Morning morning. First whinge of the day coming up....
Had an appointment with my GP yesterday regarding (you may recall previous rantings) the continuation of my anticoagulants post-partum. I haven't seen this GP since January, having had no need to visit the doctor, or indeed been 'summoned' for monitoring etc.
No sooner had I sat down and she'd realised that I was going for a home birth with an independent midwife - and that there was a query over who was doing the neo-natal check - than she started on about how the NHS isn't set up for people to just pick the services they want, how they think they provide a perfectly good service and it causes inconvenience for everyone when people just pick out parts of the system. She didn't quite call me selfish and irresponsible and guilty of cherry-picking the NHS, but she was only fractionally away from it. For god's sake - the commitment to pay an independent midwife isn't one you take lightly - and thereby we're saving the NHS money. Isn't the government encouraging people to go privately, if they can...?
When she realised that I had received absolutely no blood monitoring (or indeed any other kind of extra monitoring) since starting the anticoagulants, she tried to say that I had 'fallen through the cracks' because of said 'cherry-picking' - which is rubbish because I last saw the consultant at 11 weeks and we didn't hire the midwife for a good 10 weeks after that. At that point I didn't know about the guidelines on both the RCOG website and in the BNF - but I'm sure they should have done at least two full blood counts during that time.
She expected me to justify why I'd chosen the course I have - telling me that of course I don't 'meet the criteria' for a home birth or a birth centre (yes - I know that - which is why I took matters into my own hands in the first place) and went on about the risk of bleeding because of the medication. Which is also rubbish because it only takes 24 hours to leave your system, so unless I go into labour at 36+1, I don't really see this as a valid argument. Apart from which - I'm happy to have a reasonable educated discussion about comparative risk, but I'm not prepared to be spoken to as though I'm some kind of irresponsible half-wit.
She then rang the local hospital to get me an appointment with the consultant to discuss the drugs post-partum and in talking about me with the sister, said my plans 'make [her] hair stand on end' (I'm sitting right here - I can hear you...), implying again that it's my fault I've not been monitored. When I remarked that the appointment clashed with my first ante-natal class, she said 'Well this is much more important'. No sh*t - I came to see you, remember...??
She finished up by reiterating that they provide a perfectly good service, that they have x thousand people passing through their doors and that they can't be expected to tailor things for every individual. This is the same woman who six months ago called midwifery services in this country 'a national scandal' and mused on why more women don't complain about it.
Anyway. I'm quite feisty, but I emerged feeling really quite angry and upset. I wasn't going to have an argument with her because I didn't think it would be a productive use of my energies - and there wasn't really the time available - but I found her attitude really quite offensive. You'd think that I was using a cowboy midwife, rather than someone who trained in the NHS and is registered with the same professional body.
Franch: it really does seem that your SIL and partner are having the kind of time that makes you wonder why you bother to get out of bed. I'm not a cat person, but I'd be distraught if anything happened to my little dog (he's not even 11 months yet, but I can be reduced to tears at the thought that one day he will grow old and die...). Hopefully the tests will throw up something comparatively simple to resolve. In the interim, I took advantage of doing things I wouldn't have been able to do whilst duffed: drinking wine, eating blue cheese etc. I also took quite a lot of tension out on unsuspecting workmen we had around at the time: quite good at their jobs when they actually did some work between fag breaks. They probably thought I was a psychotic control freak - but at least by the end of the week they were putting in a full day's work. Better than therapy... .
KiwiKate: your FIL sounds like my father. I can imagine that - faced with the possibility of his daughter's breasts - he'll find reasons to do the garden, or hide behind a newspaper.