I went for Baby C’s growth scan at KKH when I was about 29 weeks pregnant. At the scan, the sonographer confirmed my details and my estimated date of delivery (EDD). The EDD was a tricky question for me as like what I mentioned in my previous post, the last doctor who saw me said that Baby C’s size was normal for my EDD in end-Mar when all along, I have been told that my EDD would be in mid-Mar. I told the sonographer this and she mentioned that she will just take the last official EDD stated on my order form.
During the scan, the sonographer told us a few good news:
1. My placenta had shifted upwards and would no longer be considered low lying.
2. The level of amniotic fluid was also considered normal, neither too low or too high.
3. She also happily showed us that Baby C had turned head down already! Omg! Good job, our happy, cute Cloud!
While the sonographer said that Baby C seemed to be healthy based on the scan, she did, at one moment, asked if the doctor ever told me before that Baby C was small. When I replied in the affirmative and asked her if Baby C was still smaller than normal and whether I should be concerned, I sensed that she might have felt that she had overstepped her boundaries as a sonographer as she quickly dismissed this point and said Baby C was at a normal size. I think maybe only doctors are supposed to discuss patients’ conditions with them. I GUESS other healthcare professionals are not supposed to suggest anything which may result in patients asking more questions than what they could say. She did tell me (when I asked) Baby C was estimated to be about 1.3kg at week 29 and 4 days (29w4d), which Google said was in the normal range. Yay!
On our way out of the room, the sonographer passed us a copy of the report. Upon scrutinising the report, we noted that all three of Baby C’s measurements were below the 50th percentile for her gestational age. I cannot remember what the three measurements were but I guessed they were for the length, abdominal girth (random guess) and length of femur (the big leg bone). If I remembered correctly, two of these measurements were in fact, way below the 50th percentile. Perhaps, Baby C’s bones were heavy or that she might be a chubby, fat fat baby. Lol. What I did not understand was why, despite Baby C being lesser than 50th percentile for all three of the measurements, my EDD has been shifted forward by a day. I thought baby’s size was one of the main factors for determining one’s EDD… I asked Sunshine this question but he did not understand it as well and simply said that there would be other factors at play for determining the EDD. I made a mental note to ask the doctor this, as well as whether Baby C’s measurements meant I had to eat more to grow her when I see the doctor the following week. The report was eventually handed back to the receptionist who told me the doctor would explain the results of my scan to me at my next appointment.
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When I saw the doctor the following week, I felt that he was in a rush and perhaps, even lazy, the whole time! The health attendant wrote “Trace” and “N” on my slip of paper after I did my urine dipstick and when I asked him what it meant, he just simply said that it was normal and I had nothing to worry about since my blood pressure was in the normal range. He did however, tell his room assistant to change my results to reflect this “Trace” instead of the “normal” as stated in their system. Wth! If this was indeed normal, then why did he ask to change the results? I understand that some patients feel reassured to know that everything was normal and they prefer not to be over-loaded with too much information but I am not such a patient. I wanted to know what “Trace” meant and I specifically asked the doctor this but he just brushed me off/ placated me by telling me it was normal? The mention of blood pressure did hint to me something about pre-eclampsia? Seriously, rather than have me guess and worry too much based on the one or two keywords I picked up, I would very much prefer the doctor to explain what “Trace” meant, its linkage to blood pressure and the things I might have to watch out for though everything might be normal currently.
This stupid doctor also just told me that everything was normal with my scan. When I asked him about my wide, ever-fluctuating EDD, he again brushed me aside by saying that KKH would only take the first EDD estimated at the Dating Scan and would not alter it. Whatever la! I was not too bothered about the exact date as well since I know babies would generally not arrive on their EDD. Rather, I wanted to know WHY my EDD would be pushed back by as much as 2 weeks before, whether this meant Baby C was smaller in size (other mums-to-be due in Mar said that their EDD had been pushed forward to Feb as their babies were huge) and whether I need to do anything to grow her. My concern for Baby C’s size was also brought about by her lower-than-50th-percentile measurements and when I tried asking him to explain the ratios and their significance, he said those did not matter and that Baby C’s size was normal. Irritating! I was boiling then and I am still very irritated as I am typing this out. It was not that I was upset that Baby C was normal sized and I kept trying to insist that she was at a smaller size. I just wanted to understand more. If he had even bothered to explain a tiny bit and reassured me based on explanations and facts instead of just brushing me aside and just telling me everything is normal, I would have been more than happy to learn that Baby C was normal sized. Instead, I left feeling =.=” and absurd that I just wasted my time and money hearing him tell me everything was normal without any explanation, something which the sonographer had already told me the previous week. Idiot.
The lack of a continuty in care by different doctors made Sunshine and myself sick and tired of being subsidised patients. We did not feel that these doctors were doing their best to explain and reassure their patients and this was one of the main factors which pushed us to switch to being a private patient eventually.
