The First Doctor

When Jon and I got married, we decided that we were going to wait for a year before trying to have children.

*Tangent*

I didn’t say “trying to start a family” on purpose. Our family started the moment we were married. Sometimes we only get to be a family of two, but we’re still a family.

*Ok, I’m back*

During that first year, I put on weight like a pack mule. Maybe someday I’ll get into the “fun” details of why, but, in a nutshell, we didn’t get to date a lot before we got married (jealous roommate/best friend – long story), so after we were married, we dated. In our first two or three years, I gained probably 80 pounds.

A couple of months after our first anniversary, I went to the doctor to have her look at my knees, to talk to her about some serious heartburn that I couldn’t get rid of, and just mention the baby thing. At this point I’d probably gained about 50 of those 80 pounds and had been suffering from heartburn for at least 6-8 months (so probably from about 20 pounds on). We’d quit preventing pregnancy about 6 months before this appointment too, but nothing had happened yet. I wasn’t worried, just wanted to mention it.

I don’t know how I found HER, but I loved her. The first thing she said to me was, “What can I help with?” The first thing I said to her was, “Where do I start?” She had me list everything that was on my mind and then give her my top three so we’d have something to go off of.

My top three:

1. Heartburn. It hurt a lot and was constant. I was having a hard time falling asleep at night.
2. My knees were killing me.
3. I’d like to have a baby.

We tackled the heartburn first. I explained what was going on and she asked me about my eating habits – what I ate, when I ate, all of that. I was completely honest with her. At the time, I was trying to eat healthier stuff, but, honestly, I had no idea what I was doing. I was just trying to eat stuff I thought was healthy.

This is why I loved her though. I told her that I’d also put on some weight after getting married. She said to me, “Well, it sounds like you’ve been eating to try and keep the stomach acid down. If we can control the stomach acid, I think the weight thing will change.”

I almost fell on the floor. That was NOT what I was expecting. I was expecting her to tell me that I was getting heartburn because I was fat and that if I lost weight it would go away.

I remember her bringing up my knees but have no idea what we talked about.

Then she said something about a baby. I was still so shocked by what she said about the heartburn that I started bawling. I was explaining baby stuff but crying about the fact that I’d found someone who understood. She thought I was crying about baby stuff and was concerned that my hormones were off so she made me have a blood test. It wasn’t until a follow-up appointment months later that I put the two together. We had a bit of a laugh about that one.

You know what? She gave me some medicine for the heartburn and the weight gain stopped. The other 30 pounds I gained later thanks to the hormones I ended up taking. Lovely things – hormones.

It’s strange how I remember that appointment like it was last month, when really it was about 10 years ago. I owe that doctor a lot though because she showed me that there are doctors out there who DO care (I’d had some rough experiences with other doctors in previous years). There are doctors that actually consider the feelings of the people they work with. She gave me the courage that I needed to get through the next doctor, until I found doctors 3, 4 and 5 (5 is my favorite so far – I don’t know if anyone will beat him). Doctor 6 was another nightmare, but doctor 7 was good and doctor 8 is wonderful so far. If it wasn’t for Doctor One, I wouldn’t have had the courage to get through 2 and 6, or to try so hard to find number 8.

Thanks Dr. One. I owe you a great deal and will love you forever.