Fired my Dr. :) - Update

Well, I had another bad appointment with my OB and walked away from it knowing that I couldn't deliver my twins with him or at the local hospital. I started interviewing nurses and Dr's at different practices and hospitals. One of them is the military hospital which I know is better than the civilian one I was considering, but I am unsure about the individual military Dr's because of the way they do rotations. There are some good Doc's and some not so great Doc's and no way to mediate that.

BUT....I did interview one Dr that I really, really liked at a different civilian hospital in another town. I am going down to do a second interview next week with another member of the practice to get a clearer picture of the whole package. The hospital they work at has an excellent reputation and is very supportive of low intervention births. Here is the catch...it is over an hour away. My labors are fast. Very fast. So the idea of delivering in the car with twins isn't too appealing. So we are considering extended stay hotels and other options if I do decide to go with them. The distance is not ideal, but for some reason I am not really too worried. I feel like it is an important consideration, but not the bottom line.

I have such an incredible sense of peace since I clearly decided to walk away from my OB. I've been with him for over 5 years and that hospital is closest, but despite these factors my heart just knows it isn't right for me. I don't know where I am going to deliver but I know God is guiding me towards something better. Trusting my instincts no matter what has never let me down before and so I am just happy to not be justifying or settling for something that doesn't feel right even if it seems practical at first glance.

Anyway, I'll let y'all know what/when I find my right Dr and 'birth nest'.

 

Good for you for being proactive. I'm glad you feel at peace. Extended stay hotels sound like they could be a really good option...

 

I am glad you've found another practice that you feel good about.

 

I'm glad you trusted your gut about your previous provider. I didn't & had a very frustrating prenatal period (the birth itself was amazing but probably because my OB wasn't on call when I went into labor). It's pretty sucky when you're hoping your OB *isn't* on call when it's time. ardon:

 

I fired my OB at 8 weeks appointment because he basically told me, I will need a c section with twins, which I refused and then he told me it's nothing a routine surgery they do all the time and that it's the hospital policy, so I said, what you telling me is that a manager with a calculator is deciding how I'm going to have my babies, instead of a doctor with a degree and in my best interest?! I walked away and found a better doctor with natural approach that considered all the risks and said I have a good chance to deliver naturally and he will give me that chance if everything is ok and at least baby A is head down. I never looked back and I'm happy I walked away from the old doctor. The old hospital has 39% of sections my new one has only 26%, not that good, but much much better then the old one!!!! And I have to drive 30 minutes without traffic to get there, but I rather drive then have unnecesarean!!!! Good luck

 

Good for you!!! I walked away from two OB's, one because he told me only C section, and the next for insurance reasons, (although I didn't love him anyway) and ended up with the third. He is definitely skilled but he had a really difficult, arrogant personality and was a real schmuck at delivery-it was really traumatic for me- but at least I got a vaginal birth, even though my baby A was breech. I am so so so happy for you that you found a doctor who is wiling to work with you and whom you feel comfortable with! It's definitely worth the distance factor, however you work that out, IMHO.

 

How did you manage having a vaginal delivery with baby A in a breech? I really, really want info on this even though I am only 22 weeks. Do you have your birth story on here or do you mind sharing? I know you said it was traumatic and so I sincerely respect your privacy if you don't want to talk about it. Any resources you can mention would be great. Hugs!

 

The ability to have a vaginal delivery with baby A breech really depends on the doctor. When I was pregnant with my twins, my doctor was absolutely fine delivering them vaginally if A was breech (or if B was breech - but not both). He was the head of maternal/fetal medicine at the best hospital in our state, though, so he had a lot of experience. He told me that there are relatively few doctors who will do a breech twin delivery simply because they don't learn it in medical school, so it's usually just the older docs who have been around and who have the experience.

So... you may need to shop around for a doctor who's comfortable with it.

 

this - the one doctor in the practice where I delivered was in his late 50's at the time and was perfectly comfortable doing a breech extraction for that reason...

 

Same here, he was in his early 60's for sure and was Russian and trained in Russia. He told me that 'regular vaginal birth became boring to me, so I wanted to learn something exciting and challenging'. Look for an older, foreign doctor with an a-hole personality and you are good to go .

It's true though, it really depends on the doctor. Although ladies, let's give ourselves credit I was bound and determined to have a vaginal birth no matter what, lol! Try googling 'breech deliver your town's name' and see what comes up, for starters. My OB comes up on google like that. I did write down my birth story, I will come back and post it here in a minute.

