Pediatrician Interview

We're zooming along so it's time to figure out who will be looking after this kid during the extensive doctor visits and checkups that are ahead. Since we're giving birth in the birth center, we have to get a pediatrician lined up to do the first full-blown medical exam in the day or two after birth. The birth center does the normal delivery tests but does not do the day-after exam (although they do send a nurse to the house the day after the birth to check on recovery from birth).

I had gotten some recommendations and finally picked one to interview who was board-certified and relatively close to home. Happily, C's workplace of joy decided to send everyone home on a half-day on Friday (even if they didn't want to catch the free showing of The Da Vinci Code) so he was able to make the appointment, which was unanticipated and great.

There's nothing that makes me feel quite so much out of my depth than interviewing a pediatrician. There's not really a good way to ask questions about the doctor's philosophy of health care, vaccinations, circumcision, breastfeeding, antibiotics, etc. without asking leading questions. Happily, she volunteered a lot of that information so I didn't feel like she was just saying what would make me happy. She's got two young kids herself and she breastfed them (for more than six months), so both of those things make me comfortable. She also didn't blanch when the birth center was mentioned, so that upped her credibility with me.

The cool factor: her office-mate was a medical advisor for the X-Files and would review their scripts. How cool is that for your local pediatrician?

I have an appointment with another not-quite-so-highly recommended pediatrician, but I'm probably going to cancel at this point because we were both very comfortable and pleased with this one. June is filled with doctor visits: the prenatal checkups, the dentist, and the orthodontist, so I don't think I need to spend time on a doctor I would have to be just amazingly wowed to use. She would probably have to give away gold bricks to be better.

Other news: we went to get a Pack-n-Play last night after dinner and the one on display was a model year earlier than the other ones we'd been looking at. This means there were no snaps and straps to secure the changing table to the playpen, which gave us pause from a safety perspective. So now we're re-visiting the Pack-n-Play issue (again) this weekend because we want it to be safe but would hope that it wasn't hideous. This poor child is going to sleep in a cardboard box when we get it home - happily, we have those already.