********Ok, now that I've had my mini panic attack for today (I seem to have one of these about every other day or so), let's move on to other things...********
I meant to post about this last week, but other stuff kind of got in the way of that (see previous post entitled "Ugh"). Last Friday, I was a standardized test patient for the 3rd year medical school students who were taking their OB/gyne clinical rotation exams. Kind of random, yes? I'd gotten a flyer about it in my New Patient folder from my doctor's office several months ago. It said they were looking for women in the 24-36 weeks range, so I had kind of forgotten about it until recently. I happened to come across it in my "things-to-research-before-baby" file a couple weeks ago and realized I was now in range they wanted. I called and it turned out they still needed patients for last Friday's exam, so I said I'd do it! It was perfect timing too because work was kind of slow last Friday and a lot of people were out for a conference. And the clinical education center was just down the block from my office, so I was able to walk over for a few hours in the afternoon for the exam.
There were 4 of us OB patients (and I think 4 gyne patients too, but we didn't really interact with them). We each had our own mock exam room that looked just like a regular doctor's office, except that it was bugged with microphones and cameras and speakers. The students came in one at a time (I saw a total of 6 over the course of the exam) and were given fake charts on us that had fake dates for last menstrual period and due date. We had also been coached by the patient coordinators about what to say and how to answer questions. Each student was supposed to ask the standard questions about bleeding/spotting, contractions, fluid leakage, and fetal movement. Then they were supposed to measure the height of the uterus and find the heart beat using a Doppler. The idea behind the fake dates was that when they measured us, we were supposed to be bigger than what they would expect based on the dates. For instance, my fake chart said I was 25 weeks, so if they measured me at 30.5 cm (which is what one of the instructors had measured me as officially), they would then be prompted to ask more questions and also counsel me about diabetes screening and other testing to see why I was measuring bigger. In the event that they didn't measure correctly, we each had a card with our correct measurement that we were supposed to show them so that they would still be prompted to talk about testing, etc.
It was a very interesting experience! Most of the students did great with asking questions and finding the heart beat. None of them actually got my measurement exactly right, but a few came pretty close or at least still measured me bigger than 25 weeks. And all but one seemed to figure out what to do when I showed them the card. The clinical instructors and evaluators watched everything on camera from another room and were grading the students on their clinical knowledge and skills. When time was called and the student left the room, we (the OB patients) had to fill out an evaluation form about the exam, including any suggestions we might have for further improvement from a patient's perspective. I tried to be very thorough in my evaluations and wrote lots of comments. I gave most of them a rating great (A) or very good (B). There was just one that I rated a C. She was kind of rushed, sighed frequently (and heavily), fidgeted with her clipboard a lot, and used mostly medical jargon with very little explanation of what it all meant. She was also a bit rough with the measurement part. I wrote a lot of comments on her form :)
Overall though, it was actually kind of fun. I work in the medical field and I'm around med students and residents and fellows all the time. It takes both knowledge and people skills to make a good doctor, and I enjoyed the opportunity to help educate these future doctors a bit. Oh, and the food was really good! Not gonna lie, when they said there was a free lunch involved, I was all about it. Ha! They have another test coming up, so depending on when it falls with respect to how far along I am, I may do it again in December.
Saturday we had our breastfeeding class at the hospital in the afternoon. It was very informative and the instructor was quite entertaining and put a funny spin on everything. Even Paul said he actually enjoyed the class! I think he was just glad to see there were lots of other dads there too :) I'm going to take one more class in February, after the baby is born (they say you can bring the baby with you to it). That one will be focused more on pumping and the logistics of going back to work. This class was more of an overview and a "how-to" of breastfeeding. I definitely feel like we learned some good stuff and I'm feeling more prepared to give it my best shot!
Speaking of breastfeeding (this might be TMI so sorry if it is!)... The instructor mentioned that somewhere around 22 weeks is when most women start to produce colostrum. She said if we went into the bathroom and gave ourselves a little squeeze, most of us would see a few droplets of it on the nipple. She wasn't necessarily encouraging us to try that, and in fact, too much, ahem... nipple stimulation, can release oxytocin which can in turn cause contractions. She meant it more as an interesting fact I think. Anyway, yesterday I was sorting laundry and happened to look at the inside of one of my black bras and saw a whitish spot on the inside of each cup about where the nipple would be. I wondered if I was leaking already? So I gave myself a little squeeze... AND SOMETHING CAME OUT! Ahhhh! So weird! And then I had another "THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING!!!!!" moment.
Sorry for the TMI and overuse of "breast" and "nipple" (can you tell I used to work in a breast cancer clinic?). But after months/years of frustration that my body wasn't doing what it was supposedly programmed by nature to do, I'm kind of ridiculously excited that at least for now, it seems to be on track for doing things correctly when Flash gets here. How crazy is that!??!?
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