 

Definitely agree with looking for older doctors to decrease chances of ending up with a c-section. When my labor stalled out with my oldest (a singleton) and everyone was totally exhausted, the doctor said we could do forceps or c-section. Luckily, I had talked through this with her before hand and knew that she had plenty of experience with forceps (unlike some younger doctors). I said forceps within a half second and she had my baby safely out very quickly. She's also indicated that while she won't guarantee me a chance at a vaginal birth with the twins, she thinks we can give it a shot based on their positions when I go into labor.

 

OK I'm so disappointed I spent a while writing out my story in greater detail for you and I somehow went back on the page and it all disappeared Here is the short version I wrote out for me, anyways:

6weeks, Irregular contractions started at around 7 pm and started to get stronger, but I wasn't sure if I was in labor or not. Around 12 am DH and I decided a 12 am hospital run was better than a potential frantic 5 am one, by the time the bbysitter came and we left the house and got to the hospital, it was after 2 am and contractions had slowed alot.

Triage nurse checked me and I was 3-4 cm, very posterior cervix, she had to put her whole.entire.hand in me to get a measure. She went to call the doctor and I decided during then that I wanted to just go home, because I didn't think I was really in labor. By now it was 4 am. When she came back I told her and she called the doctor back and he asked to speak to me and told me he was coming in to do an epidural and pitocin and if I didn't do it his way, he wouldn't treat me and would hand me off to the on-call doctor. I couldn't do that because we knew Baby A was breech and he is the only doctor around here who is willing to try a breech vag delivery. So we had to stay, even though I REALLY wanted to go home. My nurse was really unhelpful. First of all, she wanted me to stay on my back from the very beginning and I was like lady, I haven't laid on my back for more than 1.5 seconds in the past three months. It's gonna make me faint. She said 'Oh you don't know what you're talking about, let's try you on your back for 5 minutes.' I said fine, because I wanted to show her I was right. Sure enough, it took less than two minutes for my ears to start buzzing and vision to go fuzzy. Apparently she was convinced after that so she got some towels or pillows or something and propped me kind of on my side. When the doctor came he was EXTREMELY nasty to me the entire time, calling me an irresponsible baby and other abusive things, because I wanted to go home and not do things his way. The anesthiesiologist (sp?)was also really mean to me, I was literally crying and shaking when she came in to the epi I was so scared, and she wouldn't let anyone stay in the room with me, and joined in with the Dr with the verbal abuse.

The epidural was HORRIBLE I hated how it felt, but I didn't let them put the pump in so it wore off after about an hour and a half. The doctor came in to break my water but couldn't reach it( another sign I wasn't really in labor!!) and then it broke on its own a bit after that. I was still on the pitocin and after my water broke the contractions were insane, they started going down my hip and leg, it was very very bizarre and craaazzy painful. So I asked for more epidural bc I was so desperate. 20 mins later though I was a 9 and they took off the epidural to move me to an OR to push. I asked the doc a few questions in the OR and he told me to shut up and let him do his job. I have no idea how long from when I went to the OR till pushing, or how long I pushed for. Baby A came out breech, tuchis first at 10:59 am, 4 lbs 8oz. She was grunting and rasping so they took her to NICU, I didn't even get to touch her and barely got to see her. The doctor wouldn't take his hand out of me between A and B, I kept yelling at him to take his hand out and I would tell him when I was ready to push, he wouldn't take it out till I told him I would kick him in the head. B was born at 11:11 am and was 5 lbs even. She also had a breathing problem so she went down to NICU but I got to see her and stroke her cheek.
A spent 18 days in NICU and B spent 12 days there, the NICU was also bad, working on very outdated info and we had a few nurses where I was literally scared to leave my babies in their care, they seemed so incompetent.

 

I switched OB's with my second pregnancy. With the twins, I was happy with who I had. With Josh, the first OB I went to I was told that if I had another set of twins that I would have a "repeat c-section." I mentioned that I didn't have a section the first time and the woman looked at me like I had just grown another head. She asked why not and I said there was no reason to have one. She seemed completely shocked that I had them naturally. Also the few times I went there, I never saw a doctor, only NP's. This would have been fine with me if I was there for bronchitis or insomnia or something, but when it comes to OB care and the delivery of my child, I want to see the damn doctor and find out what the doctor's opinion is, not the NP's.

I switched to a much smaller practice with a doctor & midwife that were very pro-natural birth and everything went smoothly. I was very happy with my decision to switch.

 

Good for you for following your instincts. Hope you end up with someone you are really happy with. I started looking at 16w for a new OB. Took me a long time to find the right fit; transferred to him at 31w which was crazy late in pregnancy, but my husband and I were both SO glad we did. We just loved him and the hospital we ended up at. It was definitely worth making the switch even that late in the game.