Love/Hate

I officially have a love/hate relationship with our healthcare system and my OB.

I love that we can now access our patient information via an online health portal. I can see the doctor's notes from recent visits, I can view my vital information that was collected, I can review upcoming appointments, and I can even send messages to my healthcare team (and get pretty prompt responses!). And I'm pretty sure I said this during my pregnancy with William, but I love that my OB is super laid back and doesn't get his (or my!) panties in a bunch over little things. For example, even though he did all the routine cervical checks during the end of my first pregnancy, he never made a point to tell me if (or how much) I was dilated, because he knows from his 30+ years of experience that very rarely is that information indicative on when or how soon labor will begin. My appointments are typically less than ten minutes--get in, get weighed, pee in a cup, check blood pressure, check baby's heart rate, measure the belly, get out. (And yes--I am fully aware that I've been lucky to have two pretty textbook pregnancies which have allowed for quick routine visits.)

However. I am learning that this combination of laid-back OB and online patient information creates a little problem that I hate. Because you see--all of the stuff that my doctor doesn't bring up in our appointments still gets recorded in my chart. So even though he may not tell me the unremarkable and/or unimportant information, he'll still record it, which means it will show up online for my viewing pleasure. Which is how I will discover that at my 33 week appointment baby was presenting in a breech position. Ummm.... What?!? That's a little too close to my due date for me to be comfortable with baby being in a breech position. As Darrell has assured me, though, if my OB were concerned about it and thought that it would present an issue for labor and delivery, he would have said something. Because he didn't, it means that he has confidence that the problem has plenty of time to work itself out and there is no reason to get worked up about it at this point. But still. Breech?!? Not a fan. Good thing I have my next appointment later this week. You'd better believe that if my doctor doesn't say anything about the baby's position during the appointment that I'm going to be (very) impatiently waiting for him to upload his record of my visit so I can see what he put in his notes--good bad or otherwise. You'd better also believe that if I start to freak out about this just a little bit more that Darrell will probably try to lock me out of my online patient portal for the remainder of this pregnancy. Because I'm sure the amount of speculation and concern will only increase as my doctor begins his cervical checks.


For the record, I have nothing but respect for my OB and I trust his judgment 100%. If he chooses not to tell me that my blood pressure is slightly low (which it has been throughout both pregnancies), that baby is presenting breech, that I'm already dilated, etc, I can (rationally) trust that they are not concerns at the given time. I also feel perfectly comfortable around my OB and would have no issue asking him for the information directly, even though I (rationally) know that if it were medically relevant he would tell me up front--and the fact that he isn't telling me means that it isn't an issue. However, I am pregnant, I am hormonal, and I am prone to bouts of irrationality. So I am going to be just a little bit freaked out that baby was breech ten days ago--and that if that trend continues it may mean that we'd be meeting baby a little sooner than we'd anticipated. Gulp.