You're a what?

[Mamadrae]

That doctor was WAY out of line. Makes me grateful that I had a wonderful doctor who had been delivering babies for years and knew the ins and outs blindfolded. He was all for things going as naturally as possible but balanced that with comfort.

I remember him explaining what an epidural (spelling?) was to me and I was just like . I did NOT like the idea of a giant needle in the spine.

Then I asked just how much it would hurt cause I have a crappy tolerance for pain.
He said and I quote. "Take your cramps from your period and multiply it by around...10 at least."

I went white and the doctor thought I was gonna pass out. My husband had to explain that I had to take prescription pain meds in order to be not screaming bloody murder when I had cramps. Even then I would curl into a ball and give this pitiful moan when they were working.

Needless to say I went as long as I could stand without the needle to the back but I still took the needle.

[wagegoth]

<hijack>My first delivery I never dilated more than 1 cm. Apparently, because I was prepared and can take a lot of pain, my failure to scream resulted in my doctor (may she rot and DIAF) sending me home twice and telling me I wasn't in labor. I was having contractions lasting three minutes with one minute between by the end of day two.

The on-call doctor (it was now Saturday) walked in and said, "Pitocin."

I looked at the nurse and started crying, "I can't do this anymore."

While waiting for the on-call anesthesiologist, the doctor was checking my records, checked the fetal heart rate and said, "You need a C section now. Your baby is going into fetal distress." No problem. I signed every paper they put in front of me.

Anesthesiologist showed up and had to do the epidural by feel. This involved me sitting up, hunched forward and telling him whenever I felt a sudden pain or numbness in my legs or hips. Yeah, that was fun.

Happily, son the first was born healthy and loud, with a 9 on the APGAR.


My original OB/GYN left practice a few years later. She was in her forties (same age as me). From what little bit I've gather on internet searches, my educated assumption is that she got sued more than once and was forced to give up her license, or gave it up voluntarily as part of a settlement.</hijack>


OT: sounds like the doctor in "Knocked Up."

[daleduke17]

I think here that the key to this all was that he was a military doc.

That's what I was going to say as well. From what I've seen from friends who have been in the military; they are a pretty no nonsense*, get in, get to work and get done sort of people. The less the distractions* the better.

* - I am not calling the profession of a doula "nonsense" or a "distraction".

[orpheuswaking]

when my ex wife was pregnant we decided to do some research and came up with an "ideal" birth plan that we both agreed with.

After we took it to her OB/GYN she pretty much shot it down and poo pooed the idea that a birth plan was needed. Fortunately at the time I had excellent medical coverage and we decided that the OB/GYN's inflexibility meant we had to find someone else to deliver our Daughter. Now we both understood that our plan was a "perfect" birth scenario and that many things could and would change and we would have to adapt as the birth progressed but the OB/GYN just did not want to know.

We decided at that point that we wanted to find a midwife, Ohio (where we lived at the time) did not recognize self practicing midwifes but we found one who was part of a medical practice that was in our insurance and everything could be billed through the doctor. This OB/GYN we saw twice, at the initial consultation and at the birth. The midwife did all the prenatal visits and even delivered the baby. In the end my wife threw the birth plan out as she was in too much pain and went with the epidural...

I guess if the OP only has the choice of the one doctor to deliver her baby she is stuck, but she might want to try and find someone else to deliver (although it appears time may not allow for that)...

PS: I'm originally from the UK and there the doctors rarely do anything with the birth, most everything is done by nurse midwives.