Frustrated

Discuss ways to prepare yourself, your family, and your protocol for HG.

Moderators: RebeccaM, Susannah

Frustrated

Postby bibliojo » Nov 30, 2004 5:40 pm

I am frustrated and feeling like I'm getting no where with this prep for HG thing. I have been looking into having a midwife with my next pregnancy, but all the midwives I have talked to won't take me because I live in a different city than the hospital I want to deliver at (even though it's only 15 minutes away!). I had my son at BC Womens and Childrens hospital in Vancouver since my family doctor is based out of there and I had a wonderful experience giving birth there. Whereas when I was in the hospital that serves the city that I live in for HG, it was a far from pleasant experience. (It's not fun having a nurse massage an IV needle in your hand for 20 minutes to try and get it to go again because she neglected to change the fluid bag on time and she was too lazy to just start a new IV!) I'm just frustrated because I can't seem to make any progress on this. Everything just seems way more complicated than it should be. Like a midwife won't meet with you until you're actually pregnant...well, as us HGers know we have maybe a week of feeling okay before we're bedridden for 3 months. I don't want to spend that week looking for someone to take care of me during my pregnancy. There's going to be a million other things I going to need to get done at that time. Maybe make meals for the next month, get the house all in order, spend time playing with my son before he loses his mommy for 3-4 months, etc. People don't seem to understand how difficult it is for us and just don't seem to be accomodating.

Sorry to whine and complain so much -- I just really needed to vent.

Joanna
2 HG pregnancies
Lukas - February 2003
Katya - October 2006

Image
bibliojo
Forum Moderator
 
Posts: 6781
Joined: Aug 20, 2004 12:39 am
Location: Vancouver, Canada

Postby MamaLily » Dec 03, 2004 12:25 am

Joanna -

Oh, I'm sorry to hear about your frustration. I remember when I was looking for a doctor at the beginning of the year and I felt so frustrated as well! Everyone I talked with couldn't fathom meeting with a doctor before getting pregnant. And most of them said that I couldn't see a doctor at all until 10-12 weeks pregnant (even when I told them that I was in the hospital, on steroids and a feeding tube by that time last pregnancy).

I looked quickly on the Physician Locator area of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine website (http://www.smfm.org/index.cfm?zone=search&nav=doctor) and found the following doctors in Vancouver, British Columbia. Do you think you could contact them - even just to get a referral for someone in your area?

MARIE-FRANCE DELISLE M.D.
AFFILIATE MEMBER
BC WOMEN'S HOSPITAL
4500 OAK STREET, RM 1T62
VANCOUVER, BC V6J 2C6
mfdelisle@hotmail.com
604/875-2161

GERALD MARQUETTE M.D.
REGULAR (MFM) MEMBER
CHILDRENS & WOMEN'S HEALTH CARE CENTER OF BC
DEPARTMENT OF OBSTETRICS AND GYNAECOLOGY
CHILDRENS & WOMEN'S HEALTH CARE CENTER OF BC
4500 OAK ST., RM. 2H28
VANCOUVER, BC

AMANDA SKOLL M.D.
REGULAR (MFM) MEMBER
BC WOMEN'S HOSPITAL
UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
4500 OAK ST/ROOM 1T60
VANCOUVER, BC CANADA
VANCOUVER, BC
askoll@cw.bc.ca

Good luck to you! Finding the right doctor is such a pain...but so worth it!

- Anna
"The little reed, bending to the force of the wind, soon stood upright again when the storm had passed over." - Aesop
MamaLily
Opinionated HGer
 
Posts: 519
Joined: May 28, 2004 2:54 pm

Postby bibliojo » Dec 06, 2004 7:12 pm

Thanks, Anna, for doing all that research for me! I will definately look into those leads. I don't know if all of them are people that will treat patients though. The BC Children's and Women's Hospital works in conjuction with the University of BC and I have discovered that a couple of the doctors I have looked into previously are just "teaching doctors" for UBC and don't see patients.

You may recall that I have an appointment with an OB/GYN in February. He apparently has some experience in treating HG. But if I don't agree with how he would treat my HG I don't have much time to find someone else to treat me. (We're planning to TTC starting in May) So I have been compiling a list myself of possible doctors. I phoned Motherisk to ask them if they knew of anybody in Vancouver that was an expert in HG and they recommended Dr. Laura Magee (and LOL, after doing all that, I found her name and email address on this website!) I phoned her but she's going on maternity leave herself :o so that lead is of no use. (In Canada we have one year mat leaves so she would still be on leave when I plan to get pregnant). The midwives thing I've already ranted and raved about that so I'll spare you more of that! :) But you can see how this has been frustrating for me.

I have been thinking about how probably most of my frustration is because I can't control this situation. HG makes me feel completely out of control and I hated having that feeling the first time round. I know that I will more than likely feel out of control again once I get pregnant but I hope to not have it to the same degree. And I think me trying to have a doctor lined up and treatments decided on beforehand is my way of taking back some of the control I would have lost to HG if I had not prepared.

Knowing that I will more than likely have HG again makes it scary and frustrating to plan on TTC. I'm scared to death of having HG again and almost every day I think only X number of months until I have to get pregnant again. It's also frustrating because we have to time TTC in relation to when everybody else is able to help us out with housework, meals and our son not just when we are ready to have another child. It might be a good idea to do what you and your DH did -- prepare but just get pregnant when you get pregnant! Then you don't have to plan so much. It took us almost a year to conceive our son and already I worry about what if we don't get pregnant right away and how that messes up the whole schedule since we have more help in the summer. Okay, okay, I know I'm sounding like a crazy control freak now... :lol:

But I've decided to take breaks from all this planning once I get frustrated and to only do the planning and preparing a bit at a time just so that I maintain a good prespective on all of this and don't get too frustrated by it. I have to remind myself that I have 5 months left, more than ample time to get everything in order so what am I stressing about??

Thanks for listening, Anna! It has been encouraging to me to hear that I'm not the only one who has gone through this.

Joanna
2 HG pregnancies
Lukas - February 2003
Katya - October 2006

Image
bibliojo
Forum Moderator
 
Posts: 6781
Joined: Aug 20, 2004 12:39 am
Location: Vancouver, Canada

Postby MamaLily » Dec 06, 2004 11:17 pm

Joanna -

Planning for HG is so hard! DH and I had everything ready last spring. My protocol was in place, I had my doctor, my family was ready to help, etc. Every detail was in place. But then we didn't get pregnant in the two months we tried. And after that we knew we couldn't get pregnant for various reasons, mostly tied with scheduling, work, etc. Anyway, I know how frustrating it is to prepare for a long time, to have things timed perfectly, and then to not have them work out immediately.

It's hard not to be a control freak when HG is looming on the horizon. I'm hoping that you find a great doctor soon...

- Anna
"The little reed, bending to the force of the wind, soon stood upright again when the storm had passed over." - Aesop
MamaLily
Opinionated HGer
 
Posts: 519
Joined: May 28, 2004 2:54 pm


Return to Preparation for HG

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest

cron