Friday, October 19, 2007

My horrible Dr. appointment

Ok, so first of all, everything with the baby is fine and I'm fine and everyone is fine


Now, the reason that the appointment was horrible:


It started before the appointment. To make sure I'd be at my 3:20 appt on time, I was going to leave a half hour early at 2:30. Well I got a call at 2:10 that lasted for an HOUR. Normally my calls are 10 min long or so, but it is tech support so they have been known to last longer. Well by the end of the call, I was starting to worry and I called over to tech 2 since I couldn't figure out what was wrong, and I told the guy who answered, "Hey, I have a dr. appt in 20 min and if I leave right now I'll only be a little late... and I have not been able to figure this out and have been on the call for an hour. Do you think I can just delegate it to your queue and if you can't figure it out then you can leave it as an open ticket?" (this was after he had spent probably 10 min looking at it without saying anything... AND I had already talked to 1 other tech 2 who didn't see anything basic that was wrong) So this guy says, "I just don't know if that's a valid reason". And so I was like... "ok..." and sat there some more while he looked at it. I ended up escalating it to them, and it got fixed about an hour after I left.


Well that guy (who never pays attention to what I'm saying anyway, jerk...) made me cry... b/c I knew I was going to be late after that. I was about 5-10 min late to my appt and then waited in the waiting room for about 20 min. Then they had me go give my urine sample and weight and blood pressure. Everything was fine except it turned out I had a slight UTI (which I didn't even realize, so it can't have been too bad). I then went and waited for the Dr. in the exam room.


Well, he comes in and says, "So you had a bladder infection recently" and I said, "I did?" and I said that I usually drink 2 liters of water a day and no sweet stuff (because it usually makes me feel all bladder-infection-ey.) He looked me up and down and said, "for you... " and looks me up and down again and says, "yeah, for YOU, you need to be drinking 5 liters of water a day". So i was like, "ok, I will" (and I have for the past 2 days) :)


then he wipes the ky on the little heart monitor thing and puts it on my stomach for about 10 seconds and then wipes it off. He then looks at my chart and says, "your weight gain looks good, the baby's heart beat sounds good, blood pressure is good." and closes the chart and starts to move towards the door.


Then I pulled my piece of paper out of my pocket (I only had like 4 or 5 questions, nothing bad and it was on a small sticky note) and said, I have a few questions. He stopped in his tracks and looked at my paper and said, "It's amazing how much writing you can fit on that tiny paper" and I was like... "um..." and said, "ok, the first think is that we're going to florida in a week and a half..." And he immediately looks exasperated and says, "If we had known about this sooner I definitely wouldn't have recommended it" and I told him that they've known about it since I was 10 weeks, at my first appointment, and that the Dr. then said that it would be fine up until a month of my due date. And then he said, "well THIS one will be fine since it's already planned, but we don't usually recommend traveling in the last 12 weeks of pregnancy"


So I said, "ok, well I'm also supposed to be going to Denver to visit my parents for thanksgiving" and he said, "well we don't recommend traveling within the last 8 weeks of pregnancy". And I started to cry (of course, already having a bad day) and he said, "If you're gonna cry, I'm not going to tell you you can't go".


He told me to make sure that I got a "fly letter" from the girls up front before I left in case the airline asked for it. I asked him what it would say, he said that it woudl say that they had discussed the risks of flying in pregnancy with me and that I was ok to go. So I asked him, "what are the risks of flying in pregnancy (still crying...)" and he said, "No, it's risks of TRAVEL in pregnancy. I mean, if you're going to Florida, they're not gonna stop the plane for you in Tulsa". And he left it at that...


I also asked him what the braxton-hicks contractions felt like and how often I'm supposed to have them, b/c sometimes I feel crampy and wanted to know if that was it. and he said, "well I doubt you're having them b/c the baby is still pretty high" and that was it... didn't say anything about the crampiness.. which I'm pretty sure is fine b/c one of the earlier docs told me that as long as there was no spotting, it wasn't something to worry about... but I still wanted to know what to expect...


He asked if I had any more questions, which I did, but I was embarrased and didn't want to talk to him so i said no and he left.






So... Pretty much, I got no answers, and then when I left, I found out I had a bill to pay and had to talk to the billing people about it and just came out feeling like I could NOT afford to have this baby and feeling upset that I can't go visit my family for the holidays... and just feeling upset.


I'm going to call and see if I can talk to a dr. today... to see what they really think about me flying since I got no input from the dr. the other day and he contradicted himself and what the first dr. i saw at my first appt said... (it's a group of drs that are all part of the same practice)...


and that's why I spent the rest of the night upset and then finally Frik and I went out to get something to eat and then wasted time wandering around grocery store, which made me feel better.

5 comments:

  1. Your Doctor (at least this one) sucks! it's completely possible to have BH contractions when your baby is up high. Katie was ALWAYS up high, and I had both braxton hicks and regular contractions. For me, walking up the stairs to come home caused me to have contractions, not drinking enough water, and stress. :P I'm sorry he mad you feel bad, what a jerk.

    I felt embarassed asking questions at my Dr's office, but whenever I did, my OBGYN's assistant always was very insistent that it wasn't a crazy question, and that it was important that I was at ease about my pregnancy. Like when i spotted a little, i freaked out, or when I fell and Katie wasn't as active afterwards-- they always wanted my mind to be at ease. :) I'm sorry your doctor (at least this particular one) doesn't seem to be in line with that thinking. Being pregnant is stressful, and for the first time, even more so. If I had been there I would have rung his neck for you :)

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  2. I want to go with you to your next appointment. I'll have a word with that a$$hole...

    I love you, honey.

    Mom

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  3. Ridiculous. Your doctor is an ass.

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  4. What a prick!!! I'd have a word with one of the other doctors and let them know you have no interest in EVER being treated by him, and he has no business treating a pregnant woman at all. I think I'd have done the same thing, cuz who expects a doctor to treat a first-time mom like that? What a jerk.

    I have an idea, I'll come out there for your next appointment. Between the two of us, we can take him out.

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  5. Add one more name to your list of people who would like to kick your doctor's trash for you.

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