Until yesterday (week 39), all my prenatal visits have been with a nurse practioner. I did this myself. I enjoy the nurse practioner and think she is very knowlegeable. In addtion, I appreciate that she can spend extra time with me.
Very early Tuesday morning, about 12:30am, I awoke to a screaming toddler. He's still sick and still waking up screaming uncontrollably (pretty sure he is having night terrors brought on by his illness). I woke with a headache, dealt with little man, then took tylenol. The screaming toddler woke at 1:00 and 1:30, but then slept the rest of the night. I, on the other hand, couldn't fall back asleep and was dealing with a pounding headache. By 3:30, after having tried a heating pad on my neck and a cold cloth on my forehead, I sat up in bed and started crying. The hubs, God bless him, woke right away. He got the BP cuff and woke my mom to take my BP. It was elevated, so I called the hospital (they were fearful at my last visit that I might have pre-eclampsia). They wanted me to come in and be seen. 40 minutes later, we got to the hospital and I vomited in front of 4 people - joy!
I was kinda hoping they would have met me at the door with a needle full of pain reliever. Yeah, they don't do such things. An hour after we got there, I got a dose of morphine in an IV - have you ever had morphine? This is not something I want every again. I can't even imagine how junkies love the stuff.
They released me a couple of hours later, but wanted me to do a 24 hour urine sample to check for protein in my urine. Have you ever done this? No??? You pee in a little bucket, then transfer it to a gallon jug kept on ice for 24 hours. Sounds like fun, huh?
My regular appointment was scheduled for 2:45 yesterday afternoon, but the doctor agreed to squeeze me in right then. Fantastic - I guess I do like her was my first impression.
First impressions can often times be wrong. She was completely un-sympathetic to me. It was like she had no time for me at all and couldn't be bothered by me. I was so annoyed and functioning on just a few hours sleep and morphine. I think she spent about 5 minutes with me. I pratically had to beg her to do an internal exam to check my progress (which hadn't changed)! How I managed not to cry during this visit is beyond me.
My mom, who is a retired RN, has been vocal about her displeasure of me not seeing a physician. My argument about them only showing up for the delivery didn't fly with her. She did not agree with me that the nurses do all the work. Her thought is that the doctors know more than the nurses and should be seen every now and again throughout a pregnancy. She wasn't discounting the knowledge of the nurse practioner, just thought I should see a doc too.
Well, I saw the doc and she seemed less than caring about me. She was nothing in comparison to the nurse practioner I see. I stand by my decision to schedule my appointments with the nurse practioner and hope to not have the doctor I chose at the beginning of this pregnancy be on call when I deliver my baby - even though she will only come in while the baby is coming out.
So much for wordless wednesday - sorry for the complaining!
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5 comments:
I prefer the nurse practitioner to most of the doctor's at the practice I go to, too.
With each of my deliveries, the nurses did all the work and the doctor came in for all of 5 minutes to catch the baby.
But I've also been fortunate enough not to have had any major medical issues...then I'd probably want a doc.
Hope you are feeling better!
With my fist child I had to see all the doctors available within this one specific group and the NP, whom I alos liked better than most of the docs. It was a real blessing that the only doctor worth anything was on call the day that I went into labor. I feel for ya!
Honestly...I would much rather see the NP then the doctor...for all their medical schooling..the nurses usually are more up to speed...*HUGS* and *Prayers* to you and everyone in the family!
Just READING your post made me exhausted, you poor thing!
That's horrible!!!
Yeah, peeing into the bucket was horrible!! It's actually worse when the nurse then tells you that they have to throw it out for this reason or that and you find out that you did all that nastiness for NOTHING! (that's what happened with my 24 hr pee test)
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