One perfect appointment

Monday, March 27:

Today is another appointment at my doctor's office. Already.

There are new faces at the front desk. They seem OK. So I guess I can't call them the FBI.

I am kicking myself because I forgot to bring something with me to do during my wait.

Perfect.

So I round up the most interesting magazines from around the entire waiting room and sit down for the long haul. I'll take them back to the exam room with me if I have to.

From last time, I remember falling in love with a sprawling playground set from a company whose ad was in the back of a magazine called Cookie. Hysterically, I find the magazine and find the ad again: it's a company called CedarWorks. I need one of these in my backyard! It's too early because the kid isn't even here yet, but I write down the Web site address. And the address of another company I want to look up.

Then the nurse calls my name. I follow her to the "weighing room."

I gained six pounds in the last month. The nurse isn't interested one way or the other on this issue. My blood pressure is normal.

Then she leads me to the lab room, where the Marisa Tomei technician draws blood from me again, this time for an MS-AFP test (spina bifida). We'll see if all that folic acid has done any good ....

Back into an exam room, where the nurse listens for the baby's heartbeat again. Normal.

On the wall, there is a new photo of a beautiful woman holding her newborn close to her chest. She reminds me of an old friend.

I hardly get a chance to start flipping through my pilfered magazines when the nurse practitioner comes in. No hour-long wait for the doctor! Seeing the nurse practitioner is great!

"Hello, baby boo," she says, coming in with my file. She has highlighted her hair or something. She looks great.

She asks how I feel. She measures my stomach. This is something new.

"Perfect," she says.

Somehow it comes up that she has just visited one of her grandchildren upstate.

"That's a photo of my daughter there," she says.

"That's your daughter?" I ask, looking at the new photo on the wall again. "I was just saying to myself she looks so beautiful. And her baby has a lot of hair."

She tells me to write down my questions before I come in next time. (Has she been reading this blog?!)

She also sees the magazine I brought into the room and offers to get me more to take home with me. I tell her I wasn't going to take it home, but I guess this is OK. A nurse gets me a small stack of magazines while the nurse practitioner writes me a prescription for my prenatal vitamins.

Then I pay at the front desk and make my next appointment without a problem.

Too easy.

Things are checking out normal. Everyone was nice. And I spent less than an hour there this time.

I celebrate by going to Barnes & Noble for a new issue of Fit Pregnancy -- and a chocolate cupcake from the cafe.

Perfect.