This week is full of doctor-y stuff. Wednesday I have my 16 week check up (already?), Thursday is Theo’s 9 month check up (does he get shots for this one? I’m a bad mom and can’t remember), and Friday I’m having surgery. Boo.
I’m expecting my 16 week check up to go like this:
1. Sign in
2. Wait
3. Pee in a cup
4. Wait
5. Get weighed and have my blood pressure checked
6. Wait
7. See the doctor so she can listen for the baby’s heartbeat and tell me to come back in 2 weeks (if I want to) to find out the baby’s gender (or wait until I’m 20 weeks when my next doctor’s appointment will be scheduled
8. Leave after spending a total of 5-10 minutes with the doctor, but an hour at the doctor’s office
I don’t know what to expect at Theo’s appointment Thursday. I am excited to see how much he’s grown. It’s been 3 whole months since he was weighed or measured! But about the shots? Does he get them this time? I really don’t know. I guess I’ll give him some Tylenol beforehand, just in case.
Surgery? you ask. Yes. When Theo was 3 or 4 weeks old I noticed a small, hard spot in my breast and asked about it at my 6 week check up. Doc didn’t like it so he sent me to a specialist. They say it’s either a lactating adenoma or a fibroadenoma. Either way, it has to come out. They’ve been monitoring it via ultrasound every 2 months and it hadn’t changed much at all. Until I got pregnant, anyway. It was 2.0cm and now it’s grown to 2.5cm in 3 short months.
It’s rare. When I win the lottery, I win big.
Basically it’s a solid, benign tumor (we hope). I was hoping to wait until I was done nursing Theo to have it removed. They told me to have it taken care of before I got pregnant again because hormones tend to feed them. Apparently so. Well, I wasn’t done nursing when I got pregnant so obviously I didn’t have a chance to get it taken care of. I could have had it out while nursing but breast feeding with an incision on my boob didn’t sound like a fun time so I was okay with waiting until Theo was done, provided that it wasn’t growing.
Now I’m not so comfortable waiting. Not only is it growing rapidly now, I still plan on breastfeeding baby #2 for as long as possible (up to a year). I’m not okay with waiting until May of 2012 with this unknown mass in my breast. The surgery can only be done during the 2nd trimester so it’s now or never. Well, May of 2012. Long story, huh?
The procedure: Friday morning I will go to the doctor’s office and they will use a local anesthetic to numb the area where the incision will be. Using an ultrasound, they will insert a wire to mark the spot where the mass is because they have a tendency to roll around during surgery and they want to make sure they get the entire thing out. After the wire is in, I go to the hospital where the surgery will take place. It should last no more than 1 hour and I will be under “twilight” anesthesia, where I won’t be unconscious, but I won’t remember anything either. Fine by me. There is a slight risk of miscarriage (less than 5%) due to the procedure or the anesthesia, I guess, but it is very unlikely. They will monitor the fetal heart rate to ensure that the baby is fine. The mass will go to pathology for a biopsy to make sure that it isn’t malignant and I will go home and sleep a whole bunch.
Eek.
~C~