Our first Dr. Interview

I'm going to try to keep this brief since I really need to start supper here shortly. :) ;)

So, here's how we've been doing 'Dr. picking': I've got a list of 4 Dr.'s; two were recommended, one was sort of indirectly recommended, and the other comes from a practice that was recommended. Getting Dr. recommendations was easy. Making a decision is HARD! Here I am all focused on finding a Dr. who will be supportive of my desire to have a natural birth, and I suddenly realize that I also have to think about distance (P.T. Cruisers aren't exactly known for their fuel efficiency), price of Dr., price of hospital, maternity benefits, whether or not said Dr. and hospital are in our insurance's network.....

This was not going to be as easy as I thought. :P

However, my wonderful husband stepped in when I told him how stressed I was getting and helped me write everything out and organize it on a spreadsheet.

That man speaks my language: organize!

So anyway, after getting it laid out, making a lot of phone calls, and learning a lot about insurance I sort of got the Dr.'s in a hierarchical order in my head. Two of them were sort of competing for 1st place 'till I realized that only one of them gave free interviews.

Guess who we saw first?

That was last Thursday; our first Dr. interview. I went armed with lots of questions, and a wonderful note-taking, financial-questions-asking husband. (Seriously, it was awesome not having to think about the money side of things. That way I could focus on feeling out how she felt about natural birthing.) It didn't take long to see where she stood. She was not only okay with, but wholeheartedly supported almost all the things I wanted to do, as well as things I wasn't as set on having (letting the cord stop pumping before cutting for instance. Would be nice, but not gonna die on that hill)!

However.....

One of the last questions on my list was whether she ever performed abortions. I had debated asking this questions for a couple of reasons. One was that I wasn't sure if someone would actually answer truthfully if they thought I wanted to hear 'no', and another was that I might offend them, especially if the answer was no. But Josh supported me asking, and other women at our church had said it was a good thing to know. I almost didn't 'cause I felt so awkward, but Josh was right there and sort of unknowingly acted as my accountability. He had said he thought we should, so I should.

Sadly, her answer was yes, she had performed abortions in training. So question two was 'How do you feel about that?'. I was really hoping she'd say she wished she hadn't and go on to explain why she thought it was wrong, but she said she believed in a woman's right to chose. *sigh* THAT was disappointing. :P So now she's dropped to the bottom of my mental list.

Fortunately, God knows what He's doing, and He knew exactly how that interview would go. He knows which Dr. we'll ultimately choose, and when. He's got this. :)

Our next interview is this Thursday with a Dr. in Tuscaloosa which is significantly closer than the other one. Our first one was in Birmingham! Looking forward to it, and praying for direction.          

Well, I guess now we know what happens when I set out to write a 'brief' post! :P Thankfully, supper tonight is easy. ;)