The OB and the Midwife

Anonymous left a comment saying: Perhaps its none of my business, but you are WAY overdue and being it is your 9th child, I would be very concerned. Are you in constant contact with your physician??????????????

I appreciate your concern, Anonymous.

I really do.

Your comment is part of what prompted me to write my post yesterday. 

Today, I got to thinking about the words

"constant contact" with my physician....

To back up a bit,

I recently ended up needing to call our family doctor (who is also the OB I had) with a question I had about one of the children.

I don't know how it is at other clinics,

but at ours, you can't call and speak to the doctor.

(This doesn't surprise me; it's probably like that at many clinics.)

It used to be you could call and speak to the nurse who would in turn speak to the doctor and then call you back.

Now they've changed it so you can only call the appointment desk and request a call back from the nurse, leaving a brief explanation with the receptionist.

I waited for two and a half hours for a call back, and the nurse wasn't even his regular nurse.

I don't know her and she didn't know me.

I then had to ask her my question, 

which she then asked of the doctor,

and then the nurse called me back another hour later.

There is no such thing as constant contact with a physician.

In contrast,

my midwife (who works at a different clinic) called me at home last week to tell me her husband was going to be out of town for four days, and if I did go into labor, could I please call her cell  phone (she'd given me the number two weeks before) to let her know we'd be heading in so she would  have enough time to get someone to watch her kids.

At each of my appointments, 

she has stressed the freedom to just call her (directly!) with any questions or concerns.

What a difference.

And that, friends,

is yet another reason why I've become a believer in the midwifery model of care.