A different Doctor, a different experience - Dr. Albert Chen

Today, we visited our second doctor... Dr. Albert Chen.

We were immediately impressed upon arrival because this doctor does not sharing an office with 3-4 other doctors. It means that the waiting area is less crowded.

Just like Dr. Kwon, Dr. Chen does not take credit cards. For someone like me who is not used to carry a lot of cash, I need to remember to bring cash before visiting any doctor from now on!

Although our appointment was bright and early, we still have to wait for about 30 minutes before we were called in for the preliminary screening. Since we have lowered our expectation tremendous due to our previous experience with Dr. Kwon, this 30 minutes wait for Dr. Chen seemed a lot faster and easier. I think it was partially due to the fact that the waiting area was way less crowded and less noisy.

Dr. Chen's consultation was very professional. He showed that he has plenty of time for us and answered a lot of questions. He even took the time to take multiple Ultra-sound images, to make sure that we have the best image available.

Overall, we are very satisfied with Dr. Chen, and therefore, we have decided to stick with Dr. Chen for the rest of the pregnancy.

Baby's Second Picture

Here is another Ultra Sound picture taken today from a different doctor. Amy and I have decided that we don't like our previous doctor, and decided to give this one a try. It turns out that this doctor, Dr. Chen, is way better than we expected, not to mention the previous one! Therefore, we have decided to stick with this doctor for the journey.

Just like we mentioned, Dr. Chen's estimated that the Due Date is November 1st... based on his traditional calculation of looking at the stars, and placing his fingers on Amy's wrist to check her pulse. If we base it on the size of the fetus, the Ultra Sound machine is predicting that the Due Date is on October 31st... a Halloween Baby! (Please keep in mind that there is a margin of error of +/- 5 days.)

Once again, looking at the image, the 2 plus signs signify the length of the fetus. The Doctor said the + sign to the right is the head, while the + sign to the left is the butt. If you look to the left side of the film, you can see that the baby is now 9 Weeks and 1 Day old. Again, this is based on the size of the baby (the distance between the 2 + signs).

Looking for another Doctor!

The more we think about it, the more we feel upset over the treatment we received from our (former) Doctor!

Anyway, my wife called the appointment center today and illogically, they told her that Dr. Chen is now wide-open, and that she can contact the doctor's office directly to arrange for an appointment.

A Chinese Doctor? Well, we both think that it cannot be worse than Dr. Kwon. (Dr. Kwon is not a Chinese.) Therefore, we decided to give it a try! Not that we have other choices because according to the appointment center, none of the other Doctors are available either.

Our scheduled appointment is on Thursday, March 29.

We shall see!

Moment of Truth - Dr. Young Kwon

Despite the excitement of seeing my child's heartbeat, we were terribly disappointed at our experience with the doctor's visit.

1) We had to pay for parking! Well, the first hour was free. But still... we live in L.A. and we were not in downtown, or Disneyland! We shouldn't have to pay for parking! (For those who are not familiar with life in Los Angeles, unless you are visiting downtown district, you seldom have to pay for parking. And Dr. Kwon's office is just 10 minutes away from our house... hardly near anything.)

2) We had to wait more than an hour just to see the doctor! Hello? We had an appointment that was made more than a week ago!

3) The doctor's office is a partnership with 2 (or 3) other doctors. But their waiting area is not large enough to accommodate that many waiting patients... for an hour! It was crowded, and noisy!

4) Cash only!? But I have an Insurance Pay Flex account! (Even though I have already lost my card.)

5) Dr. Kwon was obviously busy! He didn't seem to want to spend too much time with us! Considering this is our first child, we have quite a few questions for him! Questions like... what am I going to do with my bottle of La Tour? Can we still go surfing? Which hotel in Las Vegas is smoke-free? and more. But as soon as Dr. Kwon was done with the Ultra Sound, he was heading towards the door and told us to come back in a month! He could have at least faked-it to show that he cares!

Overall, it was a very poor first experience with this doctor! As soon as we left the office, we agreed that we will try to find another one.

Baby's First Picture

Our first baby picture! (Click to enlarge)

If you look to the center of the picture, you will see 2 '+' connected by a dotted line. The '+' signs indicates the top and bottom of the fetus.

