I am seriously dreading my medical 'care' during this pregnancy. For various reasons, I will be having another hospital birth this time around. While my first was miserable, the baby was born vaginally and I had no complications other than less than sympathetic hospital staff---it's important to me to have medical staff and help within reach. (I understand why people choose not to go this route, but for my family, it's right).
Anyway... we're part of an HMO--Kaiser Permanente. The hospital and the insurance company are one and the same. This is positive in the fact that they have an extremely low c-section rate--I think it's about 12%. My husband says it's about the money. That's fine by me. It makes me feel like I'll be less pressured. The problem with being part of an HMO is that you are limited in your access to medical providers--they have who they have and you don't have a choice to go outside of that. There are 3 hospitals, 2 of them have birthing centers. The one I signed on with has midwives on staff.
I plan to give birth with the assistance of a midwife, but am expected to see the OB first on the 3rd of next month. I have no interest in seeing an OB. I have no interest in having repeated arguments about my weight (about 250 lbs). I just really don't want to have to deal with all of that!
Last week I went in to get all of the in take papers done and talk to the nurse. She gave me the run down on pregnancy--all things I already knew, then told me about all of the tests they needed to run. The list includes rubella, chicken pox, EVERY SINGLE STD (I'm married!), and the glucose test--AT 4 WEEKS 4 days!
That says to me this is going to be a struggle for me. I told the nurse that I had had a complete CBC done just three weeks before and that everything was normal. I also told them that in college I donated eggs and know that I don't need genetic counseling. They ordered that, too. Ugh. 6 viles of blood later--after sitting in a lab waiting room with my three year old for an hour, I was irritated.
Sorry about my rambling--but it brings me to this, how so I center myself in a way that lets them know that I am not an idiot, that I am in control, and that I don't not plan to have my pregnancy treated as a disease to be cured. I fear standing up for myself may result in them telling me they won't care for me, but I don't think they can do that as they're my insurance provider, as well.
I am so fearful of meeting with the doctor and having him tell me that becausse of my weight I'll be considered high risk. With my daughter I had a normal pregnancy, normal labor, normal (epi'ed) delivery. I plan to have a drug free birth this time as the pain AFTER/FROM the epi was so not worth it! But, I just need to feel like I'm not going to immediately be made to have a glucose test monthly because I'm overweight. I eat better and more healthfully than most people I know. And, I really don't want to have to hear about my 'habits' every time I go in.
I'm sorry, but is it just me, or have fat women NOT been giving birth, nursing, and raising their babies since the beginning of time?