So I had occasion to make a little trip to the local E.R. recently. (It was no big deal, but I’ll explain further on the baby blog when I get the chance.) To clarify, this is the local hospital where I will NOT be delivering a baby next month, unless something goes very, very wrong. It is, in fact, the hospital I sought to avoid by driving two hours out of my way once a month or more to find sensible prenatal care at the hands of midwives who are female and nurturing and not prone to conducting frequent blood tests on pregnant women or cutting them open during labor. That hospital.
So I head up to Labor and Delivery, get checked into a smallish, run-of-the-mill labor room, chat with the lovely nurse, and get hooked up to the monitor in bed. The nurse says I will be attended to very soon by Dr. D. The same doctor everyone in town says is the doctor to go to. Not that they have a lot of choices when it comes to OB’s, but of the available options, they say he’s the dude. I am as pleased as I can be, in a hospital with a C-section rate close to fifty percent.
So Jason and I watch TV for about two hours.
I get tired of waiting, unplug myself from the monitors, and head to the bathroom.
Dr. D enters the labor room. Starts up a jovial conversation with Jason.
I return. He introduces himself, asks a question. I answer.
He interrupts me to talk to Jason.
I try to finish answering.
He makes a joke to Jason.
I feel a little awkward and shut up.
He asks another question. And then talks to Jason.
I give up.
He doesn’t mind. He excuses himself to the hallway to talk to the nurse about a patient in the next room. She is an unhappy patient. A loud, laboring, unhappy patient. She moans and screams every few minutes and insists that “She’s coming NOW!” quite vehemently. Dr. D asks the nurse about her progress. The nurse says she’s just now at a good five, but progressing. Dr. D says he’ll check back in a few hours. Poor patient in the next room.
Dr. D returns with a stethoscope and more questions. He asks about swelling in my legs.
I tell him I have none. But before I can complete a sentence, his hands are suddenly groping up and down both of my legs without so much as a word. I refrain from hitting him.
Then he manhandles my belly as if it were a foreign object somehow detached from my person. And he talks to Jason.
I decide he will not be conducting any pelvic exams.
He doesn’t try. He does, however, question bitterly why I drive two hours out of my way for prenatal care, when he and the C-section-happy hospital are right around the corner. And again, ignores me. And leaves as quickly as he came. The nurse frees me to go home.
Now, let’s compare this to the midwives who
A. Knew my name, face, and history by heart within one visit.
B. Talk to me as if I might have something to say in return.
C. Do not touch me, except to measure my belly with a tape, and only with permission.
D. Insist that I talk to them, and listen when I do.
E. Wait up until midnight for me to call them at home, to tell them I’m okay and leaving the scary hospital.
Call me crazy, but I’d say that’s worth a two-hour drive.
Amen to that. Drive on my friend 🙂
Or act crazy like me!
Have your baby at home – UNASSISTED!
Then if you ever see Dr. D again… he will have a stroke!
I could rant on and on about OB/GYNs being pretenious pompous punks as I have on my own blog, but I will just say I am glad you are going to a midwife that cares.
I don’t understand why any woman would put up with that. With my second child my options (do to the state I live in and my financial situation) where a doctor like you discribed or an unassisted homebirth with my EMT trained (but not practicing) husband. It took me two seconds to choose the latter.
I had an experience with an OB/Gyn before I was pregnant–he came HIGHLY recommended, but didn’t listen worth diddly. I then went to a FEMALE OB/Gyn and she and her nurse practitioner have been taking care of my and my babies for 15 years. It’s all in the bedside manner, and OBVIOUSLY Dr. D has none. Of course, he’s busy chatting it up with the NON-pregnant people (although I’m sure Jason is VERY interesting), so who has time for bedside manner?
I am so glad that you are with people who care about you AND your baby. And Jason too. 🙂
I hate that you had to deal with such a dork of a doctor, not listening to you, ignoring you…
I can’t really imagine – I had an awesome OB/GYN, a man, who I could describe to be more in line with how your midwives treat you. A wonderful bedside manner. I did end up having c-sections, both times, but I’m very glad, as I spent 30+ hours in labor and never got past 4cm, even after petocin (the devil of a drop) (both times…) I can’t say I regret one second of any of it.
I know some doctors/hospitals are c-section happy… and that is one thing. But I never feared c-sections or felt any sense of disappointment, I’ve never really understood why some women do. I’m just so glad my boys are here and healthy.
But bad bedside manners, man, would choose another doctor/ midwife too 🙂
I should note, in fairness, that I did have a really sweet male OB at the beginning of the twins’ pregnancy. I definitely would have stuck with him through it all. But I graduated from college and we moved back to Ojai, where I was under the care of the town’s only OB, who was a woman. She saw the twins’ pregnancy through to the end, fully supportive of my desire to have as natural a birth as I possibly could, aside from being induced for preeclampsia. She also delivered Jonah, and even though she was terribly blunt (to the point of making a few friends of mine cry in her office), I loved her to death. She was smart and funny (I thought), and she appreciated the fact that I read way too many pregnancy books so much that she almost always spoke to me in medical terminology, in the sincere belief that I understood her (which I didn’t half the time). But she moved away. So for Naiah I found the midwives in Camarillo, who were young and fun, and very different from both the OB’s I’d known. They never pushed unnecessary tests or tried to tell me how much weight I should gain (as if I could magically control it), and during labor they stayed with me at all times, made sure the epidural was working BEFORE the pitocin started (thank you, very much!), and advocated for me with the hospital nurses, to make sure breastfeeding was not undermined and that the baby stayed in my room as much as humanly possible. I liked that. So when I heard about the OB’s around here and the indecent cesarean rates, I went looking for midwives, and a different hospital. I like the fact that the midwives don’t treat pregnancy or birth like a medical event, and that they are so slow to interfere with the process. But even so, if something were to go wrong with Ella’s birth and the midwives had to call in the male OB who partners with them to perform a cesarean, I’d be more than happy to see him. I just wouldn’t trust the white-coats around here to be the ones making that decision. They make it way more often than could possibly be medically necessary.
Nope…not crazy at all, just smart. That is precisely why I’ve gone with a female midwife myself. Phew….
And I sincerely hope and pray that you are able to make it down to the birthing center for the upcoming event!