Am I Overreacting? Grrrr.

I’m quite displeased with my doctor right now. On Thursday Jon and I had our 3rd trimester nurse visit, where they go over the hospital procedures, when to call them, how to know when you’re in labor, etc., and we also had a doctor’s appointment right after the nurse visit.

The nurse visit went fine, was interesting, and we got free stuff. My only minor annoyance there was when the nurse seemed to put down our choice of the natural childbirth education classes. She said it used to be considered the “hippie” way of childbirth (which it was, no biggie to me that she called it that). But then she went on to relate, rather gleefully, that she has seen the couples who didn’t want any interventions or drugs often being the ones who want it the most later. While that may be the truth from what she’s seen, the way she said it was really mean I thought. I hate to think of a nurse being happy in the fact that a woman who had made a choice before hand to try and not have any drugs ended up needing them. I would think she should feel sorry for them that their birth may not be going according to what they had prepared for or wanted. Anyway, she irked me a little. Fortunately the free stuff made me happy, so it all evened out. :)

Our doctor’s visit really ticked me off though. First off, we saw a different doctor (we’re rotating through so that we actually recognize the faces of all 5 of the doctors in the practice who could possibly be the one to be at our birth). The thing is, though, I liked this doctor much better! Our doctor is always nice enough, but never seems that interested and never seems open to questions. For instance she’ll be sitting for most of the exam while she’s going over my chart, etc. and then when she asks us if we have any questions she stands up – kind of like signal that she would like to leave and not answer anything. And when we’ve asked questions in the past she has seemed kind of put out that we’re asking and not receptive to having a conversation on the topic.

This doctor was much nicer though and was perky and seemed really eager for questions. She went over my glucose test results and my blood levels in detail, which our other doctor has never done besides saying they are fine. But then, when we didn’t have any questions, she said, “Okay, then, since everything is doing great we’ll just get you your Rhogam shot and you’ll be on your way.” My what?!? What the heck is she talking about?!

Turns out that I have O negative blood. Any time a mother is negative there is a possibility of her baby having an incompatible (a positive) blood type, if the father isn’t also negative. If the baby does have positive blood and the mother is negative there is a chance that the mother’s body can begin producing antibodies that cross over the placenta and attack the baby’s blood cells.

Well, our doctor never told me I was negative, and I didn’t know my blood type, as strange as that sounds (they asked me that on my first visit and I told them I didn’t know, but then forgot about it!), and I didn’t know about this incompatibility thing. Since my doctor never told us about this we never had a chance for Jon to get his blood typed (she never even asked what his blood type was, grrrr!!!), and they needed to give this shot at the 28th or 29th week of pregnancy (I was at 29 already). So I ended up with a shot of this stuff. There are no real dangers to this drug and it is considered one of the “obstetrical miracles” of the century, but it still makes me very mad that I was never told about this. I didn’t have a chance to read about it and understand what the issue was, and if we had known earlier we could have had Jon’s blood checked. If he is negative as well then the shot is unnecessary. Until we know his blood type for sure I have to carry around a little card that says I need another shot if I start bleeding (major accident, not little ouchies), and will have to have a shot right of this stuff after birth as well.

This whole incident makes me quite upset with my doctor. Even as I’m writing this I get upset all over again. Maybe I’ll see if I can switch to another doctor in the practice (not that it would make much of a difference in who actually is there for the birth, but at least I might be more comfortable with the last few months of visits). I just can’t imagine not telling me this or asking what Jon’s blood type is. Am I overreacting? Wouldn’t be the first time. :)