[Rikki Jean]

...because it's my first one! Yes, at 33 1/2 weeks, I have yet to see an OB. I could HEAR the look on the receptionists face when I told her that.

Really, I had a lot of red tape to cut through with MediCAL, and when I finally got it, I was too wrapped up in the move to take care of finding a doctor.

Finding a doctor has been the other tough part. It's not as pressing, since we're hbing w/a mw, but I did want to find a good back-up doctor that I would be comfortable with. Also, I haven't had any testing done yet; no initial bloodwork, an ultrasound, or a GBS test (the only tests/screenings we do). Finding someone has been a problem. Our local hospital is not so great, which means the doctors aren't either. I could not find one person in the natural birthing community here to recommend anyone there. My mom still sees my old OB (has for years, I'll get to why I'm not in a couple of paragraphs), who we both trust and like a lot, so she asked him if he could recommend someone (he's with another hospital). He said that he didn't know anyone out here that was good enough to recommend.

:

I'm nervous about going in, because I really don't know what to expect. I feel like I'm going in to fight a battle or something. I really am trying to not have that mindset, because this doctor (actually, I'm seeing the NP; the doc couldn't see me until the end of the month...

) could be supportive, I don't know. I just need someone to give me a GBS test, send me for my preliminary (lol, I'm 33 1/2 weeks!) bloodwork, and be my back-up in case of an emergency or an unavoidable c-section (like a stubbornly transverse baby).

For months, I've been saying, "I wish I could just go to Dr. Nick!" (can you believe it? A medical doctor who lets his patients use his first name!). Honestly, if we were planning a hospital birth, we would be going with him. It has seemed silly to me to have him as an emergency back-up though, because he's about 20-25 minutes away, and there are two or three hospitals between here and there, so it's not like I'd get transferred all the way down there. He was my back-up with DS, but we were birthing at a birth center about a mile and a half from the hospital he works out of.

DH and I talked about it for a long time the other night. We came to the conclusion that, really, I could go with Dr. Nick. I've already had one totally successful out of hospital, natural birth, so my risk of transfer is microscopic. If I did have to transfer in an emergency, we probably wouldn't be calling the doctor on the way to the hospital anyway, so it may not matter who my back-up OB is, at that point. If we did have to have a scheduled C-section due to unavoidable circumstances, driving that 25 minutes wouldn't really be a big deal.

So, my plan is that if I get a really bad vibe today, I'm just going to go with Dr. Nick afterall. I feel like a dummy, because I could have been seeing him for months now, but, oh, well!

Anyway, those are my ramblings. Please think about me as I go in for my appointment this morning!

 

[GinaRae]

Hi erica! We'll be waiting for an update.

I am kinda sorta in your position right now. Different reasons (might lose my homebirth), but I was supposed to be looking for an OB consult and haven't yet. And I am freaking out over the whole thing.

Finding someone, should I bother, what will they be like, am I going to be pushed to induce or have a c/s, is getting a consult going to actually give finality to losing my homebirth, which hospital, what are the nurses like, what is the hospital like, does it have a NICU, shouldn't I speak with the other MW first, etc.

It seems like one piece of the process just opens a huge can of worms and stops me in my tracks because I am not sure which thread to latch on to first.

Anywhoo, good luck!

 

[renaissanceed]

Good luck Erica - hope that you get a decent vibe, but it's good to know you have a back up plan if need be. And hey, lots of people don't seek medical care until they are quite far along, so it's not like you're alone - don't let the nurses/doctors make you feel bad - obviously if you thought there might be concerns earlier you would have sought out care, but if things have been going smoothly, no real need to IYKWIM.

 

[Lizzie9984]

I agree, don't let anyone make you feel bad for waiting til now, like the PP said, a lot of women don't even bother with getting care until well into the game. And some of us never seek it at all

I hate the stereotype that just because we wait on/avoid prenatal care, it MUST mean we're poor, or uneducated, or junkies, etc etc etc. And for people in the medical profession to latch on to that garbage and treat people like poo....It's such a false, negative, demeaning stereotype, I can't figure out why it's not considered discriminatory.

 

[wwisdomskr]

Let us know how it goes.

 

[Rikki Jean]

The doctor's office
I should have gotten a clue right from the beginning. When I walked into the office, Into the Blue was playing in the waiting room. Call me a prude, but that is something totally inappropriate to be playing in the waiting room of a medical office. When Jessica Alba and Paul Walker's characters started goin' at it, I sure was glad DS wasn't with me!

