Going to the doctor

Olive View Medical Center

I had a doctor’s appointment this week. I think I have had more doctor’s appointments in my two combined pregnancies than I had in the rest of my life. If you remember from my pregnancy post last week, I don’t have health insurance. But I’m not complaining, because in Los Angeles County there is a pretty good system for residents that don’t have insurance and don’t qualify for Medi-Cal if you got to the county-run hospitals/clinics. I go to Olive View Medical Center in Sylmar. It’s not the closest county hospital to my house but it is the nicest. For prenatal care, I pay $60 for doctor visits and ultrasounds which also includes any lab work that is ordered. After seven visits it’s free, kind of like using a customer loyalty card. For delivery of the baby, it’s $2000. That includes if it is a natural birth, induced labor, C-section, everything. When Eddie was born I was there a week. Labor was induced, after 50 hours they did a C-section, then I was there for another 4 days. Eddie was in NICU for 48 hours. The entire bill was $2000. I’ve known people with insurance that have paid more. And what’s even better is the prenatal care is really good. Not that it doesn’t have it’s drawbacks.

Going to a government run health care facility means you are going to wait. It doesn’t matter what time your appointment is. I’ve been the first appointment of the morning and still waited. It’s seems to be a different amount of time always. Sometimes I don’t have to wait in the waiting room at all, but then I wait in the patient room. Sometimes I’ve had to wait over an hour in the waiting room. When I have to get blood drawn it usually means taking a number, waiting in the lobby, then when my number is called I go in the lab and give them my info and then I have to sit and wait some more. If you have to get something from the pharmacy, that’s just a nightmare. It’s usually about a three hour process. So I always bring some kind of entertainment, usually a book. Now that I have to bring Eddie along I have to make sure he is entertained as well. It also means that if I have to wait long enough it’s going to overlap with lunch as well, so I pack a lunch to eat in the cafeteria. It seems like a lot of work just to go to the doctor.

However, because it’s a teaching hospital (connected with UCLA), the doctors you see are knowledgeable and up on all the latest information. In other departments you often see a resident first and then a follow up with the doctor. In prenatal you only see the doctor. They take time to answer all your questions no matter how mundane or silly they may seem. I don’t feel like they are just seeing a number, most of the time when I see a doctor or a nurse several visits in a row they remember me.

Of course, this week’s visit was completely abnormal in the wait time department. I was in and out of the office within an hour. That is unheard of. They always want a urine sample when you get there, and I walked out of the bathroom and the nurse was already looking for me to put me in a patient room. The doctor I saw actually read my file from Eddie’s delivery, and we talked about different options for this time around. I’ll detail my childbirth experience later, it was an ordeal. Because it ended in a C-section as a result of, among other things, not dilating after attempting to induce labor, they are recommending another C-section. I’d rather avoid that if at all humanly possible. But I’d also like to not have to induce labor again if possible as well. So it’s a tough decision that we have to make about what the plan will be. But despite the quick visit, I didn’t feel rushed. Plenty of opportunities to ask questions. All my vitals are normal, all lab tests are normal, fundal measurement was fine, and baby’s heartbeat was around 150, and baby movements are good. It’s always nice when there isn’t anything that the doctor is concerned about.

I’ve had several doctors tell me my pregnancies, both the first one and this one, are almost too normal. Man, it feels good to be normal. Now if I can just have a normal delivery.