Doctor Rant

[eiblyn]

So I really didn't want to have a baby in a hospital. Ever. Things just haven't worked out well with that. I've tried doing the next best thing. I have a midwife and a birth plan. She's very supportive.

Today I had an appointment but she was out on leave for the week. I had to see one of the doctors in the clinic instead. I hate him. *sighs* Ok so it isn't really hate. But I was turning in my birth plan today and he decided to go over it with me. He was very condescending the whole time. He spent the whole appointment standing over me. He basically told me that "birth plans are nice but nature has a mind of its own and at that point no one is in control, the doctor just has to fix things." I thought I might scream and throw things.

Yes, this is my first child. But it is very ok for me to have ideals of how I want birth to go. When I say I don't want an epidural, don't reassure me that "some" first time moms can handle the pain. And certainly don't make it sound like I'm a weirdo for that. When I say I don't want my child to have the Vit. K shot and I tell you why, don't try and coerce me into it by saying you'll have to "check the pediatrics department's policy" on children who turn down the shot. And don't roll your eyes when I say that I don't think anti-biotics are conducive to starting a healthy immune system, so I don't want the eye gel. What don't you understand about YOU CAN'T DO THINGS TO MY CHILD UNLESS I CONSENT!?!?! And he kept insisting that once I go into active labor, I'm going to want to stay in the bed hooked up to the monitors. Except I'm not. He kept saying that latent labor is when I'll want my birth ball and that I'm not "going to care" about getting in a hot water shower in active labor.

*sighs* I sincerely hope this doctor is not on when I go into labor. Doctors with attitudes like this are the reason that my birth animal is a bear. I'm definitely going to have to roar if these are the attitudes I'm facing!

Comments

[ladyegreen.livejournal.com]

Hang in there. I'm thinking of you and your baby. I hope it all goes well and the way you want it to.

[eiblyn.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the warm thoughts. *hugs*

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

And how many times has he been in labour? ;-/

You stick to your guns. Idiots like that exist everywhere, I'm afraid. So annoying. Like the guy with perfect vision who was trying to tell me how my contact lenses would feel. ::sigh::

[eiblyn.livejournal.com]

*laughs* No kidding! At the hospital I'm going to, over 90% of the women get epidurals...I am starting to understand why if this is the attitude they get from the doctors most of the time!

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

*wry grin* That's one of the Rites of Passage of Motherhood, y'know - being patronized about your ideals and expectations about how your child's birth should happen. They'll patronize you while you're in labor, too, then again at random intervals after the birth. It's all part of making your special day of Going Home With Baby even more joyous, when you're finally out of those exasperating peoples' well-intentioned clutches.

In all seriousness, they're right; nature has a mind of her own, and you do have to be prepared for the idea that things might not go as planned. I'd always wanted a Pagan midwife, home birth in the Circle, the whole traditional thing - I settled for a hippie-grandma-type OB/GYN and a homestyle birthing room - I ended up giving birth in the standard delivery room, because I'd been in hard labor all night, was only 2 centimeters dilated, and my baby's heartbeat was starting to go down during contractions.

If you need an epidural, believe me, you will be more grateful when you get it than you've ever been for anything in your life. This coming from me, Ms. Just-Say-No-To-Pharmaceuticals... I just said No all night, but then I had to have the epidural, because my doctor had to open up my cervix manually (it was either that or a C-section) and then I had the pitocin drip, after which labor proceeded like an avalanche.

But I didn't have to feel it; I just lay there serenely watching the numbers on the fetal monitor go up to a zillion with every contraction, and even slept a little. It was the most blessed respite, after hours and hours of frickin' Lamaze that wasn't doing the job, and didn't 'dope up' either me or my baby - once I had it, I wished I'd agreed to it three hours earlier.

They regulated my anaesthetic so that I could feel to push, and oh Goddess, the pushing is totally the best part of labor; it's THE POWER beyond anything you can imagine till you feel it. Then they gave me a little more for the placenta and clean-up, so I wasn't distracted by whatever was going on about my nether regions while meeting my gorgeous daughter for the first time.

Having all my green Elven plans for a magickal birth get steamrollered by the hospital's protocols for fetal distress didn't make her birth any less magickal. She was fine - 9 on her first APGAR, 10 on the second - and that was all that mattered. She had all the standard stuff-they-do-to-babies too, and had no trouble from it.

It wasn't the ideal birth experience I'd always dreamed of, but in the long run, any birth experience that ends with a baby in your arms is a good birth experience. It's much like having a good wedding even if it's nothing like the one you dreamed of as a maiden, and various glitches occur during it - which, in all honesty, is the kind of wedding most women have.

The same is true with birthing. Sometimes the doctor does just have to fix things, and you won't be in a rational state of mind at the time. So you need to plan while you ARE still in a rational state of mind, because your baby's life may depend on you trusting the doctor's judgement in a potential crisis.

