New Doctor!

Yesterday we had our 28 week check-up and met our new doctor - Dr. Gary Hoff. He's a jolly man and you can tell he really loves his work. While we were waiting I could hear him laugh with his patients and even speak some Spanish with them. The hallways of his practice are filled with baby and delivery pictures. I was anxious to meet him. And although he was 1.5 hours late (there was an emergency with a woman who had a cyst burst - eeks), it was worth it! :)A little background: He comes from a family of people in the medical field, his mother was a nurse and his father was well known OB who delivered over 10,000 babies in his career - mostly at Sequoia Hospital (our new hospital)! Dr. Gary Hoff is one of 6 kids, 4 of which turned out to be doctors of some sort and 1 of which also is also an OB with him (J.D. Hoff) at the Redwood City Woman's Medical Center.

The reason we switched was because after doing a tour at Stanford Hospital, I realized I wanted something that was more cozy and intimate. Stanford Hospital is great - amazing doctors and state-of-the-art everything and is really the right choice for lots of people. The problem is is that everyone seems to go there and they often seem to be crowded and they don't have private rooms. The person giving us the presentation said just on that day that they had delivered 17 babies in less than 12 hours. And I could tell that she was tired and a little stressed.

I didn't want to feel rushed or crowded when delivering or recovering so I asked around and received recommendations for the Hoff brothers from friends (thanks Nerissa!) and people at Blossom Birth center. Luckily the Hoff brothers and Sequoia were covered under our insurance and Dr. Gary Hoff agreed to take me on even though I was in my 3rd trimester. Plus the facilities are super duper close to work and a lot faster to get to! :) Oh, and our new doctor prefers to deliver his own babies - so unless we deliver while he's out of town, he'll be our delivering doctor.

I spoke to him about how I didn't want to get an IV right away, didn't want to be induced, wanted to avoid c-section, wanted my epidural only after 5 or 6 centimeters of dilation and all sorts of other things and he was very amenable to it all. Good! I have warm fuzzies about the switch to our new doctor and our new hospital.

OK - so here are some stats from our appointment - in general it went well! :

• Gemma's heartbeat = 156 bpm (fast and healthy)
• My fundal height = 29 cm (length from my pubic bone to the top of my uterus). From this point on, the cm # usually matches the # of weeks I'm at so we are right on target if not a little ahead
• My blood pressure = 120/60 (normal)
• My weight gain this past month = 5.5 lbs (making up for not gaining anything last month). At this point I'm supposed to be gaining 1 lb every week so at this rate with 12 weeks left I am targeting a little less than 30lbs (26.5lbs). I'm ok with that. Scott keeps reminding me that I'm growing a human! LOL! :)
• We've now graduated to seeing the doctor once every 2 weeks!
  

That's about all I have for now. In one month the doctor will be checking to see if my low-lying placenta has moved up. I bet/hope it has! Wish us luck!