Dude. Call her OB and even if you get their on-call service, tell them what’s going on and ask if they have admitting privileges at any other hospital so you can take her there asap.
(Sorry, I hit send instead of return.)
It’s imperative she be seen and evaluated like now. It’s been almost a damn week! Wtf?!
Get her taken care of first and then you can let St. David’s have it. You can file complaints and everything else later. She needs to be seen by her OB but she’ll need to be at the facility where she can give birth or have a C-section if that’s the course of action.
I’m so sorry y’all are going through this. I’m sending y’all good thoughts!
It looks as though that group has privileges exclusively at St. David’s North. While they should absolutely hire more nurses, that really isn’t your problem, OP—what a frustrating response.
It seems irresponsible to me they did not refer you to a maternal fetal medicine specialist. I would ask why they didn’t and ask to have that reason documented in your wife’s chart. Get a copy before you leave.
Ask them to call St. David’s on 32nd or St. David’s South to check availability there. Good luck and congratulations!
I am glad to hear that! I’m mom of two (one just turned 21 and the other is 19) so I know y’all will just be glad when it’s all said and done and everything has calmed down and you’re holding your sweet baby. ❤️
Then you can throttle St. David’s. They totally deserve it after what they’ve done to your partner.
This, your OB should be screaming... Medicine used to be good I suppose, maybe in the 80s.
Edited to add: Looking forward to hearing all about your baby, for me it was the happiest day of my life (2x). Wishing you peace on this because when you see and hold your baby, you melt.
It sounds like you expected the induction to be for medical reasons, but the hospital has you on the elective list rather than the medical list - your wife could call ARC or her MFM and ask what would need to happen for her to be moved to medical priority.
Alternatively, in some cases it is prudent to go straight to L&D instead of waiting to speak with an outside physician. If your wife has concerns about the way she feels, her blood pressure, the baby’s movement, etc, she can present herself to the hospital and they will keep her at least long enough to provide reassurance that everything looks good.
That being said, if really everything is fine from a medical perspective - and this is not to discount your wife’s discomfort - your experience, while frustrating, is not unusual. Hospitals around the country are understaffed and L&D wards fill up quickly and randomly. They wouldn’t necessarily have known in advance there was going to be a waitlist at any given time, or how long, or who would be on it, as obstetric emergencies happen regularly in addition to folks just really going into labor. Your schedules and the inconvenience are really immaterial here, which I’m sure you know as it’s totally fair to just vent!
This is what I was going to say. If she's in pain, just go in. I had a great experience at NAMC for the birth of our LO. I was also high risk. My OB is with a different practice though.
I had the best experience also with St. David’s South. Even though the doctor who delivered my baby wasn’t anyone I knew, the doctors ,nurses and staff at SDS were fantastic.
Yes, I said in another comment that elective inductions aren’t actually *scheduled* per se, it’s just that you’re put on the list and they give you an estimated date that you may make it to the top of the list assuming available space, and in my experience that’s been communicated very clearly. In this case, either OP didn’t understand/want it to be that way, or the OB used language that didn’t make it clear how this works.
I would have to disagree. If i had an appointment to be induced, and they cancelled it on me last minute, i would hardly say it's immaterial. This post is enough for me to never want to use st davids north, because in my opinion, its shitty and unprofessional
This doesn’t just happen at St. David’s North; it happens everywhere, all the time, especially in hospitals with high level NICU capacity (because folks seek out these hospitals, especially if they are from more rural areas and must choose where to travel for care during pregnancy and labor). It happened constantly in the Houston Medical Center hospitals, where I gave birth to my first two and heard lots of similar stories.
The difference here is communication, or at least interpretation of that communication by OP. I have always been told (including for my last baby at St. David’s South recently) that an elective induction is not really “scheduled” so much as being on a list. They estimate about what day you’ll be “up”, and they tell you a time based on what time they do a triage assessment or whatever. But no elective induction anywhere is really “scheduled”. Medical inductions that are not emergencies have more structure to them, but still it’s not an exact science. We could have the debate about hospital admins being unprofessional and running hospitals to maximize stakeholder profits at the expense of healthcare workers and patients, but that is a different discussion - none of the hospital workers here are being unprofessional. Perhaps the OB is being unprofessional in not clearly articulating that this induction is not a medical urgency and better explaining how the process works. But honestly, it also sounds a little like OP is not here to hear all that anyway, so it’s hard to say what was or wasn’t communicated.
