Let me start offby saying that we have a really nice hospital about five minutes from our place, and my doctor doesn't go there :( Iam using the same doctor I used with Grace and she is in Ringgold. She only goes to Hutcheson, Parkridge East, and (possibly)Women's East.. all of these hospitals are about 30 minutes from where I live.
I am sort of worried about that distance first off.. 30 minutes is a long drive for someone in labor.
So my first question is.. do you guys think I should try to find a new doctor who goes to the hospital down the street? As far as I'm concerned that is the only perk to finding a new doctor because I love the doctor I have now! She is so sweet, I am comfortable with her, and she is wonder at being a doctor. I really don't want to change, but I also don't want to end up delivering a baby in a car..
My second question..
I delivered Grace at Parkridge East.. this is where all of my siblings and I were delivered. But the last time my mom delivered there was 4 years before I did and she had one of her good friends as her nurse.. I suppose lots of things change in 4 years..
The first nurse I had was wonderful.. she was there with me for the first six hours, and she administered my pitocin just before she left. The next nurse I had was pretty good as well. She was there with me when I got my epidural.. this is where things started to go bad.. They broke my water and after that my pain went from 0-10 in about 15 minutes. I started having back to back contractions.. I could barely even breathe in between before another one started, so at 4 and a half cms I asked for an epidural. 30 minutes later the anesthisiologist arrived to administer it. By this time my pain was unbarable! I was in the middle of a contraction when he walked in and I was crying.. Not hysterically or anything.. just crying. He looked at my nurse and said, "Are you sure her contractions are that bad?" Seriously??? I'd like to see him in labor for five minutes! If I would have been capable of speaking I believe he would have been the only person I have ever cusssed out lol. My nurse defended me and said that I was in pain and needed an epidural.
We get me in position, and Chris is in front of me supporting me. I literally could not hold my head up on my own.. that is how bad my contractions were exhausting me! Finally he got me all prepped and he said I was going to feel a stick (which I never did because I was having a contraction when he did it). Then the next thing I hear him saying is, "That blood is coming out because I hit a vain." WHAT?? I still couldn't move or say anything, but I know that Chris looked like he was furious. Despite this, he leaves the line in and says it "should" be fine, and that I should start feeling numb in about 5 minutes. 5 minutes go by and all I am feeling is stronger contractions. The nurse tells me to give it another 10 minutes and then we would call him back.
10 minutes goes by with no relief, so she call the anesthisiologist back. When he comes in he looks annoyed (I think he thought I was just a dramatic teenager or something), but gives me another shot of the epidural medicine in my line. 15 minutes later.. nothing. He comes back and gives me another shot. 15 minutes later.. still nothing except a TON of pain. So this time when he comes back in he says that he "guesses" he'll have to redo the line. They get me up, and as they are prepping me I see my nurse talking to another nurse. They are talking about how my pitocin is turned up way too high. My nurse then reaches over and lowers the number of drips per minute.. this doesn't sound like that big of a deal.. so I'll explain it this way.. On a scale of 1-10 my pain was about a 15 at this point. When they lowered the pitocin there were actually breaks between my contractions and my pain level lowered to about an 8. Keep in mind, they never once actually told me about the pitocin..
Right after this they redo my epidural, and within 5 minutes I can feel my feet tingling.. 10 minutes later I am number from the chest down! Such a relief! In all of this time I only dilated half of a cm, so I was afraid I was going to be in labor for hours, but at this point I really didn't care. I was so exhausted that I actually fell asleep for 2 hours lol. Everything was fine from here until about an hour after I had Grace..
It as time for them to move me from the birthing room to a regular room, but my nurse wanted to do a catheter first (since I couldn't feel when I had to pee, much less get up and go lol). I had 1000cc's of urine in my bladder. She looked a little concerned when she was doing it and asked when I had had my last one.. I told her they never did one. Come to find out they were supposed to have done one about 5 hours earlier and never did! I know from anatomy that 600 cc's is the most an average person can hold before they pee on themselves, and 1000 cc's is the most a bladder can hold before it bursts! And if a bladder burst the person will die.. these people almost killed me!
Nothing else really happened until it was time to leave.. and I didn't even know it until a week later. They left Grace's cord clamp on.. I had no idea that they were not supposed to do this. Grace's doctor told me when we went for her one week check up. So I decided to look back at the discharge paper and it said that they did take it off!.. Umm I'm pretty sure that if I'm holding it they didn't take it off.
As I was lookin at the discharge papers I noticed that it also said they performed a car seat test and that they wheeled me out in a wheel chair. Neither of these things happened, so why on earth does it say they did??
