Doctor Approved!

We headed to our family doctor this morning to talk with her about inducing lactation for me.  It was pretty much the average experience, you go, you check in, you convince the receptionist to change your last name in their system from your maiden name to your married name (which has been legally changed since April 2010 and they have yet to change it in their computer...), you wait, you get measured and weighed and have your pulse and blood pressure checked, you get put into a room for more waiting... you know the drill.  T came with me, as this appointment was one of interest.

The doctor walks in and sits down with her laptop and her iPhone.  "So.  What's going on?"
"Well, my partner T over there is 12 weeks pregnant, and we're wanting to discuss with you our interest in inducing lactation in me so we can both breastfeed." I replied.   In hindsight, I don't think she was prepared to think this much in her first appointment of the day.
She got a slightly glazed look over her face.  "Uhhhm, ooookay."  She turned to her laptop and began typing furiously.
We waited a few minutes as she tapped on the keyboard and hemmed and hawed.

After another minute, she says, "Well, I just Googled it."
I handed her a sheaf of papers and said, "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know you were going to do that.  Here is the protocol I'm interested in."
She took the papers from me.  "Oh, great!" and proceeded to look them over interestedly.
She glanced through all the pages, punctuating the silence with the occasional "huh." or "ahh."
"Well," she said, "I'm more than happy to help you do this if you want."

She proceeded to talk with us about the risks of the high-dose birth control and of the domperidone.
"Also, you aren't going to be able to get the dom here in the States, I don't think.  Let me check."  She pulled out her iPhone and scrolled through a few pages.  "Yeah, dom isn't even listed as available."  (Yep, there's an app for that.)  "You can get it from Canada, though." she glanced at her computer screen.  "Have you researched the costs?"
"Uh, not really."
Come to find out, it's actually not that bad.  Looking at about $75 for 500 tablets, which at the peak of my domperidone use will get me through about two months.  That's totally doable!

I really enjoyed being able to sit in there and feel at ease with her, because typically it can be a little tense dealing with medical professionals with issues that are specifically related to being gay.  But our doc is very "queer friendly" and we are pretty confident that she's gay.  And she has kids, so it's all the better.  It's just a bonus that she is funny and easy to be around.  I appreciate a doctor who is willing to follow me off on a tangent that I researched and am interested in pursuing.  She even scanned in the induction protocols that I brought, saying it is good to have them "just in case".

At one point, we'd been discussing the birth control, and she lowered her glasses and looked at me intently.
"Now, I need to let you know that you aren't going to be protected from pregnancy until you've been taking the birth control for one month."
I couldn't help but burst out laughing.  We all had a good chuckle over it.

The receptionist brought in a prescription for the birth control, but the doctor noticed she'd hyphenated my maiden name with McGill instead of just changing it outright.  The doc gave it back to her to fix.  She brought it back in, last name fixed, but first name spelled wrong and it had our old address.  She took it again to fix it. Woo boy, that took a lot of fixing.  Dr. L ended up writing the scripts by hand, after spending a few minutes digging through drawers to find script pads - which she said she hadn't used in approximately forever.

Anyway.  The moral of the story here, boys and girls, is that things are official.  I've ordered domperidone and  will fill the birth control and once I possess both medications, I'll begin taking them.  The plan is to take the birth control and the dom from now until six weeks before T's due date, at which point I'll stop the birth control and begin pumping.  Doesn't the whole thing sound positively enjoyable?   Speaking of pumping, it's recommended that we look for a hospital-grade breast pump.  Anyone out there have a recommendation of a strong, portable double breast pump?  Let me know!

But you know what?  If I'm able to make any milk at all, I'm going to be so ecstatic.  I'm perhaps naively hopeful at this point.

P.S. T was 3 months pregnant, as of yesterday!  We need to take 3 month pictures, but aren't going to be able to for a couple days.  Keep your eyes open!  And thanks again, to everyone.  Your support speaks volumes to us and it will never go unappreciated.