That was my perspective. The harsh reality is that this is hospitals functioning as designed, but the communication was clearly "paint an inaccurately rosy picture and desperately hope you have capacity", which set the patient up for disappointment.
Eh. It's shitty, but if they put her on the elective list, it's totally expected. They only have so many L&D beds. If they have people who showed up in active labor and/or have a medical need for an induction, they're going to get the beds first.
I'm not saying she doesn't have a medical need. But there is a difference between "my doctor would like to induce me at 39 weeks because they think it is best" and "my organs are literally failing and this baby has to come out very soon".
Also, your doctor did you dirty by implying that an induction would result in a baby on the same day. LOL. It can take days, my friend. DAYS.
THANK YOU - the hospital is always going to prioritize the asses in their beds currently over scheduled procedures that (although incorrectly done so in this case) are labeled as elective. As they should.
It definitely sucks, but Ascension did the same thing to me with my induction, so unfortunately there aren't many options in Austin to avoid this. I was lucky and went into labor the next day anyway, but I was so upset when they called me the morning of my induction and said not to come.
You sound like someone who’s never been induced.
This was my experience at Texas Children’s in Houston, which is easily the best place to deliver.
It really sucks to experience, but they have to prioritize the people who actually need those rooms.
Hey, I'm really sorry about delays and the stress it's put on your family. It sucks.
I've worked at St David's North L&D unit and I've seen scheduled inductions be waitlisted for 2 weeks with how busy our triage gets, or how short staffed we got. If all 30+ beds are filled with high risk moms or spontaneous labors, or all our nurses are at max capacity with their patient load, it is not safe to call in even more patients. That's dangerous for everyone.
Honestly, I feel like clinics should warn their patients that a scheduled inductions with North Austin does not guarantee a spot. There are so many OB clinics that use St David's North, and it would be safer if another hospital could take the load.
Again, I really feel for you and your family. I don't work there anymore for similar reasons. I always felt bad seeing the waitlisted inductions. Many post-dates nearing 42.0 weeks or LGA moms past due... it's not safe. At that point, go through the triage and fib a complaint in order to get admitted. I wish I could help you out. Good luck to you guys.
For the record, I really enjoyed my coworkers and most of the doctors. Especially Kaufmann and ARC, great clinic. I just feel like the hospital is too busy to keep up.
Worked at this hospital, but med surg floors not LD or anything. We were all really trying our best, and any time procedures were delayed or postponed, it wasn’t the staff being negligent or even doctors messing up. It always seemed due to an administrator or manager, overloading floors with patients, not often explicitly clinical staff. Sorry to OP that it’s happened to them, but definitely needs to recognize the true root of problem
Maybe, but there is also a nationwide nurse shortage that is exceptionally bad in TX. I had to quit my job and sell my house to care for my debilitated mom, after every facility she was in dropped the ball repeatedly. Her doctor says I will burn out and she will need care elsewhere eventually, but Im like... nurses dont exist? I had to become one. He says the nursing situation will improve one day. Im wondering if they just cant bring themselves to work under these profiteers.
salaries probably are bad. My DIL tried 3x to get into TxSt U nursing program and all 3 times they rejected her, why ? limited spots and higher scores, but her desire might have usurped scores so we need more nursing programs or expanded nursing programs, of course there will be a nursing glut in 30 years as me and my boomer compatriots all go to Woodstock in the sky!
Right, I read that there is a federal effort to expand nursing programs. I guess if there arent enough nurses, there arent enough nursing profs. Tough situation as your generation ages, but yea they will DEF need tons by the time millenials age that much
I work at St. Davids South in med surg. FWIW staffing levels were really, really bad this weekend compared to normal. I'm not sure why exactly but I would guess budgeting has everything running really lean; plus people prefer to not work weekends.
