Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Changing Doctors Late in Your Pregancy

After my visit with my Dr. yesterday, all afternoon I was thinking how happy I was that I had switched doctors. I switched at about 31-32 weeks after finding out that my previous doctor was not as on board with our delivery wishes as he had previously told us.
We would have known this if we had been more educated about labor and delivery prior to being five months along, but as we learned more about it and started asking questions about how he practiced, we learned that he was probably not the right doctor for us.
He also really scared me about the size of my baby at five months - telling me that it was too big.
Anyway, I was hesitant to switch doctors at that point because I was worried that no other doctor would be available to deliver me, that another doctor would just confirm what my current doctor said and make me feel even worse, or that it would just be a giant hassle.
Thankfully, I had friends and family that encouraged me to at least look into it. My husband suggested we go to our original doctor with our concerns, but I felt that I already knew that I didn't agree with him and had lost trust in him and this had permanently damaged my relationship with him. Even if the original doctor agreed to compromise on some of his stands for us, I would be left worrying that he would try to bully us into something that we did not want in the delivery room, which was the experience that several of my friends had with their doctors. Who wants to be arguing with a doctor while in labor? No thank you!
I learned that my own mother had switched doctors a week before my older brother's birth because he had told her at the last minute that my father would not be allowed in the delivery room after all. After I heard that, I knew that I could handle the switch, so I put out a call for suggestions and called the doctor that came the most highly recommended and who accepted our insurance.
The receptionist told me he was available to deliver me, I made an appointment, went to meet him and found him to be incredibly nice and way more in line with what we wanted. We are not crazy progressive people in terms of my labor and delivery, by the way, all I wanted was to not be induced unless there was some concern for the baby's health or mine.
Anyway, each visit to the new doctor I am reminded how glad I am that I made the change. To anyone who is thinking about it, I'd totally suggest to make an appointment or two with another doctor just to see how you feel after wards. You may realize your current doctor is just fine, or you may realize you'll be much happier somewhere else.

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