Monday, December 15, 2014

Hospitals Part 1

I live in a small town, called Carlsbad, right by the hospital.  When I first moved here three and a half years ago I had heard nothing but horror stories about this hospital. Every person my husband and I had talked to had a very bad experience with delivering here. Now, I'm not just talking about rude staff but life and death stories. Everyone keeps telling me to just make the 80 mile drive to see the doctor in Roswell. This isn't too bad for us because when I had my son 6 years ago the hospital was just over 60 miles away in Southern California with really bad traffic. My luck had me go into labor when everyone was getting off work and it took us probably 2 hours to get to the hospital.

Anyway, I think it is standard  here that when you become pregnant the doctors do not want to see you until you are 12 weeks. My first bad experience with the doctors in Carlsbad was when I was, what I thought, 8 weeks pregnant and started bleeding. I go in to my appointment and they did an ultrasound and found out I was only 6 weeks, not 8 weeks, and it was implantation bleeding. So I finally see the doctor and the first question he asked me was how big was your son when you gave birth. I let him know he was 9.8 lbs and 22 inches. Before he even examined me he said, "Oh, well you will have to have a C-section or be induced, you cannot have babies that big." How does he know what I can do? He hadn't even examined me and when I had my son he was sunny side up and I pushed him out with no issues what so ever. Mind you, my OBGYN that delivered my son also was my mom's OBGYN for all 3 of her kids and delivered me. He knows big babies run in my family and my mom and I have the same type of body and know we can handle it. I was told by multiple people the doctors in this town will give any reason or excuse to do a C-section.

So, I chose to pick a different doctor in Roswell because many people have recommended him to me. I love my doctor because he reminds me of my original OBGYN. He isn't concerned at all about me delivering a big baby. He says we will see when the time comes. The only difficulty I have is it is 80 miles away and 2 weekends ago I was having severe back pain and my heart was racing. I called the doctor on call in Roswell and she was concerned and didn't want me driving all that way if I was in early labor (31 weeks). Her advice to me was to go to labor and delivery in Carlsbad and she would have my medical records ready to send over as soon as I got there, all I had to do was just sign a release form that the hospital in Carlsbad would have to give me.

I got to the hospital and asked the nurse right away for a release form to sign and that the doctor in Roswell was waiting for me to sign the release so they could send over my records. She tells me, "That isn't necessary lets find out what is wrong with you first." She has me pee in a cup and she puts the baby monitor on me and says right away oh you are having contractions. While she is hooking me up I get 20 questions about why am I seeing a doctor in Roswell and not in Carlsbad and she lectures me since I live right behind the hospital.  She says, "I will keep you monitored for 15 min." She leaves and another nurse comes in 15 min later and tells me she is my new nurse and grabs my pee to test it and leaves. She comes back 20 min later to check on me and says. "Well it doesn't look like you are dehydrated but drink this large glass of ice water, maybe it will stop your contractions. Your pee was off a little but you probably didn't use the wipes we gave you to clean yourself good enough." Mind you, I used all three wipes and this isn't my first time peeing in a cup. I told her about my records and she also said it wasn't necessary. She checks me and I am at 1cm but said that is normal. She leaves and comes back and says, "The doctor said I can give you medicine to stop the contractions but let me check your blood pressure and heart rate." I have already been there for over an hour and my blood pressure was perfect but my heart rate was 122. She said she can't give me the medicine unless my heart rate drops because they want your heart rate to be between 60-100 beats per minute and the medicine makes your heart rate rise and they don't want it to go past 130. So they continue to monitor me and about an hour later she tells me my pains are just pregnancy related and I am contracting because my uterus is irritated because the baby is growing. I've been there for about 3 hours now and a new nurse starts to come in and check on me. By this time they shut off the monitors even though I am still contracting. They leave the finger monitor on for my heart but she keeps having to come and shut it off because the heart rate alarm keeps going off. She finally tells me, "There is nothing we can do since we do not have your medical records and you are not seeing one of our doctors. You are having normal pregnancy pains. Go home take Tylenol and use a heating pad and call YOUR doctor tomorrow morning." I told her she could have got my medical records but you guys refused to let me sign the papers. She said, "It doesn't matter there is nothing we can do for you."

To Be Continued......

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