Kaiser - Franklin & St. Joe's

MegEmm

Hi All- I am about 4 1/2 weeks along and just called Kaiser for my first prenatal appointment.  I have already been pleased with how Kaiser has treated me.  They called me within hours to schedule my first appointment.  They gave me the nurses station number (which I already called because of brown spotting) and were super helpful and supportive.  My first appointment will be with a nurse but they said the second appointment is when you see the doctor.  Any recommendation on a Franklin Kaiser doctor?  I would like to stick with female if at all possible and I want her to be open to a possibly natural birth plan.  Anybody else deliver at St. Joe's? What was your experience like (silly question, but do you get a private room...?)  This is my first pregnancy so I know NOTHING about pregnancy or giving birth .  I welcome all the advise I can get!

MrsJetSet

Hi there! Congrats we are not far apart! This is my 1st but I also work for KP so I've done research. I am close with a pediatric hospitalist who said to relax and remember if you are seeing a nurse/midlevel that things are seen as A-OK! Coworker told me Vialet has a great reputation but I do not personally know them. The doc recommended to me is at ACP. St. Joes has tons of info on their site at exempla.org. All of their mom/baby rooms are private! Yay! They offer a ton of classes. My 1st appt with KP is May 14th so I'll be curious what they recommend to take. As far as I can tell KP does not offer their own classes.

RyanandManda

MegEmm:

Hi All- I am about 4 1/2 weeks along and just called Kaiser for my first prenatal appointment.  I have already been pleased with how Kaiser has treated me.  They called me within hours to schedule my first appointment.  They gave me the nurses station number (which I already called because of brown spotting) and were super helpful and supportive.  My first appointment will be with a nurse but they said the second appointment is when you see the doctor.  Any recommendation on a Franklin Kaiser doctor?  They make you see a variety of doctors because when you deliver, you'll be taken care of by whomever is on call.  I would like to stick with female if at all possible and I want her to be open to a possibly natural birth plan.  Anybody else deliver at St. Joe's?  I delivered @ Saint Joe's.  The rooms were nice (they'll tell you on your tour that you can plug your ipod into the stereo but you can't so don't count on that for your labor playlist!).  Labor and Delivery is in one room, recovery and your hospital stay is in a separate wing.  Both rooms are nice.  L&D rooms have whirlpool tubs and they'll give you a birthing ball if you want.  Recovery/Stay rooms have a choice of beds.  Either the small hospital bed with couch for DH or a full size bed so you can sleep together!  What was your experience like (silly question, but do you get a private room...?)  This is my first pregnancy so I know NOTHING about pregnancy or giving birth .  I welcome all the advise I can get!

Our first nurse @ L&D was on board for a natural birth even though my water had broken.  She reassured me that I could say no to any and all interventions if I wanted to.  The next nurse immediately said my BP was too high and LO's heart rate was swooning and made me lay down for hours...  labor stalled...  enter Pitocin, Epidural, and 2.5 hours of pushing during which the docs and nurses tried to get me to agree to a vacuum!  Ugh...  Loved the encouragement of skin to skin with me and LO and DH and LO.  Postpartum nurses were very sweet and helped with breastfeeding too.  Ask for extra samples of Lanolin, extra pads for pp bleeding, and take the waterproof "chucks" they put under you in bed!  They're great for diaper changing pads!!

PM me if you have more specific questions.  I took some classes @ Saint Joe's too and can give you some feedback on them as well, if you want : )

Christmasbaby18

I had a great birth experience at St. Joe's (totally natural).  I love my OB too, but she's at the Arapahoe office. I ended up being lucky and she happened to be the doc on-call when I went into labor so she delivered my baby.  That was the only thing I was worried about.  who ever is on call will deliver your baby. I took the child birth and nursing classes offered by the hospital and thought both classes were good.  I also love that KP offers free nurse visits at your home after you deliver.  This was so nice, they were all very helpful with nursing issues as well as checking on LO's weight gain and jaundice.  Good luck to you!