The Right Perspective

Thursday, April 23, 2009

When Life Hands You Lemons....

When life hands you lemons....sometimes, that's just all they are. Plain old sour lemons.

I've had that kind of day today.

First, the good news. I'm 29 weeks, 1 day pregnant with what appears to be a healthy growing baby boy (who should be around 2.5-3 lbs by now, and about 15 inches or so). My weight has changed by about a half a pound since 2 weeks ago when I was last weighed. Still, I am below the weight at which I began this pregnancy....which means that the baby is gaining weight and I am losing it. Now that is indeed good news! I passed my gestational diabetes test and something else I don't quite recall and my blood pressure is fantastic. I have an ultrasound scheduled for next Thursday afternoon just as a follow up to the one back in March (the tech couldn't see everything she normally checks, so she said we could do a follow up...and who honestly doesn't want just one more peek?).

Now the bad news. I am 29 weeks, 1 day pregnant. I am now on the every two week OB visit schedule. I have 11 weeks left to go....and my OB told me that she is moving to California, with her last day being June 30th. I am officially due on July 8th. I was almost 2 weeks late with Emily, and so the chances of going early this time don't look good.

I really like my OB. She is part of a family practice and I've seen her for every appt. except one for both pregnancies. No switching doctors every week, no wondering who will be there to deliver. Even though she went on a week-long vacation right before Emily was born, she still made it back in time to deliver Em. So naturally, I went back to her. And now she's moving back home to be closer to family. I can't fault her for that, but still, the timing is LOUSY.

I didn't panic...immediately....since I knew that there was another OB in that office. In fact, I discovered that there are now two other OB's. One I've seen once (with Emily) and the other who I met for something non-pregnancy related. This would be fine except....that one will be away for a good portion of early/mid July and the other will be away in Detroit around the 4th of July (read: neither will likely be available when I am due).

So now, I need to not only switch OB's, but most likely (and preferably, given the circumstances) switch entire practices. This wouldn't be a huge deal except that, did I mention...I'm 29 weeks, 1 day pregnant, in the third trimester, with 11 weeks left to go? Add to this that neither of the other major OB practices allows you to choose one OB to see and deliver with, and what you are looking at is pure, unadulterated lemon juice, no sugar added.

So, I went to the first choice of the other OB practices just to see what would be involved in switching and allow me to just say, for the record, that I hate the whole deal. Long story short, they need my records before they will accept me or set up an appt. My current practice tells me (over the phone about an hour ago) that they only send out records on Thursday mornings (I was just there this morning) and that I will have to sign for them in person and have missed the cutoff for this week.

[Pausing to yell here] "Doesn't anyone understand that I don't have months to wait here? Time is of the essense and none of this is my choice or my fault!!!!"

I call the new practice back, explain why my records will be delayed and the new practice lady says to have them call her and talk. So I call the current office....the med. records lady (who is never, ever in when I have called) is of course, out of the office until tomorrow. I left a detailed message telling her to both call me and call Debbie at the new office ASAP....but the new office is only open until noon tomorrow...so that's probably not going to happen.

CALGON.....TAKE ME AWAY!!!!!!!!!!

3 comments:

SkyePuppy said...

Some practices seem to believe that the whole point of their being in business is so you can serve as their patient. It's all about them.

Take care of yourself!

Tsofah said...

Christina:

Bummer about the office paperwork stuff. Is there another practice you can go to that will not require the paperwork first?

Just some encouragement here...

I LOVE my OB/GYN. I like him even better than some of the female OB/GYN's I had prior to him. He is knowledgeable, compassionate, and witty. Great package.

Now, my pregnancy was high risk from the beginning, and it was my first. So, it was quite atypical in some regards.

What happened, though, was my child was in distress which we discovered during an ultrasound at a different office. My wonderful OB was....OUT OF THE COUNTRY???ARRGGGHHHHH!

His office was able to get ahold of him anyway. What happened was this: a doctor who specializes in high risk pregnancies and was head of OB at a totally DIFFERENT hospital was waiting for me to arrive there so he could do a stress test. He just happened to be on call. (I think G-d had something to do with that! :-D )

What happened was I had to have a c-section for a premie due to other issues. (I DID mention my situation was not the usual, right?)

While I still love my doc - I'm now glad he was not here when my son was born. You see this other doctor saved my son's life. He had the right facilities at this hospital with a NICU right there. (The hospital I was going to use did not have a NICU. This was over 20 years ago..)

I'm sharing this with you because, if things worked out despite all the negative obstacles we faced with a high risk pregnancy and all, I'm sure you will do well too!

It's amazing how dedicated and well-trained so many OB-GYN's are. You might want to phone the hospital you've chosen and ask about the OB's on staff - that may make you feel better.

They may also know how to get the paperwork situation handled.

About the med records area of the office? Tell them you are coming in to sign for and take copies of your records with you to the new doctor. Then do just that. They cannot deny you the records to take with you. And it won't matter if the med records person is there or not.

Hang in there, and keep us updated!

SkyePuppy said...

As an add-on to Tsofah's advice on getting your records, don't get too upset when they have you sign a release form to release your records to yourself. It's a HIPAA requirement to get a release form signed whenever you release your records to anybody, and you are included in "anybody." Government regulations, go figure...