Doogie Howser

This morning, Austin & I went to "interview" a pediatrician that was one of the ones recommended to us by my ob/gyn. You would think it would be easy for us to find a good pediatrician because my father is one. But he is in Florida and the only one he knows in Texas is in Houston, so that didn't really help out much! And I guess it maybe is really harder than easier since I know how great a doctor my dad is and I want someone equally as good for my baby. :)

After many frustrating attempts to contact pediatricians in the area with no luck or various complications, I asked my doctor last week who she would recommend, and she gave me three doctor names to try. Two of them were in the same practice and right near the hospital I am going to deliver at, so I started with them. I super-researched them on every website I could find (American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association, Texas Medical Examiners Board, google, etc.). I decided to make an appointment with Dr. Hopkins and got an appointment for this morning first thing.

Austin & I were really hoping this would work out so that we would have one more thing to cross off our list of things-to-do in the next month or so. And it was a GREAT experience. We both left there very happy with all the information we received, and we were very impressed by not only the staff and their helpfulness but especially by the doctor. He told us he is often called Doogie Howser because he started volunteering at Texas Children's Hospital when he was 14 years old! He is still quite young (around 33 years old and in practice for about 4 years), but he seemed super knowledgeable and was really personable which we both liked. He spent about twenty or thirty minutes with us which was a lot longer than I thought he would, and his office manager also spoke with us in the beginning about their office hours and after-hours care and all of that sort of thing. He was really excited because he apparently just found out today that his wife is pregnant with their second child (they have a 2.5 year old girl), and they had been trying for a second so he was all glowy - it was cute! One less thing to have to stress about, and I totally feel more comfortable about Cooper being in his care because he knows my doctor as well as he is good friends with the pediatric urologist we are going to see in February.

Other than that, I got a call from my doctor's nurse this morning to let me know that the test she did to check for pre-term labor came back negative so there is now only a 5% chance that I will go into labor before 37 weeks which is a relief because although I don't mind Cooper coming a little early, it would be good for me to get through all of February without worrying about his arrival because of all the stuff going on with the house and also being more busy at work.

They also set up my appointment with the perinatologist (sp?) for Friday morning to get the specialized ultrasound to check things out with this kidney issues. But the doctor today told us that it is a really common incident these days and that it is usually just caused by the position that the baby is inside the womb. And even if not, all should be resolved before 1 year of age so we should have nothing to worry about. As much as I am fascinated with medical technology and all that they can tell now, I have to wonder sometimes if we know too much now and unnecessarily worry ourselves as a result! But I guess it's worth it to help prevent complications from getting worse in the future and to catch things earlier so that it isn't a problem so it's a double-edged sword!

Today I got to go to a yummy lunch to celebrate my boss' birthday so that was good. Tonight we will be lazy couch potatoes since I slept horribly again last night and as a result Austin did too! But the rest of the week is slow and steady with packing up things here and there - it will make things so nice. Don't worry I'm not going to overdo it! :) Austin has been great about all of this - it's just nice to be able to help out and get rid of stuff we don't need to waste time or energy moving and to better organize things so we might actually have a chance of easily unpacking and finding things in the new house! Sorry for the long post (probably boring too) but these days it's lots of doctor appointments and house info! I'm sure it will get more interesting once Cooper is here to provide entertaining stories! LOL Have a good evening! :)