:

So, my visit started off on a negative note, when the nurse informed me that the nurse practioner was probably going to send me to the hospital, because my blood pressure was something like 140/100. I kindly told her that it was just white coat syndrome, and that my bp has consistently been at 120/70-80 at every appointment with my mw.

When the NP came in, she was nice, so I felt a little relieved. That was until we started conversing about pregnancy, testing, breastfeeding, etc., and we really butted heads. When I told her that I was still nursing my two year old (she'd asked if I'd thought about breastfeeding and I said that I was an old pro), she said, "Oh, no!" It stopped there though...I was a little confused, because she seemed to be against it, but didn't say why.

On the paperwork, it asked if I've consumed alcohol during this pregnancy. Yes, I've had two glasses of wine. She sure didn't like that. I told her that my previous OB told me that it was perfectly fine to have the occasional glass of wine, and that I was not getting drunk or drinking hard alcohol. It was two glasses.

I had requested to have my GBS test today, but she said that she couldn't do that until 36 weeks. Fine. I still had to get in the stupid paper garment crap though, because she decided that I needed the gonnorhea/chlamidia testing. I told her that I didn't need the test, because my husband and I have never been with anyone else, and that I had taken the test the first time around; so, just in case, I know that I don't have it anyway. She said, "Well, you can't deliver without this test." I told her that delivering without the test was not an issue for my mw. I should have asked her if babies have a policy of not being born if STD testing isn't done.

Anyway, she pressured me into the test, so I did it.

After that, she wanted to do a cervical exam. I said no, I don't need you to do that. She tried to convince me, but I was really peeved about the other one (and I wouldn't have let her do it anyway), so I said, "No, I don't need you to do the exam." She was really irritated by now, and she said, "Okay, fine. I'll just write 'patient refused'". I said that that wasn't a problem for me.

So, she measured my uterus, and got very concerned about the fact that I was only measuring 30 weeks, and by my LMP, I should be 33w5d. I told her that I wasn't incredibly concerned, because my cycles are weird and the dates could just be off. Even though I'm not trusting the dates anyway, I think that she measured me wrong. She didn't go to the top of my pubic bone, and she didn't look for the top of my uterus the way my mw does. It just didn't seem right to me, kwim?

She started to get cranky about the fact that I am planning a homebirth. Somehow it led to, "Well, what are you going to do if you test positive for GBS?" (because, we all just know how high my risks are of that

). I told her that I'd fight it holistically, and take it from there if that didn't work. She said, "Really? Do you know that there's a huge risk of death?" I told her that I knew the risks, and that we would take appropriate measures, if necessary.

So, that was all done, but my bp had to be taken again. Big surprise, by now it had gone up. I asked them to take it lying down, but I had to say it three times before someone would acknowledge that I was even speaking (we were at the nurse's station area by now). She said, "It's not going to change anything." I said, "It's going to give you a true reading!" She said, "No, it's just going to take the pressure off of your blood vessels, so the reading will be different." GIVE ME A BREAK LADY!

: Anyway, she agreed to let me lie down for five minutes, and then the nurse came back to take it. It was high again.

So, she decided that she was sending me to L&D right away, because there was also protein in my urine. On to top of that, they had already taken the liberty of making me an appointment to see a genetic specialist, because the size of my uterus is of such great concern. Because, you know, my baby should work exactly the way that the medical model would like her/him to.

As soon as I stepped out of the office, I was totally hysterical. I think more than anything I was frustrated, not scared of pre-e (which is what I knew she thought I had, even though she wasn't saying it), or harm to my baby. I left a message for my mw, although I'm not sure that she could understand anything I was saying through the tears and blubbering.

I called my mom, still hysterical, asking her to come down and meet me at the hospital, because there was no way I was going in there all by myself.

When my mw called me back, I was finally calm (it had been a while). She confirmed that they'd be looking for pre-e, but that a blood test would confirm that I didn't have it. She thought the fetal monitoring was a joke (as did I), but we decided to just go with it. They were also planning to do an u/s, so we figured that was a good thing, since I still needed to get one anyway.

The hospital
So, we went to the L&D nurses desk, and they were realllly nice. I got a nice, supportive nurse, which was awesome. When my mom told her what the NP had said about me nursing, she said, "Bull ****!"

She hooked me up to the fetal monitor and the bp monitor, and called the dr. to find out what else needed to go on.

The doctor wanted me to get the bloodwork and a biological screening (sonogram), and then planned to come talk to me...three and a half hours later.

