So Far, So Good

I saw my dietician this morning, and had follow-up appointments regarding my gastric bypass surgery (2.5 years ago) and glomerulonephritis (16 years ago), and everything went great.

I knew from my lab results that I was doing ok, all around, but it was good to hear it from the experts.

All three of them were very happy with my current health, specifically my weight, nutrition and kidney function.

The dietician said that I don't need to do anything very differently, diet-wise, during pregnancy, except for adding about 300 calories per day to my diet.

The nephrologist told me that there's no reason that I should not be able to carry to term, and no reason to expect that a pregnancy would do any damage to my kidneys.

The only issue is that I might have a slightly higher risk of preeclampsia, and should be monitored by a high-risk OB.

Between the kidney history, the gastric bypass and my "advanced maternal age" I already knew that I'll be considered high-risk, so there was no news there.

He said I should do labs at least every 6 months for now, but suspects that my OB will want them more like monthly anyway. He wants a copy faxed to him, but doesn't need to see me for a while.

In fact, the lab orders he gave me said "post partum" on them, and they said "Afterward, when you're feeling up to it, come back to see us." That was kind of cool.

My blood pressure was 106/62 at the 1st appointment and 108/66 at the nephrologist (after being off all medication for probably two years). Everyone (myself included) was mightily impressed.

So, we know that, at least, my non-baby-making systems are "go" and I'll start finding out more about the actual baby-making parts on Thursday, when I have the HSG.

When we got home, we found that the photos of two of our four donor finalists had arrived (the other two don't have adult photos). They are both quite attractive, so they are definitely staying in the running.

Now we're just trying to sort out in our heads whether the fact that we have their photos should be an extra point in their favor, in that it would be nice to have that to show the kid.

It's a tough call, in that we think that these guys are probably #2 and #4 on our list, at the moment. Of course, in any given month, we don't know which of the four will actually have specimens available, so it may not matter how we've got them ranked, because we may just get what they have.

But, in the meantime, I'm sure we'll spend many more hours agonizing over the decision.