Ultrasound FAIL

This past week, the stars aligned and my work travel coincided with an ultrasound appointment for my surrogate! Hooray!

I hadn't seen our little munchkin in 17 weeks, so it was wonderful to see how big he was getting.

The ultrasound appointment was at the high-risk OB's office, someone our surrogate has been seeing monthly since our 20-week ultrasound when they noticed a little something with one of the baby's kidneys. The doctor is one of two high-risk OB's in the area and supposedly very smart.

I don't like her.

There's just something about her that rubs me the wrong way. She's very earthy crunchy, always reading medical journals and suggesting new things for our surrogate to try. More fish! More vitamin D! Less fish! Baby Mozart! More Fish! More vitamin D!

Between the doctor and ultrasound tech, I started to wonder just what has happened to bedside manners in the medical world.

The fun went something like this:

as soon as we walked into the room:

TECH (to me): "You're the mother."
KK:  "Yes!"
TECH (to both of us):  "I have an adopted son, so I'm all for these 'group things'."


TECH (to me):  "Where do you live?"
KK:  "Connecticut."
TECH:  "Where in Connecticut?"
KK:  "New Haven area."
TECH:  "I have family in Groton."
KK:  "Oh, that's nice. Groton is a nice area."
TECH:  "My uncle worked in New Haven at Pfizer. He's dead."

reviewing the ultrasound photos:

TECH: "Left kidney is really small. Right kidney is a beauty. Don't worry, you can live with one kidney. You just can't play football."

What the???

KK:  "Um, is there a chance the baby is only going to have one kidney???"
TECH:  "Well, he has two now."

And then Dr. Kookpot came in the room:

DR:  "The left kidney now looks like…" BEEP BEEP. "Oh, excuse me, that's my daughter texting me."

She then stops talking to us to text her daughter.

DR:  "My daughter is moving to Charlotte for two months and wants to know if she can take my bread maker."
KK:  "Really? How much bread can one person make in two months?"

DR:  "Do you have a pediatrician up north?"

KK:  "Yes."

DR (to surrogate): "When you get to the hospital, don't elect the POW – the Pediatrician of the Week. Instead, ask for Neonatal Services and you'll get one of those doctors."

DR:  "Pediatricians don't go to the hospitals anymore. You know why? They don't get paid. Why should they work for free? These insurance companies are awful. I was on the phone with one the other day and I was in tears talking to them. Why should I go to the hospital and work for free? I work to get paid."

Hey, lady, I work for free all the time. I'm salaried for 40 hours a week, and I work well over that…for nothing. And how did we get on the subject of insurance companies???

DR:  "So the kidney. It used to be larger but now it's smaller. I'm not sure why, we'll have to check it out after birth. I've never seen anything like this in my medical journals. It must be rare. Maybe we'll write up your baby in the National Enquirer."

OMG. Please.Stop.Talking.

DR:  "You know, if I didn't know your history of the enlarged kidney, and I was just looking at this ultrasound, I would say the left kidney is a normal size, not too small."

((exasperated sigh))

KK:  "So the baby's kidneys might be fine?"
DR:  "Well, I'm not an expert. You'll have to have neonatal services do an ultrasound after he's born. This isn't my specialty so you can't go by what I say."