u/Lulu_Fangirlx3

So I have Tricare, which covers a doula for my birth. I have a lot of medical anxiety and figured it would be a great free through insurance service to have.

Boy am I dumb.

There’s only one doula in network near me. I thought, cool, I can get pregnancy support and delivery and postpartum advocacy. She had me sign a contract that said if she was not informed of birth and missed it because of me, she’d be entitled to $2k.

Early on she didn’t respond much and I was saying things like I’m scared I’ll be forced to deliver in a way I don’t want to, and instead of giving me reassurance, she said I should see a therapist. At that point, due to her unresponsiveness and lack of care, I decided maybe she wasn’t a good fit and told her I’d like to part ways.

That’s when she hit me with, “you signed a contract so you owe me $2k.” So I said ok, fine you can still be my doula I guess. I should’ve told her to fuck off but I was desperate against better judgment for whatever shred of comfort I could get on delivery day. Mind you, tricare prohibits charges for unrendered services.

The thing is, halfway through my pregnancy she was not communicating much. At 28 weeks I sent her a message I’d update my next scan and she never responded. 3 weeks went by and I figured she was busy with other clients and forgot about me. I blocked her at that point and figured if she wanted to be my doula, she’d email me.

Tonight I am HEAVILY painfully pregnant and 37 weeks exactly. I got an email saying she was sending the $2k balance to collections in 30 days due to lack of communication. So I blew up her phone, inbox, voicemail, everything because what??? I wanted a doula and she ghosted and then finally this is how she gets back to me? She also had changed her services on her website from pregnancy and postpartum doula to only supports 37 weeks+.

I really wanted patient advocacy and emotional relief for me and my husband but it seems like this doula just wants a quick buck and loves stressing me out. My husband is livid and seeking legal guidance tomorrow to fire her because I don’t think she can charge a balance for getting fired and send that to collections regardless of a private contract or not since she’s under federal Tricare regs.

So I guess I’ll be disputing a collections agency sometime postpartum. Doulas out there, is this normal or probably an empty threat? I definitely feel at fault for not feeling her out better and seeing how this could snowball when I thought I was just getting a nice free service through insurance to ease my mind.

I guess I just want to vent because I’ve already done everything I can to try to get my results. I’m a numbers person so I like tracking values like my cervical length, fetal measurements/position, fluid levels, etc. so maybe I’m a bit more particular than the average pregnant patient, but what the fuck?

I went in for my 33.5 week growth scan 2 weeks ago and they told me it got “stuck in their ultrasound system” and would not push to my patient portal. So I have no way to view them and rely on their word of mouth alone. (Which they have been incapable of keeping consistent with actual results in the past.)

My SIL was able to figure out she had IUGR before the doctors by comparing her scans side by side and flagged the issue before they became aware of it. I’d be so pissed if there’s something they missed that I could’ve caught from my scans.

I know they say “no news is good news” but they never even sent the results to my OB either. I’m 35 weeks now and I can try to assume if there was an issue surely they would’ve seen it. But they haven’t even kept the numbers consistent with verbal reporting to me in office and what’s in writing in the results. I guess they know ultrasound is a fucking joke anyway for estimating weights, so they don’t care about the numbers.

It’s probably silly of me to care so much wanting to see my own results but it sure seems like nobody else in that place gives a shit either.

I’m about to be 37 yrs old with my one and done baby boy. I’m 31 weeks going to a fairly high rated OB in my city. The most annoying thing I’m experiencing is that the doctors aren’t reading my chart before my appointments and assuming I want a vaginal birth. This has happened with all the doctors I’ve seen at the practice, even with the one scheduled to perform my 39+0 planned c.

I asked the doctor slated to perform my c if she will give me a bisalp and she said “we don’t do that here.” I stared blankly at her, because on the portal messages in their website one of the other doctors at my practice advised me to bring it up at my next appointment.

I pushed and said why not; and she said because they’d only do that for a c section. I told her I’m literally scheduled for one with her and that’s my planned route and she said she doesn’t like doing it because women may change their mind.

For the love of god, I’m nearing 40 years old and I don’t want to be on 2 forms of birth control for the rest of my pre menopausal years. Everyone else in these forums seems to get their bisalp after c? Maybe it’s because I want to be one and done and that’s not good enough for the doctor because it’s below population replacement ?? I’m not a fucking incubator though.

Like, it’s fine, whatever. I can just double nexplanon and birth control again but I’m mad about it. Nuking my body with hormones for the next 20 years sucks but I don’t get a choice it appears. At least I don’t have to spent an extra 10 mins in the OR for it, I guess.

Does anyone else have this issue with their OB? Doctors not reading charts and not granting taking tubes for one and done women? What the fuck Stone Age shit is going on rn?

I absolutely HATED pregnancy thus far and it’s not getting any better at 30 weeks. I didn’t even have it as bad as it could be -
No gestational hypertension, diabetes, pre-eclampsia, hyperemesis.

I do have profound nerve pain and weakness in my left wrist, and am incredibly immobile at 5 ft tall with a 91 percentile baby. I think I also have severe gastric delayed emptying, because I can eat a meal at 5pm and still be nearly throwing it up at midnight. Things just sit around in my stomach now many hours after eating for as long as pregnancy has been - shit, maybe forever? I feel like it’s been my entire life at this point.

