another monday, another visit to the gd gd clinic

regarding the gd gd:

• still doing fabulously with the diet and exercise and daytime control
• still can't control the nighttime surges, but i get to inject even more insulin now
• still hating the jabbing and pricking and bleeding and injecting
• blah blah blah

ugh. on to other things.

so, i have this rash. (you can keep your fingers on your keyboard - it's not contagious.) it started late in my pregnancy with hans, came into full bloom a few days after i delivered him, and went away after a couple of months. it's a big, bumpy, itchy thing, with an unknown viral cause. it can't be cured, but it runs its course and then you're on your way...except it started again, with just two tiny welts, when we were in oaxaca in march. i recognized it, knew it hadn't related to hans's death, didn't have a gynecological connection, and it would run its course. in the last couple of weeks, it's reached fever pitch, so i've been scratching it like a mangy dog. when it gets scratched, the bigger welts thin out and spread out - which makes them look like ringworm.

i forgot to bring it up last week when i talked to my ob, so justin made me promise to bring it up today. of course, the peri and the resident saw first the biggest welts that had been scratched out and said, oh, ringworm! i told them the whole story (in much more detail than i'm boring you with here, believe it or not) and made them look up last year's outbreak in my chart, which gave the resident pause but didn't sway the peri, who wants to treat it as ringworm until it doesn't respond to ringworm treatment. okay, whatever. on the plus side, he admitted he wasn't absolutely sure, but he said it definitely wasn't any of the rashes that would but milo in any danger, so yea for that. i'm going to go fill the prescription, but i'm not holding my breath. i've read all about ringworm this afternoon, and it's so not ringworm.

and then we got to the good part!

the peri wants me to initiate a delivery plan conversation with my ob if he doesn't bring it up wednesday at my check-up. he disagrees with my ob's conviction about waiting until 39 weeks and is going to tell him so, but he wants me to jump in, too. he'd like to set an induction date after my ultrasound in two weeks, and he'd like to do an amnio for lung maturity testing around 36 weeks and induce at 37 or 38 at the latest. (i wanted to get up and dance at this point; it's not like i had any dignity to lose, since i'd already dropped my pants twice today, but i did manage to keep my butt connected to the chair.) given my previous successful induction (successful in that induction worked in a timely manner to deliver my dead son vaginally), he thinks i'm an excellent candidate for another induction, and placed my risk of c-section at 4-5% at that point - which is significantly below the general population's percentage of c-section, so i'm not sure how my ob can argue with it.

this development is most conducive to improved mental health on my part. to have a scheduled date, in only 5-6 weeks, makes me so, so happy. and to have someone besides me telling my ob i really, really need to get this show on the road is such a relief. a burden shared and all that. if i wasn't pregnant, i'd go drink now to celebrate.

the rest of this week's schedule:

• tomorrow: non-stress test
• wednesday: ob check-up
• thursday: phone check with gd gd resident
• friday: non-stress test

and so it goes every week until milo is delivered. or i'm delivered of milo. however you wanna look at it.