Doctor Debacles

Who knew finding a pediatrician would be so complicated... gosh! You're a little crunchy and suddenly nothing is simple! We left my OB/GYN who is literally 4 miles away and delivers at the hospital less than 2 miles from our home to drive an hour (usually 90 mins with traffic) each way to see midwives in Danbury... now as we seek out a like-minded pediatrician, our wheels are spinning again.

In my mind, my personal ad for a pediatrician went something like this,

Young, educated couple seeks friendly, experienced group of pediatricians offering flexible office hours, breastfeeding support, and flexibility in vaccine scheduling. Cosleeping judgers need not apply.

Simple enough, right? Ha! Our first pediatrician meeting was last month. This group practice recommended by an acquaintance with fantastic office hours and with 6 docs and 1 APRN in the practice I was optimistic. They have a lactation consultant, we'll meet with her, perfect! When I called we were offered several dates for twice-monthly Expectant Parent meetings... how friendly of them! I selected the one with the LC and eagerly drafted up my list of interview questions. Four other couples were at our meeting and here's the abridged version of how it went, please keep in mind this woman never asked me a) what motivated such specific questions and b) what we do for a living, our education or background etc...

Me: How does your practice support breastfeeding?
LC: We encourage moms to breastfeed through at least four months.
Me: The AAP recommends 12 months or more and the WHO and UNICEF recommend up to 2 years.
LC: {blank stare}


Me: I see your welcome booklet lists the AAP recommended vaccine schedule. We plan to spread out our child's vaccines, are all your practitioners flexible with this?
LC: That's not recommended at all, it actually puts your child at higher risk for reactions because they get more vaccine visits and have more risk of fever, and it's more painful.
Me:  [thinking: WTF!?!] ... Wouldn't it be easier to identify a reaction if only one or two were given at a visit rather than 4-6?
LC: No.
Me: So you don't want me to introduce more than one food at a time to a baby, because THAT could cause a severe allergic reaction, but you'd like to inject her with chemicals mixed together combined with other chemicals mixed together?
LC: {blank stare}


At this point, John and I were ready to a) toss this woman off the side of a building and b) leave. We politely walked the circle with the other couples touring the office, and hurried out.

I started to call other practices in the area... some weren't accepting newborns, one wouldn't see a baby born at a birth center, another wouldn't take patients not born at the hospital right around the corner from us, and some just had rude office staff or complicated phone systems where it was an epic event to get a live person on the phone. Ugh!

Yesterday we had our second meeting. This practice was recommended by a few of John's coworkers, the lead pediatrician has been voted by other practitioners in Connecticut Magazine as a Top Doc, they don't have really late hours but see ill children on the weekends, and one of their MD's is a lactation consultant.

The office was simple, the staff was friendly, I was feeling hopeful. The doctor saw us on time and welcomed us to his practice, we sat in an exam room with plenty of seating for the family which I liked- the first visit we noticed that there was only one chair in each room, we plan to attend our baby's visits together... so one of us will always stand? I definitely liked the looks of this office better. The first question the doctor asked us was, "what hospital do you plan to deliver at?"  *the fun begins*

Me: Actually, we're not. We're having our baby at the Connecticut Childbirth Center, our midwives are just amazing.
Dr: Oh, my niece delivered all three of her children there, she had a great experience. [Catharine sighs with relief] ... personally I wouldn't deliver there, it's quite dangerous.
Hormonal educated me: ACTUALLY, they've been in practice over 11 years and have never lost a mom or a baby at the hospital or in the birth center.
Dr: Those statistics are skewed, they risk out tons of people
Me: Their statistics include women who have to be cared for with or exclusively by their OB's.
Dr: Well it's still not safe. To each their own (he had to get that in there, right?)

So now I'm thinking, I COULD remind this arrogant man without a uterus that all hospitals in Connecticut have a c-section rate of 30% or higher (some 40%), or that NONE of the hospitals in Connecticut meet the WHO standards for safe quality maternity care... but I won't argue with him, let's find out about breastfeeding and vaccines... see where we get.

This doctor has a very laid back "it's your kid, it's up to you," attitude,  he openly shared with us that his wife breastfeed all their children, all the female docs and almost all the nurses in the practice breastfed successfully, and one of their MD's is a lactation consultant herself... He kindly told us he doesn't think parents who formula feed are bad or they are damaging their children but also said there are clear advantages to breastfeeding- nice answer, I can live with that.

As for vaccines he said we can spread them out and there are certain ones he could care less if the baby receives if we live in a safe environment, but certain ones he encourages parents to consider carefully-- this is the kind of relationship I want- I don't know it all, but I know a fair amount about what vaccines contain and what I do and do not want to risk.

When I mentioned cosleeping the doctor said that it can be very dangerous to put a newborn in a bed, I reiterated that we have a co-sleeper, a separate contained area for the baby attached to our bed- I can't roll into this little rectangle that slides next to the bed like a nightstand, and I have never rolled onto my nightstand in my sleep so I think we're ok. :-P   He said "oh, well those are safer. Really, it's up to you."

Last night as we were reflecting on the visit I felt all these strong opinions and considerations coming up in our conversation and in processing that reflection thought... "we're parents, these opinions are our parenting instincts... we're making those important parent-decisions. What an empowering feeling :-)   Our conclusion was that we like that we have flexibility with these docs, I personally don't see myself seeing that specific doctor but if his practice likes breastfeeding and will let me do my thing with vaccines, I can be okay with that.
I think we're going to have to settle for Crunchy-Tolerant in this area... I'm thankful that John and I are both educated and stubborn and not being herded along into the mainstream of blind acceptance.  Tonight we're meeting one more group practice that some of my coworkers have recommended. I hope we get some good answers and feel positive about seeing one of these two practices.