If you look to the lower right corner of the picture, you'll see that the fetus is 0.82cm long (see CRL), and 6 Weeks and 5 Days old. The Expected Delivery Date (EDD) is November 7, 2007. According to the doctor, the margin of error on the Age and EDD is +/- 5 days.

Our next doctor visit is in 3 weeks time.

Mom, my girl is pregnant!

It has been a little more than a week since I have found out that my wife is pregnant. I haven't told my parents until today. Although I did tell my brother yesterday, hoping that he can help me to come up with ways to surprise the family with this good news, his plan didn't work-out quite as well as planned tonight.

Fortunately, I still have a Plan B. I ordered a cake with "Congratulations, Grand-Parents to-be." engraved on top, and after dinner tonight, I presented the cake to her and she was in shocked! She was so filled with excitement, happiness, and joy that she could hardly speak.

I can tell that she is so looking forward to being a Grandma!

Breaking the news!

Today, Amy told her parents that she is pregnant. All the information that I could gather was that 'they're happy!' I guess I just have to take Amy's words for it.

Meanwhile, I have yet to tell my parents because I want to plan a surprise for them. I don't know what will it be yet. Just stay tuned.

So, which doctor again?

My wife called the appointment center today, and it turned out that the only doctor is available for an appointment (within the next 4 weeks) is Dr. Young Kown. The appointment date is Monday, March 19. Until then, we shall just wait and enjoy the moment (of waiting.)

Shortlist of Doctors

It appears that I'm out of luck in researching for a decent doctor via the Internet. My last resort is to go to my Insurance Provider's web site. What I've found is that it does provide quite a bit of basic information on the Doctors that are 'on the list'. Information such as language skills, certification, medical school attended, and more. From there, I narrowed it down to 3 doctors for my wife to choose. Basically, I didn't' want anyone too young (fear for lack of experience), or too old (too much experience might leads to unattentive-ness)

She'll contact the appointment center tomorrow to find out their availability.

Searching for a Doctor

I've been searching on the Internet, hoping to find some web-site that will provide a review, made by patients, on doctors.

What I have found is that site like this does exist out there, but there is just not enough information. It appears that these sites could never receive enough viewers to participate in their surveys. A lot of other sites even require a fee to purchase such report. Yet, I noticed that to fill out the survey, the participant doesn't get any type of rewards in return. So why are they even asking for money, for data that they gathered for free?

Anyway, I am not going to post any of these links out because I do not believe they are helpful at all. If you are interested, simply Google "Doctors Review", and you will be returned with a list of web sites.

If you come across any good sites, do please let us know.

Call the Doctor!

This morning, my wife called our primary physician's office for an appointment to confirm our in-home test result. The nurse asked her to stop-by this afternoon for another quick test. I thought they were going to run a quick blood test for confirmation. But my wife told me that it was just another urine test, and the result is, once again, 'positive.'

Before she left the doctor's office, she was immediately provided with a list of OB-GYN doctors for her to choose. Which is my first pregnancy-related assignment for tonight.

Little Piggy Calendar

Honey, I'm pregnant!

Well, my wife didn't really say it that way. Instead, she just handed me that 'thing' (see below) and said "Hey, you might want to take a look at this."

This marks a new chapter of our lives.

Why 'Little Piggy'?

According to the Chinese Zodiac calendar, this is the year of Pig (or Boar). Therefore, babies who are born this year will be born in the year of Pig.

It was one evening when I was having dinner at my in-laws house, an Uncle told us that this year is a good year to give birth to a child, because this year is not only the year of Pig, it's the year of Golden Pig!

For a moment, I was so thrilled and excited because I thought my baby is now 'extra' special now! Wo-hoo!

So, when I decided to blog about this pregnancy, I immediately grabbed the domain name of "GoldenLittlePiggy.Blogspot.com".

Little did I know, this is a just a marketing hoax! I did some research and it turns out that the next true year of Golden Pig is actually in year 2031.

(Click here for a brief explanation in English.)
(A more detail explanation in Chinese can be found here.)

Although this year is not really the year of 'golden' piggy. But it is still the year of pig, and I'm sure that this baby will be 'golden' in our eyes! Not to mention that it will also cost us lots of gold! Anyway, I can't wait to meet my golden little piggy.

This is my brain. This is my brain on drugs.

This is the test.This is the test result from my wife
This is the test result from myself, after I've seen my wife's test result.
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