It's going to be for your partner and birth coach to insist that the written instructions you have provided the medical team regarding what may be done to your child are followed to the letter. As long as they're clear about this, you don't have to worry; trust them to take care of it.

[eiblyn.livejournal.com]

I have this terribly fascinated mind. And so I tend to read everything I can when facing a new situation without a clue; I found and read way too many scary birth stories so I know I can't plan everything. In fact, I can't really plan anything. All I can do is put bags in the car, think ahead to my best case scenario and hope things work out ok. I know that my birth plan is an ideal (I even included a little paragraph that said that at the end). I just loathe when doctors are condescending to me.

Part of the problem is that most army doctors are used to patients who aren't quite sure the number of toes they should have when it comes to their own health; it leaves them at a loss as to what to do with me, when I do so much of my own research. Civilian doctors know that I only come in when I've decided a script is the only way to fix my problem and I can usually tell them which script I want...or at least which one I don't want.

*sighs* I have seen doctors as nothing more than people with more educated opinions for a very long time. It's hard to move past that and trust them with something this important...especially when they don't want to listen to me.

Hot showers and birthing balls

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

I have to say, the doctor is probably right: once you're in hard labor you won't want to do anything but lay there like a beached whale and be comforted and tended between the waves of pain. It sounds so humiliating, but when the time comes it won't be, it'll be perfectly natural.

Before I had my daughter, my older sister told me, "When the birth-process takes control, you could give birth on the sidewalk and you wouldn't care." I thought "yeah right", but I learned she'd spoken the truth. You lay there, you breathe, and you let them take care of you - that's the only thing you have or want to do.

LOL, then Transition hits, and you're suddenly so exasperated by the whole beached-whale thing that you decide not to have a baby after ALL, dammit, but it's too late; the kid's in the chute and pushing-time is imminent. Once pushing starts, your hair could catch fire and you wouldn't care.

The final days of your pregnancy should be spent eating strawberries and ice cream and lazing naked in the sunshine watching your child dance in your belly. *hugs* Blessed be, Lady; may the invulnerable serenity of the Great Mother be yours in this sacred time.

Re: Hot showers and birthing balls

[eiblyn.livejournal.com]

*smiles* Yeah. Maybe he just hit my gut reaction to having someone else try to tell me what I want when I've just said what I think I'll want. I can be really stubborn about that sort of thing. Especially coming from someone who has had *zero* experience being in the situation themselves. I can respect women who have been there before who say that I'm not being realistic; that's listening to the wisdom of experience. I know he's seen a lot of labors, but he's never done it himself and so it's a lot harder to take this kind of advice from him. 'Course it could be that this was after we had an argument over freakin' juice ice chips.

[supurrkitten.livejournal.com]

you are the mama bear.

[eiblyn.livejournal.com]

*laughs* I need to get an angry momma icon. That one is great.

[goldfish42.livejournal.com]

Good for you, roar away! (Me: no pain killers (no mind numbers,) nice hot bath, my OWN DAMN BATHROBE instead of the stupid hospital gown, walking around, rarely in the bed and when I was my husband was in it with me, no monitors even in the room (I told them to keep them out,) no Vit. K shot and no eye goop (and yet, somehow, a healthy kid,) no manhandling of my newborn, nursing in the tub before they cut the cord, and no frikin' bath for either of us! Tell the idiotic doctors that humanity got this far withotu them.)

[eiblyn.livejournal.com]

It is good to hear that other people are just as stubborn as me about this sort of stuff. I was the only one in my lamaze class who was seriously like, "Ummm. No. No epidural. No drugs." Everyone else seemed to be taking the class so they could say they had taken it. And ya know, maybe I will change my mind, but I'm certainly not going to go into this assuming I will have problems with the pain and planning it all that way.

*sighs* He also told me that not only is the birthing tub broken, they aren't going to bother fixing it as they are shutting down the OB section of the hospital permanently in a month. That just blows.

[einatlanta.livejournal.com]

Hi, I just wandered in from sunfell's journal...

Oh, wow, do I feel you. Not that this helps you any, but I'm having the same sorts of problems, only from the opposite extreme.

I really miss the midwives who delivered my first baby! There was this terrific hospital midwife pilot plan near me two years ago, and then it got canceled. Which is now the way I hear things go. Moms complain b/c we arent' getting the type of care we would like to have. Hospital launches midwifery program to make people happy. Midwives get politically bombed by accounting and OBs. Midwife program is canceled around the time it becomes wildly popular...

I think in 10 years what we want will be the norm, but right now we're stuck in the crappiest system EVAR. We're just ahead of the curve. argh.

[eiblyn.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Leave it to us to figure things out early eh? I read your post and I'm going to friend you ok? you seem interesting and I know sunfell has good taste *grins*.