Okay ladies. I've found myself to be in a little bit of a predicament. Living in Key West, I have two OB options. I chose the one that had midwives, because I am more comfortable with females (simply because up to this point, my GYN doctor has always been female.) They told me at my first appointment that he will most likely not be delivering my baby unless there is an emergency. Only the midwives. At any rate, some friends of mine that live down here told me that they've heard of people having bad experiences with him doing their C-section, so I should be careful. I'm not anticipating needing a C-section, so I didn't really give that too much thought.
Well, a friend just had her baby on Monday. She went in at 7:30 a.m. to be induced (because she wasn't dialated at all and she was already a week past her due date), and she has this same doctor that people were warning me about. She only met him once in her whole 9 months. Anyways, he put her on as light of a pitocin drip as possible, and she labored all day and into the night. The nurses tried to get him to up her dosage to get things going, but he said no. I'm not sure if he was hoping she'd labor though the night and he'd get to sleep. Anyways, about 4:30 that next morning, it was time for the baby to come, so he was called in. She said he came in very grouchy from being woke up, was there for 10 minutes just enough for her to push the baby out, and left. Before he left, they asked him to please make sure she didn't need to be sewn or anything. He didn't look, he just said she was fine. About an hour later, the nurses had to call him back to the hospital because she did tear and needed a bunch of stitches. He was rough, and even more grumpy for having to come back. And apparently when he came back he pulled more of her placenta out even though when he left he said she was good to go. So, all in all, she said it was a very horrible experience with him and he's not a nice doctor at all.
What do you ladies think I should do? I would rather have the midwife deliver, but she wasn't "on call" for this one, the doctor was. And even if I were to switch to the other doctor down here in Key West, if I have the baby on the weekend, it's anybody's ball game. It's whoever's on call. So is it worth switching? Is that something you STM's would switch over?
Sorry this was such a lengthy post!
Re: Would you change doctors?
I agree. I would be very nervous/scared going into labor with someone that I felt that uncomfortable with delivering my baby.
If you are still unsure, why not check out the other OB office? That way you can decide if you like that office better and if it would be worth switching to avoid the specific doctor.
Born 2/4/14
Weighing 6 lbs 10 oz and 20 inches long
11/1- IUI#1,12/1- IUI#2, 1/2- IUI#3 all BFFN
IVF#1. Long Lupron.ER 3/8 10R,4M,5F. ET 3/3-one 1AB, 2 frosties 5dp5dt-BFP!! Beta 3/25-794 Beta 3/27- 1794
First u/s 4/8 saw hb. 4/22 missed mc 8w3d. d&c 4/26
FET #1- bcp start 6/9. ET 7/12. 2 perfect blasts.5dpt-BFP!!
Also, my best friend's sister lives in KW and she's always complaining about dr's (and shopping!) down there. She delivered her DD there but I'm not sure where.
Elonah [3], Bentley [1]
There wasn't much detail provided about the other practice so maybe it is worth checking into that one. I would say alot of people don't anticipate the need for a c-section, but it can certainly happen so it would be something you should at least give a bit of thought to. I had no thoughts of needing one, did all the birth prep classes, etc, but ended up having one in the end. Where I live, the dr only comes in basically to 'catch' the baby and sew things up, so they aren't terribly involved. It is the nurses who do the majority of the work.
I had a crappy experience at my practice a while back with a very insensitive dr...ultimately I ended up deciding to stay because I'm having a RSC this time, so essentially anyone could be behind that curtain and I wouldn't know it...as long as they can get the baby out and get me put back together...there isn't really much of an 'experience' with a CS! The other dr in the practice (that I like, and who did my first CS) got me through it, so at this point, that is enough for me.
I would want to meet everyone who could possibly deliver my baby at least once. I'd hate for someone I've never seen to deliver my baby.