** Memoir Monday is a weekly series that features pieces of Katie’s memoir-in- progress that covers her first pregnancy. Click here to see past entries. **
The obstetrician’s office I visited had five doctors. They suggested that you try to divvy up your appointments in order to meet them all before delivery. They were on rotation at Winnie Palmer Hospital in downtown Orlando, so depending when you went in to labor, you never knew which doctor you would get.

My first daughter at 35 weeks

I saw the first guy about six weeks into my pregnancy. Before then, I had only seen nurse practitioners. According to the digital scale, I had gained four pounds since my last visit. This displeased the doctor very much.

“Four pounds already? That’s not good Katie. Most women lose weight in the first trimester.”

He just shook his head and scribbled on my chart.

I really hoped this wasn’t the guy on rotation once I’d gained 45 pounds and my water broke. The last thing I wanted was a lecture on laying off the candy bars while I tried to birth a small human.

At 24 weeks, I had an appointment with Dr. Lopez. He was a doctor with salt-and pepper hair with a fantastic Cuban accent and a wicked sense of humor. The first time that I met him, I was having such a lovely time that I almost forgot how uncomfortable metal stirrups and medical tools can be. He had a disarming way of distracting me from the unpleasantries that often accompany pregnancy appointments and I appreciated that he cared enough to make that sort of effort.

At 35 weeks along, Dr. Lopez decided to check to ensure the baby was positioned correctly before she got too big to get in the proper exit spot in the coming weeks. He called in a nurse and made her laugh with a joke about baseball players and dictators. He told me a joke about a duck and the White House as he checked to see if he could located the position of her head. I almost peed myself — less at the hilarity of the joke and more at my increasingly small bladder functionality.