Rant - booking my booking appointment

[Andthenanothercupoftea]

I've been trying to book my booking appointment for over a week now and been playing phone tennis with the midwife. I had a missed call at 11:15 this morning saying my booking appointment was at 2pm today in person. Because I was working I didn't pick up the call until 5ish. I called them back and they were so arsey with me.

Surely the majority of people they see have jobs and can't drop everything with 2 and a half hours notice?!
Why can't I just book an appointment with them like I would at a doctors?

I feel like I'm already failing at this first step. I've got to call them back in the morning and I'm now really anxious I'm going to be told off by another midwife.

Normally stuff like this doesn't bother me but it's really upset me.

Just looking for somewhere to rant really.

I had problems too. Mine was a phone call. They said they'd just ring me and I had to be given the time by work. They gave me no date, no time.

Appointment booking is a shambles in general...

I've got the GP appointment tomorrow where they said they'll ring me "in the morning". I can just about keep that free in my work diary as I had some warning.

I'm probably on some list now as a difficult mother or an appointment misser, but I don't understand how working that way works for anyone.

Stupid hormones aren't helping, I've been weeping about it for the last hour and a bit!! Very unlike me.

To make things worse, I was pregnant before and booked stuff in really (6 weeks) and was told it was really too early (sadly that ended in a MC). So this time I waited until 8 weeks and was told it was too late and they'd struggle to fit me in at 10 weeks.

Why is it so hard?!

That’s quite unusual I think. I work in a GP surgery now, and while GP appointments are as you say “sometime during the morning/afternoon”, midwife appointments are some of the few we can book in advance & give a set time for.

The booking appointment is a phone call & does tend to be in a morning - but at least you would be given a date & time in advance. It sounds totally impractical your way 🤷🏻‍♀️.

I’ve booked my first midwife appt this morning and had no issues at all! I asked for a call from my GP this morning and they rang me within 10 mins, explained about the midwife appt, gave me a date and time! I didn’t realise it could be such a faff!

I called them back this morning. They were in clinic at the GP surgery, so I called the GP (including being on hold for a really long time...) to leave them a message to call me back, but they didn't. So I guess I call again tomorrow. Getting quite annoyed now - if it was my electric company is be changing providers

Well you could change GP surgery I suppose.