We Found An Apartment

Okay, so it is neither of the apartments that I had posted about before.  It is located on Hinsdale Street right near Cobbs Hill Park, and just a few blocks from Upper Monroe.  Here are some pictures:

The front of the house (we are the second floor apartment).  There is a secondary entrance from the driveway on the side of the house that enters into the kitchen.

The kitchen:

The dining room (with lots of windows) and the living room (with a decorative fireplace):

The enclosed sun room, taken from the dining room looking through the living room, and then from the living room:

There is also a bathroom and three bedrooms, and a basement with a washer and dryer.  It has all hardwood floors and off-street parking in the driveway (they do snow removal).  The rent is $725/month.

One major thing off the list, thanks to Kelly’s decisiveness.

We also got our car back today, $1,507.40 later.  At least it runs!  Kelly did the amazing job of actually going to the mechanic and making them explain everything in detail to his satisfaction.  And we got a one-year warranty on all the parts they replaced, which ended up being a huge part of the engine.  So actually, that’s two things off the list.  Yay Kelly!

I went to the doctor yesterday to check out this crotch rash that hadn’t been going away.  I’d been treating it with antifungal powder my midwife prescribed, since I have had itchiness there due to fungus before.  It turns out that this is a bacterial infection called folliculitis (because the hair follicles get infected) and now I am treating it with an antibiotic cream.  I hope it goes away soon.

I have a midwife appointment tonight.

Pharmacy troubles…

I went to get my Flagyl (metronidazole) prescription filled on Saturday, and the pharmacist gave me a really ridiculously hard time about it.  She was like, “you’re not supposed to have this when you’re pregnant – it’s a Category B drug” and “this drug crosses the blood barrier into the placenta.”  Well, guess what, pharmacist: Category B is about as good as you’re going to get with a drug during pregnancy, and Flagyl is the treatment recommended by the CDC for BV when pregnant.  About the only other treatment is clindamycin, also Category B (and possibly more effective at preventing pre-term labor – or it might be that metronidazole is just not as studied?).

The CDC website on treatment guidelines for BV says:

Whether treatment of asymptomatic pregnant women with BV who are at low risk for preterm delivery reduces adverse outcomes of pregnancy is unclear.

At this point, I am asymptomatic (I had a fishy smell and some extra discharge a few weeks ago, but not anymore) and at low risk for preterm delivery.  My midwife says I should treat the BV, and then if symptoms do not recur we can just assume that it is gone.  I am going to do that, but I also feel like it sucks to take drugs – extremely strong drugs – without knowing that they are even potentially mitigating a problem.

Thoughts?

Good news, everyone

I haven’t written this week because looking at my computer screen increases my nausea. However, I do have good news to report: I switched midwives at the birth center, and I really like the new midwife I am working with, named Tiffany. In addition to the Cambridge Birth Center, she also sees patients at a location that is much closer to work/home (the Somerville hospital), so I can reduce the amount of time I am out the office. My next appointment with her is February 13.

I also saw a different midwife, Lorrie, for an urgent appointment on Wednesday about my yeast/bv. Lorrie recommended I take Terazol for the yeast. There was a whole deal where the terconazole cream contains propylene glycol as an inactive ingredient, which I am super sensitive to (it stings like a bitch). Eventually, with the help of two different pharmacists at compounding pharmacies who went way out of their way to help me find a solution, I figured out that Terazol also comes in a suppository form suspended in a vegetable oil base without any of the petroleum-based additives present in many vaginal creams. I got the prescription today, so I am set on that front, too.

At my urgent appointment with Lorrie, I also got to hear the heartbeat of my fetus. Yay! It sounds really fast, kind of like a beat machine. A great moment, but I wish Kelly could have been there.

I have one more upcoming appointment (the morning of January 28th), for the “ultrascreen” prenatal testing. This is a combination ultrasound and blood test that screens for the probability of chromosomal abnormalities and neural tube defects. Because I was not taking an adequate source of folic acid during the first few weeks of my pregnancy before I realized I was pregnant, Kelly and I decided that we would go ahead and get the screening. What I think is that the testing will confirm we have little to worry about, but it would be nice to know early if, for instance, our fetus had anencephaly. Kelly and I have talked about “what would we do if…” and for me, it would be much, much harder to terminate the pregnancy past the point of quickening even if it turned out that it like had no brain or something. I’m already pretty deeply attached to the pregnancy.

I thought that the point of “quickening,” or when the mother can first feel movement from the fetus, was significant in Judaism, but the internet seems unable to enlighten me on this point. Can anyone else find info on this or knows what I am talking about?

I appreciate all the comments I’ve been getting lately, everything from support to eating tips to the medical perspective (thanks, Stace). As Laura suggested, I have been eating a lot of calorie-dense foods like olives and avocados, which unfortunately is expensive in the winter. Thank goodness for the global agricultural economy, right? (No, wait…)  Anyway, your comments mean a lot to me.  Thanks for reading.

The weather is beautiful today, but there is a severe cold warning in effect for the weekend. Bummer.  I think tonight Kelly and I are going to go to Grasshopper Restaurant again, and then to services at Temple Sinai.

Finding a provider

I had no idea that finding a prenatal provider would be so difficult. There is Dr. Shafi in Burlington, who I really like, but Burlington seems too far away to travel for regular appointments and the nurse I was working with there didn’t seem like she did a good job of listening to me. There is CNM Christley in Cambridge, but I think my rough pelvic exam from her actually led to a yeast infection, and it doesn’t seem encouraging that her office is using outdated medical procedures (no lubricant during pap smears, see earlier post and info here). Then there is the Davis Square office of Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates. I would like to switch my care to them because they are the closest office and so Kelly may be able to attend more of my appointments. Unfortunately, they do not have any midwives and as of now I don’t know anyone there.

(Later)  I am on a waiting list for sooner appointments at HVMA in Davis, but I have appointments on February 15 and 22 with a NP and MD, respectively.

And I have an appointment at 3:00 today with a midwife at the Cambridge Birth Center to screen me for yeast/bv.  I might also switch my care to the Somerville Women’s Health Center at the Somerville Hospital, where I could work with a CNM.  It is closer to home and work than Cambridge is, and ALL I NEED IS TO FIND ONE DECENT PROVIDER!

I know I am making this more complicated than it needs to be, but I am really tired of this.