Wow. It just keeps getting better.

This morning, a girl I know went to something called "OB Sick Call", basically, that's where if you're pregnant, and think you need to be seen for some reason, you go into the Army hospital, and they'll give you the same crap level of care they always give. This time was different, though. The nurse told her there was no provider there, and that she could just suck it up and go away. Holy shit, dude.

I had been very nice about the whole hospital birth thing before this, but that was it. I said, "Well, I think I see why every person I know who does hospital births here has problems. There is no care. Why are you accepting this? Why do they still get your business? If I thought something was wrong, I would call my midwife's cell phone, and she would come to my house and make sure everything was ok. Why do so many accept less? Obviously most practitioners don't do in-home appointments, far less same day ones, but I don't think it's asking much to be able to call your practitioner at their office, and come in to be seen." I just really want to know why these people are accepting this NON-care that they are given.

I see why every baby born here seems to go to the NICU, and why the majority of moms here end up with some form of pregnancy complication. They don't receive care. Not only is the focus on treatment of problems when they arise (and by the time they notice it, it's always to emergency proportions), rather than being on prevention as it is for me, but nobody listens, nobody cares. THIS is why when I polled my friends at a coffee about whether or not they had issues with their probiotic making them nauseous during pregnancy (I just wanted to know if it was common because I couldn't find any publications about it), the group consensus was that I should call Walgreen's and ask them what I should do. My question was, "Why call Walgreen's? I have a midwife, you know." (As it was, I did ask Alyson, and she cleared up that issue for me.) I wondered why the idea was to call Walgreen's for advice on something pregnancy-related. It just sounded ridiculous to me. It is because these girls have nowhere to turn other than each other (which is scary, honestly, due to the lack of education that goes on in these hospital practices) and random places around town, like Walgreen's. It's scary and sad.