Throughout the journey, our experience with OB’s has been both good and bad. The fact our first experience was so bad is probably why we are so opinionated about this subject today. But, at the same time it is very hard to vilify our first OB, I am sure she is very nice… and probably an excellent physician… but we wouldn’t really know since we barely ever got any time with her… and when she was around we were convinced she had some sort of social disorder which didn’t allow her to volunteer information or exhibit signs of tenderness.
The lack of these two traits became a very big deal with us.
When we first found out we were pregnant with Grayson, Serena was still working in Nashville. We ultimate had plans for her to move to Atlanta and have the baby, but for the time being she was going to stay in Nashville. She had only been in Nashville for a couple months and being new to the town she trusted her primary care physician and made an appointment with the referred OB. We’ll call her, Dr. Sourpuss.
At the time we were rocking the long-distance relationship and I rearranged my schedule and drove up from Atlanta for the appointment… which proved to be incredible disappointing.
After being relegated to the waiting room for two hours we were finally called to an examination room where we waited another thirty minutes. When the doctor arrived she quickly introduced herself, confirmed the due date, listened to Grayson heartbeat, wrote a prescription for prenatal vitamins, took a breath, and asked, “do you have any questions?” The whole scene went down so quickly, Serena was stunned to silence when the doctors question escaped her lips. After the fact Serena was like, “Do I have any questions? Of course I have questions, but where the hell do I even begin.” But in the situation, I don’t remember Serena having a question. But, what I do remember is the doctor asking about Serena’s thoughts about preferred method of delivery… when the doctor started going through the options, she led with “scheduled c-section.” That I remember.
Being our first visit to the office we believed the excuses the nurses were giving us… after all is you’re a baby doctor, people are very forgiving when you say the doctor is late because she is delivering a baby. And if she really was at a birth and tired, as we justified, we forgave her cold gruffness. But, in reality, we didn’t catch her on a bad day. Serena was consistently scheduled for appoints that wouldn’t actually start for hours… and Dr. Sourpuss was never any help when it came to Serena’s questions and concerns.
Serena quickly realized if she really wanted to know what was going on with her body, she was going to have to do the research herself, and rather than following blindly, we began to question.
What we found out was the following:
There seem to be two very different opposing views regarding childbirth.
1. Childbirth is something that is perfectly natural and women have been doing it successfully for years without assistance… so let’s keep medical intervention to a minimum.
2. Childbirth is an illness that should be dealt with through surgical means.
Now, Serena and I of course lean towards option one, but we also recognize the advances and benefits surgical methods have given to childbirth… especially when it comes to lowering the mortality rates of both mother and baby. We understand that birth can get complicated. But, we also feel that society has become too reliant on these surgical means. We choose to have our babies at birth centers associated with hospitals just in case. And thankfully, we haven’t needed to tap into those services. But, just because we are at a hospital doesn’t mean we need to have their surgical services shoved down our throat either.
Anyway, in the end Serena made the decision that she wanted to have a natural childbirth with Grayson and in order to do that, we also recognized Dr. Sourpuss would not be able to give us the kind of support in this decision as we needed. So… it became time to move on… earlier than anticipated.
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