The nurse hinted that his plan was to tell me why I shouldn't have a homebirth.

:

So, I called my mw (and waited on her to call me back), to get her advice. Was it really worth it to sit there all day just to eventually listen to this genius give me a hard time for not paying him to deliver my baby? We decided that it was worth it, so I stayed.

The u/s was very disappointing. I was expecting a real u/s, where I got pictures and got to see the baby. Instead, they were checking for amniotic fluid, muscle tone, etc. I guess they wanted to make sure that my baby was alive.

I didn't even get to see the baby's face.

So, I scored an 8/10 on the u/s, which the nurse told me was considered perfect. My bloodwork was normal. My bp had gone down considerably, but not enough. Gee, I wonder why... There was still protein in my urine too.

I got a call from a mw friend whom my mw had called to tell about the situation. She kept me on the phone for 20+ minutes giving me all kinds of things to say to the doctor, mostly facts, should he try to bully me out of a homebirth. Thank God, because I needed the things she told me!

When the doctor came (the nurse just happened to catch him as he was going into surgery; if she hadn't, who knows how long I would have been waiting there!

, the first words out of his mouth, after introducing himself, were, "So, you're having a homebirth or something." Yes, or something. Gee whiz, you sure have great intrapersonal skills mister...I said that yes, we are having a homebirth. My mom, lol, chimed in with, "This is her SECOND homebirth," (she's very proud!). Then he tells me, "Well, homebirth isn't really recommended". So, thanks to my friend, I said, "Can you tell me what studies you know of that have shown that information". He just kind of stuttered, and then changed the subject...

He went on to lecture me about the importance of prenatal care (he implied that the prenatal care that I'd received wasn't real care, since it was done by a mw, and not an OB). He made some ridiculous analogy that it was like wearing a seatbelt; you're most likely not going to get into an accident, but you wear one just in case.

He told me that if I was uncomfortable with a hospital birth, I should make a list of the reasons why, and maybe the nurses could work with me on some of those things. I should have asked him if that meant I could roam the halls naked while in labor.

I guess I must have made a face though, because he said, "but, I don't think you're going to budge on that".

I finally told him, "I'm not here to debate whether or not to have a homebirth. I'm here to find out the results of my tests, and what's going on with my health." The only answer I really got to that was that he was concerned with my bp (still considerably high, but, again, for the first time this pregancy!), and that he wanted me to come back for a non-stress test on Saturday, and to see my OB on Monday (btw, I'm never going back to that office again).

Again, I tried to say something about white-coat syndrome, but he tried to say that it wasn't that, as it had been high for hours. Then he looked at the monitor and said, "Oh, it looks like it's getting high again from talking to me. I guess I better wrap it up here!" I said, "Oh, no, it's just because I'm thinking about this paper that I wanted to give you." I handed him some facts my friend had given me from the British Medical Journal and a few other sources, all about the safety of homebirth, and why it should be encouraged. The only smart thing he said the whole time was, "Oh, thank you. Can I keep this? I'll definitely read it."

So, I'm not going back for the NST. Furthermore, I'm not going to stay on the bedrest he wants me to be on for the next two days. Give me a break! All of this, btw, was on the advice of my mws, not just my own conclusions. I am going to be taking my bp at home (my mom has a machine), and I'm looking into figuring out this protein in the urine situation.

Obviously, it was a nutso day. I am soooo emotionally exhausted, and after recounting it all here, I can't wait to go to bed!

As far as the OB situation goes, I'm definitely going to try to get into my old OB instead. I have to find out if MediCAL will cover him (I thought they would, but today I found out that it might be tricky), but my mw said that if they don't, it's not the end of the world. I can go to an LM to get my GBS test if it comes down to it. I'd rather spend that $20 or $30 than go to some jerky OB anyway!

If you got through this whole thing, you are awesome, and I thank you!

 

[Curlita]

What a horrible, stressful, scary day! And I'm sure it confirmed for you all the reasons why you're having a home birth to begin with. I wonder how many of their warnings and dire predictions came from the preconceived notions they must have conjured based on the fact that you hadn't had any "real" (quote unquote) prenatal care... like it was their mission to find something WRONG to demonstrate that their way was the only way.

Hope things are smooth sailing from here out and that you don't have to see any of these people again!