I wake up puking sometimes at 7 months preg. I’m getting up pissing 5+ times throughout the night. My husband stopped wanting sex around 4 months preg because he felt it was weird.

I also have worsening pain behind my innie belly button. Like, it constantly feels tender and bruised so I wonder if it’s some kind of hernia developing. I might use K tape on it idk.

So I feel huge, unsexy, gross, uncomfortable, and miserable. I don’t give a shit when people say “it’s all worth it!” Because duh, I’m on this hell train whether I want to keep going or not. It doesn’t make it suck less.

Lastly I just know myself enough that one kid is all I mentally will be able to handle. But even if I could, pregnancy has been impossible to enjoy at any point and I may have considered another maybe if it wasn’t this much torture.

I just hit 6 months and my SIL announced she and her son were coming to visit us about a month ago. She was planning to drive in this weekend from 14 hours away to gift us baby supplies… to borrow and ship back to her. And she said “you can just drop it off at my house later if you don’t need it?” when i said logistically that’s not a good idea for me. 14 hours away is not an easy drop off.

There are so many nuances to this story but it basically devolved, I got upset she wouldn’t take no visitors right now as an answer and I sent her a text that said she was being disrespectful, rude and uncaring for insisting on visiting. She then texted “guess my vacation is canceled” to someone else in the family since I live near a tourist area.

Her family ( and Reddit ) think I was in the wrong for refusing her and her son’s vacation at my house, saying my high risk geriatric pregnancy doesn’t matter. The husband never wanted her to come either because he has to work this weekend anyway, and things need to be planned in advance for his time off. He just has issues sometimes with them overstepping his boundaries and getting railroaded into being a hotel for them.

Her parents in return called me broke for not hosting, rude for calling them out, and minimized my concerns about getting sick in pregnancy (since SIL is an icu nurse.)

I guess I don’t care if I’m an asshole here, but is this normal? Do other heavily pregnant women have no problem hosting in-laws from out of town and I’m just being unreasonable? I just hate the idea of meeting and entertaining her and her son while feeling so huge, and being so gross and uncomfortable. I struggle with anxiety and body image issues so I really wanted to invite in laws like 6 months after birth.

So my single mom nurse SIL invited herself over to my and my husband’s house to let us borrow baby supplies from her first pregnancy … on one condition: that I pay for shipping it all back to her when we are done using it for her theoretical future child she may have with a future man.

She wants to drive 14 hours this weekend one way with her 5 year old. I sent her and her mother a text that said they were being rude and disrespectful for not caring about my feelings on hosting them and that borrowing items cross country is not being generous to me. They then called my husband and screamed at him for “not having any balls” and said that I was broke and being rude. Not sure how refusing borrowing their items makes me broke, but okay.

Anyway, I don’t know if I’m in the wrong in this situation because they were kind to me before now with sending gift baskets in the mail. That was nice and I called and thanked them for that. I do feel guilty about this but I also haven’t had the TDAP vaccine and it’s coming up as long as I feel healthy. I told them that as well but they didn’t care.

Edit: adding the fact that they initially asked to come visit a few weeks ago and I said no, it’s a lot for me right now so husband politely declined for me but they called and yelled at him and guilted him into agreeing to let her come visit. I dropped it after all that but sent my nastygram today after my elevated blood pressure reading yesterday.

I’m 23 weeks now, and I just now am noticing a pattern of fluid retention in my fingers, ankles and toes. I’m 5ft tall, start weight 115 lbs and current weight 133 lbs.

I’m late 30s and high risk for pre eclampsia so they have had me on 81 mg aspirin since 12 weeks but my BP has been going up steadily. It started at 114/70 and at my 20 week appointment it was 126/80. I keep hearing it’s “good” and fine but I’m very out of breath all the time.

I know they won’t likely do anything unless it’s 140/80 + but just wondering if anyone else is experiencing this on this timeline.

Thanks!!

I’m having a c section sometime in August hopefully and I hired a doula through my insurance. I think I got a bad one, but what is your alls experience with them?

My doula has been pretty unresponsive and dismissive. She had me sign a contract saying I’m liable for $2K out of pocket if I don’t inform her of my birth and she misses out, but there’s no statement about exit for termination. So I figured she was reasonable and I could fire her at any time.

Sometimes she takes days to respond. And today I got fed up and was telling her some of my anxieties. She brushed me off saying “that’s rare, and you should just talk to a therapist.” That’s when I told her I’m done, this isn’t useful to me. I’m 21 weeks pregnant. I don’t feel supported.

She then said I’m liable for $2K out of pocket if I terminate the contract, and would only require $1K if she found a client to take my spot in August.

Why am I being treated like a cattle? Deliveries are sometimes not on time ANYWAY so ??? And then she said she only talks to clients after 27 weeks but that’s nowhere in her documentation anywhere.

I agreed to meet with her Monday and she can bill my insurance for that, but if it doesn’t go well, my insurance states that it’s a federal violation for providers to require more money from people beyond reimbursement for balance billing, REGARDLESS of anything they force people to sign (which is also considered against the rules).

Anyway it’s kind of insane a doula is trying to fear monger and financially exploit me into staying with her when she’s not helping me feel better about things. I can’t help but hate her now. 27 weeks???? Really??? Is that common for doulas to not be in regular contact until then? She didn’t clearly lay out the expectations of what support I’m getting and when.