Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Am I asking too much?

We have the worst luck with OB's... we were really unhappy throughout my pregnancy with my first child with both OB practices we used and looked forward to living near a big city where we could get good medical care. I may seem difficult to please but I really am not. My husband and I were discussing prior to todays visit that we were really getting frustrated. He goes to EVERY OB appt with me and yet he had only met the doctor 1 x. I am almost 28 weeks along. There is only one OB, a nurse, and a midwife in the practice. With my HMO I only have the choice of about 3 practices, and 1 of the other had a huge malpractice case against in and the other had horrible reviews... so we went with this practice. On top of NEVER seeing the OB, my glucose test has been rescheduled 3 times and now I had an appt today and another one in 2 days because it was rescheduled by the doctors office so many times. They gave me the delicious sugary drink to drink on my way in. They said to drink it at 9:30 and then they would take my blood when I got there for my appt at 10:15. So I get there and we wait in the lobby for 1/2 an hour. Finally I can't hold my bladder any longer so I go use the restroom and while Im in there they call me. I ask if I can put my stuff down but she insists we do the blood pressure and weight check first (ok fine but I have my 2 year old with me and am carrying her doll stroller with not 1 but 3 dolls, a diaper bag, a sweatshirt, and a doll blanket). We go in a room and she shuts the door. I google how long they have before the test is invalid... it says it needs to be done at one hour. At this point it is 1 1/2 hours since I drank it. I go out to the nurse and ask her and she says "Well why didn't you remind me? I dont have time to look at everyone's charts..." um... isnt that your job??? She takes my blood anyhow even though she says the test is probably invalid... blows the vein and calls someone else over to try the other arm. Finally after my blood is drawn I go back to the room... and wait another hour... and nobody comes in. At some point my 2 year old melts down, slams her head on the metal exam tables, screams for 20 minutes, and my mother takes her to find chocolate milk. Eventually the doctor comes in, by the way my husband that comes to EVERY OB appt. could not come because they rescheduled this appt. 3 times, and now the actual doctor finally comes in... So she says, "urine is clear, blood pressure good, everything is perfect!" and turns around to leave... No, "How are you?" "No are you having acid reflux so bad you feel like your stomach is a pit of lava and nobody will sit near you because they are pretty sure you are breathing fire?" Hello this appt is almost a month late, I haven't seen you in 3 months, my complications with my first daughter started at this point in my pregnancy... she turns to leave. So I say, "Wait! I havent felt the baby in over 2 days" So she does a quick U/S and says "Baby is just lazy! You're fine" and starts to leave again. At this point I have to chase her down with my list of 10 questions in hand... I came prepared but I did not come prepared to be blown off and was totally flustered. So I tell her about the breathing fire, vomiting acid all night thing... she says "suck on the Tums..." Ok I don't know anyone that sucks on Tums and NO SHIT lady I have been eating Tums like I own a majority stock in the company... I have also been drinking every version of coconut water that exists, avoiding certain foods, sleeping upright etc... Sucking on "the Tums" is not gonna cut it. She says "Fine I send in prescription." Does not tell me what it is, when to take it, where she is sending it... but its been sent (I hope). Then she attempts to leave again! I do a quick mental scan of my now disreguarded list and ask all in one breath... "CanIFly?IWasSubpeonedForaTrialInFloridaNextWeekAndDon'tKnowIfICanFly?" She looks at me and says, "What are you thinking you can't fly you are 28 weeks pregnant." The way she said it was so rude like HELLO don't you know anything? Well no I don't because I haven't seen you in months, you rush out of appointments before I can even say a word, and I don't have a medical degree.
So I just spent the afternoon looking to see what my options were for a new OB. Unfortunately my HMO still only covers the serious malpractice case, the OB with scathingly terrible reviews, and this OB. So I see about changing medical groups. This is apparently incredibly complicated when you are almost 28 weeks pregnant. It involves sending medical records to medical review boards for consideration... and this isn't even my preferred OB this is just the one with the least bad reviews... Why oh Why can't I be one of those women that can just pop a baby out in the bathtub, cut my own umbilical cord, and go bake a pie? The likelihood that this medical board is going to look at my pregnancy history and say "sure lets take this one on" is slim to none... Grrr... am I asking too much that a doctor take the time to find out if I am OK before declaring everything perfect and walking out?

Thursday, July 14, 2011

We did it! We did it! We really really did!!!

Yes I say we because it has consumed my life for the last week. The it I am talking about it potty training. No she's not completely potty trained yet... But she finally peed on the potty! This may sound minor but believe me it was a rough week. Let me start by saying I had NO motivation to potty train Bear.. none! I figure we are so busy during the summer it would be tough, the baby is coming and she may regress, insert other lame excuse here... I just had no desire. So it shocked me when Bear woke up Monday morning insisting that she wear big girl panties. Not only did she want big girl panties but she wanted Nemo, Cars, or Diego panties... Do they even make panties with these characters for girls??? Of course I went straight to facebook to inquire and started searching the internet. I discovered that Target does indeed sell a Pixar girls panty pack. See here So I sent grandma out to get them and we got started. At first I thought my child couldn't tell when she needed to go. I didn't understand this at all.. she's a smart kiddo... how does she not know? Nope found out that was not the case at all. Although she really wanted to use the potty she was scared. She is able to hold it for CRAZY amounts of time.
So she would sit on the potty, go a little, freak out, and hold it for several more hours before having an accident. This morning she again insisted on wearing panties... I sighed but through myself into it all over again. I was thinking it would be easy since her diaper had been dry from 5 pm last night through to this morning. Not my kiddo... After 18 hours... she still had not peed!!! And she had already had a cup of apple juice, a capri sun, and some chocolate milk this morning! I could tell she really needed to go so after books, stickers, bubbles all failed to distract her... I decided we were going to make Magic Pee Pee juice! She had never had Kool-aid before so I thought maybe that would be cool. I brought the blender down to her potty, she poured in the koolaid, sugar, and water... I pulled her potty over to the kitchen, set up the blender and turned it on... Guess what? It was so exciting to see the blue color float up and spin she finally peed! and peed... and peed! After I wiped my eyes (yes I cried, we celebrated with happy cheers of blue magic pee pee juice like we had just won the world cup of potty training! She immediately wanted to take a picture and send it to daddy (do you think I take too many pictures?) I had to draw the line somewhere so we settled for calling daddy. Now I need to run to the store and buy more Kool-Aid... If you see us with a Kool-aid stand set up in the neighborhood please stop and buy a cup... I promise it was made with love (and clean hands)...