Gynecologist / OBGYN

[bethylove]

My fiance and I want to start planning to have kids soon and moving to a new city we need to set up all our regular doctors.
At my last clinic when brining up the steps in order to start thinking about pregnacny my Dr told me that I should start seeing an OBGYN who deals with high risk pregnancies, even for my regular gyno appointments. The better/longer they know me, the better they'll be able to care for me when I'm pregnant.
However, brining this up to the new CF Docs here in town, they don't seem to think it's that big of a deal. They said to just go with whoever I felt comfortable with.
Should I be looking for someone who's handled cases of CF before and go with the idea of the longer they know me the better? Or should I just go see a regular Gyno for my regular pap smears and then when pregnant find a high risk OB?

Thoughts?

 

[mamaScarlett]

For my first pregnancy I had an OB who had experience with Cf moms, but was not high risk. My Cf clinic had referred their cases to her, so during my pregnancy we all worked closely together.
For my 2nd pregnancy, that dear OB had since retired, so I needed to find someone else. My Cf clinic was in the process of relocating and had no one to refer me to, so I found someone on my own. My first birth was completely natural so I knew I wanted to repeat that. So it was essential for me to find someone who would take me with that in mind.
I found a midwife practice that was willing to take me, and the hospital I would be delivering in happened to have a cf center in it, in case of an odd emergency. For me this was the best of both worlds. My cf doc was supportive of me being with midwives, provided we all kept in each other in the loop. Remember, this was my 2nd time around.
However for the midwives to accept me, I did have to have a consult with a high risk OB (meternal fetal medicine). I hated this. High risk, at least this one, was a whole different world. Endless tests they offer for anything and everything. That being my 2nd pregnancy I knew what was a risk and what wasn't and what I wanted, so going through all those hoops was a big stress to me.
If I ever had a 3rd pregnancy, I would go back to my old OB who has since come out of retirment. She's in the NYC area and has delivered for dozens of Cf moms. I can't imagine anyone with more experience.

 

[kross10911]

Prior to me being pregnant I did not see a high risk OBGYN, but as soon as I got pregnant my center refered me to see a high risk OBGYN and after talking to him, he has had a lot of experience with CF paitents and there seems to be quite a few things he had experience with that goes along with CF and pregnancy so I m really glad I have someone who knows things to watch for.

 

[Melissa75]

My 2 cents is that it's always good to know your doctor well and if it is a practice with many doctors, to get to know all of them well. So, I would suggest looking for a single high risk OB or a practice with a high risk OB, and check them out.

My first pregnancy was low risk, and yet in a practice of about five OBs, I happened to delivery on the day the high-risk guy was on call. He was fine with my low-intervention wishes.

I was still nursing baby #1 when I was pregnant with my second baby, and I ended up leaving that first practice because they didn't want me to nurse. (At this point, I still was only "a person with a chronic wet cough who got pneumonia or bad bronchitis once a year," and I didn't have nutritional deficit, though in retrospect, weighing about 120 lbs at 18 wks pregnant may not have been ideal. That's when I convinced #1 to take a bottle--he just turned 1.) Anyway, my second practice was pro-nursing and I delivered with them.

Then my lungs tanked and so did my ability to hang onto a pregnancy. After a miscarriage with a subchorionic hemorrhage, and another pregnancy that was somehow sticking despite a massive subchorionic hemorrhage, and the message from practice two that it was a lost cause, I switched AGAIN.

My third practice was one woman, with a somewhat run-down office and a long wait, but she was a high risk specialist and she had a positive attitude. This was the only of my deliveries in which the OB hung out with me. The others came to catch the baby or assess if the pushing was progressing or stressing the baby.

My point with all that rambling is that OB/GYN practices are set up differently and the doctors have different personalities. Though you may not know what you ultimately want or need, you will gain a comfort level if you've taken the time to do this.

 

[LouLou]

where do you live bethylove...perhaps we have someone on the forum who has experienced cf and pregnancy in your area. I was in Philadelphia and changed OBs to go to a high risk OB for pregnancy. Personally I felt the time during pregnancy and ALL THE VISITS was enough time to get to know them. I delivered with MFM (high risk group) at UPenn.

 

[marisalynn]

My CF doc wanted me to see a high risk OB, and also a Maternal-Fetal specialist. This was quite inconvenient, as the closest of these to where we live is about 2.5 hours away. I had monthly ultrasounds until 32 weeks, then weekly. I completely understood why they did this, but it ended up finding some mild "irregularities" on a couple of the ultrasounds because the measurements we slightly off. One was that they measured my amniotic fluid as being a little high, and then the next week it was perfect. Made me feel like if you look hard enough for something wrong, you'll find something "wrong." In the end, we had a perfectly healthy baby girl and my pregnancy went wonderfully. We ended up going through a lot of unnecessary anxiety from these "miscalculations".
Of course I would do it all over again in a second, but I wonder if I would have been able to see a regular OB where I live, how much less time we would have spent on the road (not to mention gas money), when there was no indication for me to see a high risk OB except that I have CF, which is very stable.

Marisa RN, 24 w/CF Mommy to 5-month old baby girl

 

[liz26ny]

I am being seen at a Maternal-Fetal medicine practice which has several doctors, one of which is high-risk...but I don't always end up seeing him. I went to see them one time before I was pregnant for a consultation. So far I am not 100% happy here and am considering switching somewhere else. It is a large practice, with a ton of patients and staff and most of the time I feel as though I am being shuffled around. I am only about 8 weeks pregnant and twice already I have been given the wrong test results which has sent me into a panic for no reason. The reason I choose this practice is that they deliver at the hospital where my CF Center is and my CF doctor thought it would be a good decision to deliver there. So if I decide to switch OB's I will most likely have to deliver at a different hospital.

 

[bethylove]

Thanks for the responses ladies! It helps a lot.

Lauren - I live in Baltimore and go to Johns Hopkins adult center.