 

[bloomingmomma]

Wow! I read the whole thing and can't believe what a horrible day you had to endure! The medical community in general has such a different mindset don't they? I'm so impressed by how clear and strong you stayed. Really- you were amazing. You stayed true to yourself and didn't attack them back. I'm sure I wouldn't have been able to keep that composure. I'm confident you'll find another way of getting the care that you're seeking.

I had considered establishing a relationship at the hospital in case we had to transfer but decided not to because I feared they would try to scare me and shame me for my choice to homebirth twins. Also- I probably wouldn't ultimately end up with that doctor anyway. Anyway- your story makes me glad I didn't go.

Thank goodness for wonderful midwives (and for hospitals if we need them).

 

[shelley4]

OH, hugs! it sounds like an awful day for sure. thank you for reminding me why i want to avoid hospitals and OBs.

i'm glad your midwife sounds awesome, i hope you get to have a fab homebirth with her, and you can forget about all this craziness!

 

[oskie]

How dare you try and be a square peg in this round hole world!

Silly girl, surely somebody you've just met knows your body MUCH better than you do! After all, he went to medical school. You've only given birth.

:

Good for you for standing up for your rights.

Slightly OT, didn't I read somewhere that a little protein spill at this point in pregnancy isn't serious? By now, I feel like I'm cramming for finals, so I can't remember where I read that, but maybe somebody else has heard it too and can give you some reassurance.

 

[mittendrin]

You know what girl, from what I read in your update you were holding up FABULOUSLY! The fact that they couldn't bully you into a birth you hadn't planned shows just that. It's what you expected right? You held up well and have a supportive mw. That's what matters

 

[*Lindsey*]

OMG! I'm so sorry you had such a crappy experience. WTH is wrong with people?!

s

 

[De-lovely]

BIG HUGS mama I am so sorry you had to listen to all that nonsense! I am sure you are more than capable of knowing and understadning your own health. I would move right along with checking bp at home too!

 

[isosmom]

What a day! I don't know how I wouldv'e handled all that bull.

 

[Rikki Jean]

Thanks for the encouragement girls!

Yes, you are all right; this has totally confirmed for me why we're having a homebirth!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Curlita I wonder how many of their warnings and dire predictions came from the preconceived notions they must have conjured based on the fact that you hadn't had any "real" (quote unquote) prenatal care... like it was their mission to find something WRONG to demonstrate that their way was the only way.

Yep, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this was probably part of everything going on, especially because there was still soooo much concern after the blood test proved that I did not have pre-e.

Quote:

Originally Posted by oskie Slightly OT, didn't I read somewhere that a little protein spill at this point in pregnancy isn't serious? By now, I feel like I'm cramming for finals, so I can't remember where I read that, but maybe somebody else has heard it too and can give you some reassurance.

LOL, I know what you mean about cramming for finals!

I wouldn't be surprised if that was true though. A doula/mw-in-training friend of mine was just telling me today that there is starting to be some controversy over the accuracy (or inaccuracy, rather) of routine dipsticks. Very interesting...

 

[LittleLlama]

Quote:

He told me that if I was uncomfortable with a hospital birth, I should make a list of the reasons why, and maybe the nurses could work with me on some of those things.

Does that include giving his stupid @** the boot?!

 

[Mama Bear]

that is nuts!!! what is the whole urine/protein thing anyways? I've never bothered to ask what they are looking for or what it means...

 

[Kontessa]

um........... wow.

I am sorry to hear about your BP
Happy to hear about baby ultra sound.
Freaked to hear about that Dr!
And hopeful that it will all work out.

Goodness (((((((hugs)))))))

 

[cheeseRjedi]

ugh...what a bunch of bs to have to go through. i'm sorry.

 

[Traceyky]

Oh my... what a difficult (and unfortunately common ) day!!

Sometimes when I have ladies spilling protein adding a bit more to their diet does the trick. Sometimes a nice milkshake with egg or protein powder, or some cheese, or nuts/seeds. I have also seen slightlt elevated bp's respond to eating watermellon and cucumbers, taking epsom salt baths, and resting off your feet 5 minutes of every hour. You might ask your midwife if it is something she would recommend

As far as the dr's... sigh. I understand their fear. They do see bad results from women that ARE sick, or don't take care of themselves. A true eclamptic is a horrible and memorable thing. The trouble is that they then assume EVERYONE is a timebomb, waiting to seize or sue them. I think all ob's ought to be required as part of their residencies to shadow a midwife, without Giving any advice whatsoever, for a few months!! Imaging the education of truly seeing educated, responsible women birth their healthy babies in safety!!

Traceyky Wife, mama, midwife