21 weeks - not sure I am getting everything I need from my OB

[Anonymous]

This may sound a bit harsh, but most OB's wait until the baby is viable (as in outside the body) to discuss these things...Meaning 24 weeks or greater. Glucose tolerance testing is done at around 28 weeks. Hang in there, all of this will come.

[Anonymous]

I love my midwife!!! She has covered these things, and answered any of my questions, my appts are AT LEAST 30 min, no rushing. This is my second pregnancy, I had an OB first round. I do have to say you have to bring these things up if your wondering.

[Anonymous]

PP here BTW I am 17 weeks

[Anonymous]

Very interesting about the 30 minute appointments. It really depends on the person. For me, that would have been an excessive amount of time. I did my own research, sought information from different sources and would have felt smothered with 30 minute appointments! My questions were quick and to the point. I guess I did not need a lot of hand holding.

But I do agree that if you have questions, speak up. If you don't feel comfortable doing so,it could be a red flag that you and your doctor are not a good fit.

[sybersus]

I agree that you should be proactive with asking questions if you have them. Bi see the midwives at GW, who typically are proactive with me. At my 19 week appointment they g me a doula/childbirth education class list and encouraged me to begin doing research on them, and at my 23 week yet gave me an overview of the GD test and what the results indicate. They encourage everyone to have a doula and a birth plan and encourage you to labor at home as long as possible. I've heard the doctors at GW are pretty proactive, too. I don't know whether you want a practitioner who is proactive or are just responding to your friend's reaction, but if you do then I think checkling out the GW practice makes sense. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Hi OP,

I saw a solo practitinoer for my first and I was also AMA (39), but in good health so was treated as low risk. From what I can recall, appts were short except that we had onel long one (maybe aroun 16 weeks?) that lasted 40 mins or so. Doctor got all medical history, questions about lifestyle, discussed testing options, etc. We did not discuss glucose test, or birth plan or childbirth classes or anything, though I think he gave us handouts (sibley's childbirth class, prenatal testing material). He also gave us a checklist of things to do by a certain date: sign up for childbirth classes, look into childcare, decide if we wanted birth support/doula, decide on cord blood banking, pick a name, etc. I did a lot of research on my own after this, and then the appointments thereafter were fairly regular, but doctor would always see where we were on the checklist, and would answer questions I had.

I found that this was a great approach: one long appointment int he beginning that set a kind of schedule, and then after that shorter followups unless there were any problems. We discussed birth plan/options at around 30 weeks or 32 weeks, sometime after we took our childbirth class (not at sibley,w e did BirthWorks, which was great).

[Anonymous]

Sounds a lot like my experience the first time around, as well as this one. I for one am thankful my obgyns treat pregnancy like a normal occurence and not a disease. I can do research on my own. go to the hospital's web site and you should find endless info on every class available to you. Obgyns are not really trained as much to deal with natural births, they are more used to dealing with interventions. If you want a natural birth, fine (I did) but plenty of ways to find out about that, including birthing classes, and I personally would recommend a doula. Like others have suggested, I would get some questions ready re: birth plan and ask them to find out the hospital's protocol on different things, including doulas.

[Anonymous]

ob's are not great about hand-holding through pregnancy. i found that if i did not bring something up, they won't bring it up either. maybe they are only concerned about the things that are wrong with you at the moment. on the other hand, my midwife was great. she took more time to answer questions and go through things i should be thinking about. not to say we didn't have some superfast appointments too. if you have questions, you need to do your own research and bring them up. i just went with the flow at the beginning with an ob and then realized she was pretty much going to hijack my birth with a c-section. a good birth is an informed birth.