yesterday i had an appt w/ dr. b for a colposcopy due to atypical cells pap result
and to discuss whether he's decided to sign off on my homebirth or not. and to collect my u/s pics from a month ago. and beg for another look at gender.neither of my midwives show up, ever, at all, because they are both at births. i am alone.
my ILs called at hour 3 asking when i'd be done cuz they had no dinner to feed my children. i say "...i...don't know...what to tell you..." kids are ending up with mcd's drive-thru. hang up, and start to cry, feeling irresponsible and neglectful and burdensome.
hour 7, finally my turn. he has not yet decided whether to sign off. it's already been a month of waiting. i'm crying again.
atypical area SO atypical that cervical biopsy is necessary (and supposedly they try to avoid doing those on pg mamas). it causes bleeding that requires silver nitrate to halt. i'm weeping the whole time, feeling violated and scared and in pain from the biopsy. i have male dr issues.
i then sob and beg for him to at least take a peak at baby with u/s to try and confirm gender, so i might have something to smile about. yes, i played the crying lady card, and i am not ashamed.
i wait another hour. hubby is out of class by now and finally picks up our 4 tired, cranky children from grandma's, instead of rushing over to join me for the u/s (he missed the other one too).
u/s shows breech baby with legs still crossed, but she flashes us a few times and doc says 80% girl. yay.
i wait another hour for him to upload the pics from my 20wk onto my usb stick.
yes, there are 3 other patients in the office still and it's nearly midnight.
i don't want to go back there. ever. ever ever EVER. 9 frickin hours, and for what? for him to tell me i have pre-cancerous cells on my cervix (i already knew that from 9 years ago...but it hasn't shown up on a pap since then...so now it's back all of a sudden??), he's not sure yet if i'll be "allowed" my homebirth, and he's not quite sure if my baby's a girl. fuckin A. seriously. what a waste of my time and energy. and tears.
i get home and look at the pics, and they suck. not one worth sharing. the one 3D pic of her face (from a month ago) is not in the file.
connor has gotten progressively sick over the day. he has a swollen, goopy eye (that's NOT bloodshot), snotty nose, post-nasal-drip cough, but no fever (yet). not acting like himself. he woke me up around 5:30am with his sniffling and snorting and rolling all over me, and i couldn't go back to sleep due to full bladder and hunger.
still processing yesterday. i cried so much at the doc's office i felt dizzy and numb on the drive home. still feeling let down and sad and weepy and hopeless.
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yes, it's dr b. i don't think his bedside manner is bad at all, but maybe that's because i'd heard it was awful before i ever met him, so in comparison to my imagination, he's really quite gentle
it's not the pre-cancerous cells (it's "high risk" HPV, btw) that are a problem for my homebirth. i outright asked if they would pose a problem during birth (bleeding, infection, etc) and he said "oh, no, no". and there is nothing more they can do until postpartum anyway (probably cryotherapy at some point, if necessary). i had robby with atypical cells on my cervix and delivered him at a birth center no prob, but the cells disappeared on their own and have been dormant for 9 years. i thought my body had "taken care of it" as is common with HPV, but apparently not.
he said he'd only do a biopsy if necessary. i guess it was.there is a homebirth risk assessment scale, and i score high due to what i think are some ridiculous "risk factors" including history of twins (risk of prematurity? this is only one, and i've had a full term singleton since i had twins...and, um, i'd go to the hospital anyway if i were in labor prematurely - duh), history of gest. diabetes (only with the twins, which is common, and i already passed my 1 hr test with flying colors this time around), the abnormal pap (nothing we can do, doesn't pose a problem for birth <--out of his own mouth)...
but mostly, he's concerned about a medication that i take that's category D for pregnancy. i take it with informed consent, the risk of birth defects is "not significantly greater" than everyone's 3-5% risk of birth defects, regardless of anything, and the possibility of cleft lip and/or heart defects have been ruled out by u/s (unless it's a very mild heart defect). this defect risk warning, btw, is based on studies where rats received enormous amounts of the drug.
anyway, i am not too concerned with the drug. it is medically necessary and the benefits outweigh the risks in my case, so what's the point in stressing about it???oh, and then there are all of the "complications" i had in all my births. all were random, unppredictable, and not uncommon...and none of them were anything that being in a hospital made better. in fact, the most serious of my "complications" occurred outside a hospital. oooOOOoooh. robby's cord prolapsed ("hidden prolapse" -- not hanging out of the cervix) when my water broke, and we were at a birth center. his heart rate dropped to the 60's and did not recover. my midwives followed protocol for it, since i was already 9-10cm and birth was "imminent" (quoting emergency childbirth texts here -- i've done lots of research since then), they had me squat on the floor and push as hard as i could. once his head got through my cervix the pressure was lifted and his heart rate returned to normal. had i been in a hospital, they surely would have whisked me off to surgery.
the twins had their heads locked together (very rare, apparently), which prevented devin's descent (and thus dilation beyond 6-7cm), and i was about a minute away from begrudgingly consenting to a c/s (stupid!!) when i got up to pee and *bloop!* their heads dislodged and i went from 6-7--->10cm in a split second (thank you, gravity!). but, uhhhhh.... that's not going to happen this time because THERE'S ONLY ONE BABY!
connor was misdiagnosed with fetal distress. his cord was around his neck twice, so his heart rate dropped with each contraction. they diagnosed fetal distress and kept me strapped to the monitors and gave me oxygen because of it. i don't mind oxygen, but they instilled false fear in me. i have since learned that it is only a variation of normal for the heart rate to drop during contractions, as long as it comes right back up after (and guess what? his was doing just that!). fetal distress my ass.
there. those are my complications and risk factors. i won't even go into the other reasons why i refuse to have another baby in a hospital, because that would take all day. but let's just say i have a valid fear of infection, and serious modesty and privacy issues.
and afaik, there's absolutely nothing anyone can do about the horrible schedule management at dr. b's office. all i hear is "he's a specialist" and "he works alone and has no back-up" for why he has to be in a million places at once. did i mention that his poor daughter (probably 5 or 6 years old) was at the office, unattended, at least as long as i was? at first i wondered why the tv in the waiting room was always tuned in to disney (like, wow, there must be a lot of pregnant teenagers coming here??). then i figured out who that little girl was, and realized that was her babysitter. she was still there, awake eating a tv dinner, when i left close to midnight.
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