Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Why I Switched to a New OB and Why I'm Happy I Did

I will begin by stating that I liked the OB I went to when I was pregnant with little one number 1.  The doctor meet all the necessary criteria: she was female and she was easy to talk to.  I first went to this doctor for a routine exam because I knew that we were going to want to become more serious about having children and I wanted to find a good female doctor when the process began (we were thinking that we would need some medical intervention, but God provided otherwise--another story for another time).

The only problem existed in that the doctor belonged to a busy clinic.  I often had to wait at least thirty minutes before I made it back to the exam room, where I had to wait another thirty minutes for the doctor to see me.  All this for a five minute exam to tell me all looked good.  I think my blood pressure was slightly elevated during all my visits because of all the waiting I had to do.

When it came time for the little one's arrival, my doctor was not the one on call so another doctor from the clinic delivered the baby.  While the other doctor was nice, I would have just as soon had the resident take over and for no doctor from the clinic come at all.  (In fact, the "official" doctor only arrived a few minutes before the little one's arrival, and she just supervised as the resident and a student delivered the baby).

For the second little one, we thought that we might have to change insurance providers, so we decided to check with our regular doctor's office to see if one of the physicians there also delivered babies (our doctor no longer delivers babies).  We made an appointment to see this new doctor and kept the appointment even after we learned we would keep our same health insurance. 

The new doctor impressed us with his openness about being a Christian and we liked him instantly.  He has a great bedside manner and did a great job of making the initial exam as painless and less humiliating as possible.  We decided to keep him as our doctor this go around and have not regretted the decision yet.

When I go in for my regular check-ups, the nurse is often waiting for me when I get out of the bathroom.  I think the longest I have had to wait in the exam room is fifteen minutes, and our entire trip is usually about 20-30 minutes in length total.  When it was time for my 1-hr glucose tolerance test, he had me take the drink home so I could drink it there and just come in after the hour had passed for the lab to take my blood sample.

I also like knowing that he will most likely be the one to deliver this little one.  Likewise, my husband is happier this time around because the doctor's office is not making us pay our portion of the bill in advance.

I am happy that certain circumstances lead us to change doctors.  I know that I would not have changed doctors otherwise, and I am sure I would be experiencing many of the same frustrations had I stayed with the same doctor.  Now that I often have our little one in tow when I go to the visits, I am glad that the process has been simplified and made easier and less stressful this time around.

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