Needless to say, I am not pleased with the performance of this hospital. I know my doctor goes to Hutcheson for sure, but when I mentioned going there to Chris' mom she flat out said that I would not be going there. Now this is my body and I will go where I feel comfortable, but she swears they are worse. I don't want to go somewhere worse. I know that their ER is awful, but I've never heard anything bad about their birthing section.. Brittany, I know you went there. What did you think? Chris' mom says we should go back to Park Ridge..
I think that my doctor goes to Women's East as well.. if she does I think this is the one we will choose. I have heard nothing but good things about this hosptal.
Just let me know what you guys think :)
(Sorry about the long post)
as far as finding a new doctor i wouldn't if you are really comfortable with them and everything. cause finding a new doctor that you are comfortable with may take a while. and with the hospital thing i would just plan on going to one of the hospitals that your doctor goes to ya know have the quickest route planed out to which ever one you decide and everything but keeping in mind that there is a closer hospital just in case you have any problems that require immediate attention.
ReplyDeleteas for the cord clamp they usually leave it on til the cord dries up all the way(a couple days), then they remove it. but having it on longer wont hurt the baby in fact some people just leave them on til the cord falls off.
but yeah it sounds like that hospital really sucks, it actually sounds similar to my experience at my hospital. (i think i will make a post about it so you can read it if you want)but yeah talk to you doctor and find out what hospitals she goes to for sure and what you would need to do if something happened and you had to go to the hospital closest to you.
Sounds like a super bad experience. I would stick with the same dr and just choose another hospital. You can always go for tour of labor and delivery and see which is the nicest and which one best fits your birth plan. I had Kaedyn over in Camden county where Drew and I went to high school. I had Charleigh and of course Ely here and I can't stand it. I hate the way they do things here. The longer I am here with Ely the more I dislike it. They are lazy and dirty. I can not stand this place but unfortunately I don't have a choice. Ugh...I hat small town Valdosta.
ReplyDeleteO and sry i f I scarded you about hospitals. I couldn't believe how nasty this one is...a mouse really???? O and all they could say was it's cold outside. It was only looking for some place warm...for 1..that excuse might have worked if we were near fields but we are in the city...there are plenty of much easier places to get into then a 4 story hospital...2nd.....it was only the second floor and it was not a little mouse...so you are telling me that this mouse has gone un noticed....living under a chair. It was in the sick childrens department....seriously.... Ugh I still can't believe it...it makes me afraid to think about the babies in the nursery and their blankets and shirts and bottles that the hospital provides. Mice love Getting into closets where there is nice warm cloth. Ewwwww....sooo gross. That also means there is mice feces somewhere....God I cant even think about it.
I agree with them. Same doctor, different hospital. If you feel comfortable with her, she is the best choice. If something drastic happens and you are so far into labor that you think you might have him in the car, you can always go to the hospital by your house. I would choose Woman's East. Hutcheson is the SORRIEST excuse for a hospital! They were mean. The nurse told me, "Play time is over! It's time to push!" (She didn't like me because of how young I was. I know this because she wasn't mean to me until she found out my birthday.) She pushed Jessie and told him to get out of her way. She also blew two of my veins giving me an IV and said it was my fault because I was so scared of needles and I need to grow up because I am about to have a baby. Awful funny that I caused it, but when another nurse came in to try, she got it right the first time. AND when the doctor asked my blood type to give me an emergency transfusion, she said, "Um, I don't know....Oh, do you want me to look at her chart?" OH! And lastly, she pretty much FORCED me to get an epidural. I told her I didn't want anything and she told me I had no choice! The place they sent me after I had Samantha-Anne, they were really nice. I had a stuffed otter with me and I left it there. And one of the nurses who knew how important it was to me, locked it up in a cabinet and called me the next week to let me know she had it.
ReplyDeleteOh, and a little side note. Don't go there for anything. We took Samantha there when she broke her hand just because it was closer, BIG mistake! They took x-rays and said they would call us with the results, never did. So I called them and nobody would give me an answer. So I called her doctor and she said they had told her they had called me already and that it wasn't broken. But it got worse so we took her to T.C. Thompson and they took x-rays. Yep, broken.
Rant is over. ;)
I think you guys are right about keeping my doctor. I really don't want to change, so I think I will just stick with her.
ReplyDeleteSo Hutcheson is out too.. I really hope she goes to Women's East. I know she mentioned another one, but I can't remember which. Even though Women's East is farther distance wise, with all of the red lights through Fort O and East Ridge, I think it would be about the same time wise.