Monday, October 13, 2008

Friday: 1.5 hours in the OB/GYN's office

In an analytical, outside my body way I'm fascinated with what triggers my anger/anxiety/unhappiness when I see a pregnant woman.

But in any case, when you go to the OB/GYN for your annual checkup*, and get there on time, and then watch as women who arrived after you get called back before you do it's a little annoying, especially when they are pregnant. The kicker was when I realized that I was the LAST patient to leave the office. Grrrr.

Here's the timeline:
30 minutes in waiting room past appointment time
20 minutes in ob/gyn's office waiting for him to come in
10 minutes spent with ob/gyn discussing current health, where things are with the RE
20 minutes spent in exam room waiting for ob/gyn to come in to do the exam
10 minutes for exam and redress, checkout
=
90 minutes of my life for an appointment I expected to take no longer than 30-45 minutes.

To be fair the ob/gyn did apologize (lightly) for running behind. But that didn't really make up for the 70 minutes I spent cooling my heels, or the parade of pregnant women I had to endure.

In my pre-infertility life I would have been pissed about the time but okay with the bellies as that could be me soon (or more likely it wasn't likely to be me soon but that was okay because that's not where my mind was). Now, not so much on either scenario.



*This checkup was delayed by 6 months due to some scheduling issues and the certainty that I was going to be pregnant soon so why not just do it all at once.... Also, there are multiple MD's in the practice, but only two were on schedule in this office on Friday.

3 comments:

  1. I am totally with you sister! Sitting in the waiting room so you can make your monthly visit to the vag cam watching all variety of pregnant women go by does not make for a happy day. As you already know, I'm DREADING the annual visit this year. Just thinking about it makes my stomach hurt. I'm really sorry you got the shaft and had to watch all those women who have what we are trying so hard to have.

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  2. I seriously think the wait at an OB/GYN's office is longer than any other doctor? Why do they torture us like that?! :)

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  3. In the interest of full disclosure (but not too full) I admit I've never been to an OB/GYN. However, I once spent four hours at my doctor's office. Once.

    Granted, it was my annual physical, involving fluid samples, arcane photography, and sensor arrays stuck to my skin. Two hours, I can understand; but four? Never before and never since.

    On the one hand, I feel that doctors should be respectful of their patients' time, but when I stop to think about it I realize that it's not so simple. Doctors have to try to accommodate all their patients – not just the ones with appointments – so I guess I have to allow that I'm sometimes going to wait while people with more pressing problems than mine go ahead of me. And if a doctor gets behind schedule because she is taking time to really talk to her patients and understand their situations, then that seems like a good thing. But if a doctor takes that kind of time, her scheduling should take that into account and not pack the schedule so tightly.

    Four hours. Ridiculous. The cleaning people had already gone home by the time I got out of there.

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