was at 8:20, but I strolled in there at 7:45. I wasn't horribly early. As a new patient, they recommended that I arrive well before my appointment for paperwork and such. I was still awkwardly early, though, as there was one employee at the desk, and she hadn't even gotten to put the sign-in sheet on the counter yet.
I signed, initialed and dated as necessary then had a seat to zone out into Good Morning America. That was actually pretty difficult, by the way. GMA has gotten all kinds of extreme. I don't remember it being so in-your-face when I was growing up. They're all sitting around a table, laughing, trying to get the stories out and really just annoyed me rather than kept me interested. I was too distracted by their lack of professionalism to pay attention to the stories anyway. (Oh, hi tangent!) I digress.
I was called back by... hmm... she told me her name, but I've since forgotten. She took my weight. "Okay..." she slid the weights on the scale, "We'll just round down. Okay, do you need to use the ladies room?" Oh my God, yes, please. This really is a women-centric place.
She took me into the exam room where she took my blood pressure and asked me all of the usual questions. "Are you using birth control?" No. "Any kind of contraception?" No. "...condoms?" No. Awkward moment. "Nothing? Are you trying to conceive?" ...yes. (I thought this was on my chart) "Oh! I was gonna say, babies are a common side effect of not using contraception!"
Before I gowned-up, I got to sit with Dr. May in his dated version of a plush office with leather wing chairs, dark walls, a thousand plaques and some possibly fake greenery. He was really warm and I didn't have any trouble feeling comfortable with and talking to him.
He asked more of the usual questions about my current and past health, family health history and so on. I explained why I originally stopped taking hormonal birth control (oh, I have a blood clotting gene? Fun.) and how about a year afterward was when we decided to try for a yittle Ellison. (Yes, I said 'yittle'.) I explained how we spent a good chunk of time following every home procedure in order to predict and confirm ovulation. I also explained that this ended up getting the better of us and we had to take a break from it. This is definitely a paragraph that I may expand on in the future.
Dr. Anderson at the fertility clinic was really gung-ho about Jamie and I both getting in ASAP for testing, and as exciting as that was, it was also a little overwhelming. Dr. May cleared a path for me, explaining that given my health, history, and mostly regular cycle, we should clear Jamie's tests first before heading into mine.
This was all just in our pre-exam discussion. I was taken back to the exam room. (Why do medical offices love mauve?) I climbed into my gown (cloth, not paper!) and sat on the table. I was comforted by the numerous photos of Dr. May's grand children as well as photos with notes from patients whose babies he had delivered.
Dr. May returned and began the exam. These are always some level of awkward, but this was one of the least awkward exams I've had. Luckily, everything checked out and he left me with a few reiterations and reassurances.
I left feeling really optimistic about this new chapter and am quite eager to move forward.
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