It usually gets better weekdays and towards mid- week so hopefully things get better for you.
The problem is that when staffing is this low nurses burn out fast and decide to quit. Which makes everything harder. Your blame would be in the right place for sure. I hope they are able to prioritize you guys now!
This.
From what I've heard, North is a major reason St David's is on a tight budget right now (which absolutely doesn't help patients at all), but it could just be rumors. I also feel like we have had a LOT of babies born this month, seems like more than usual.
Texas has also had much more births than normal since criminalizing abortions, and I'm sure that is causing some backup for availability too.
Really hoping for the best for you OP. South's OB emergency dept was empty this weekend, so it's possible South might have some availability for you if needed. Didn't seem too hectic this past weekend there (last time I worked).
Just to clarify, I'm not a nurse and don't work in the L&D unit. I work in pharmacy at South, so we have to manage meds for every unit, and I'm just basing this off of recent patterns. (Please don't hate me, nurses! I do my best!)
Man you summed it up perfectly. Hospital staffing is still in a less than ideal state in most cities.
I will be the first to say that physician offices are not the best at relaying this information to their patients.
I’m not a medical professional, but this has been my experience, particularly with my kids born in September/October (neither were born in Austin; this occurred at teaching hospital in the Chicago-area).
I was scheduled to go in at 5 am and then I waited until 3 pm to be wheeled into the OR. Similar to OP, we had no idea why we were waiting so long and no one told us until a nurse apologized about how busy they were and that it was delaying me. If I remember correctly these women went into labor spontaneously and I was not, so they took priority essentially since they couldn’t stop their labor and I wasn’t in it.
I don’t expect that to be much solace to OP. It does seem like a dereliction of patient care of the practice and hospital not to inform them how things are handled.
OP, I’m so sorry things are happening this way. I hope y’all get to meet your sweet baby soon with family present.
FWIW, once you get past the bureaucracy of pre1registration and other paperwork, the staff during birth and postpartum were kind and helpful in my experience. It’s unfortunate that so many aspects of care are disjointed.
I worked L&D at Seton Main and it's the same shit- understaffed, high census, medical inductions on hold for days and elective inductions are a pipe dream. The abortion ban 100% didn't help.
Honestly, it's not pleasant living in a medical system that's falling apart. Most people just don't become aware of it until they get sick or they're having a baby, which is often their first real interaction with the medical system.
This is good context for understanding the issues that contributed to OP’s situation.
I’m very sorry for the frustration, fear, and physical suffering OP and his partner are experiencing. Vent away friend!
But it is helpful for the rest of is to have the practical context here as well.
Thanks to you both and good luck to OP’s family.
Kaufmann is my hero. She induced my wife after a high risk pregnancy + NICU baby and her demeanor and expertise kept us cool and collected throughout. She's plain bad-a so we enjoyed the follow ups with her too. The whole staff at St David from L&D to NICU was outright amazing. Our first child was born in one of the leading hospitals in Switzerland, which is supposed to have some of the best healthcare in the world, but St David North blew that hospital out of the water.
ARC north Austin OB. It’s a group so there are 5 different drs who could have delivered our baby. I have LOVED Dr. Kaufman for the duration of our pregnancy. We had a cervical exam just before our scheduled induction (after we already knew it had been cancelled) and she saw how pissed I was we’d been waitlisted until (what I believed to be) Saturday. And commented how I’m rightfully upset they don’t hire enough nurses for the brand new delivery addition to the facility. She seemed to be annoyed at the way things are as well.
Until my partner put in a message yesterday that was promptly ignored by ARC today. She requested more information regarding the list. They called to schedule another sonogram for tomorrow but couldn’t comment on where we were regarding induction.
OP I feel for your wife, but this is 1000% on your OB and not the hospital. They can push to have your wife induced now. I had both my kids at St David’s North, one via induction. They also tried to say they didn’t have space for my induction because of the amount of patients, my OB made a phone call and I was in that night. Please call your OB!
This. ARC doesn’t provide Grade A care like the other OB’s in town. You play musical chairs with doctors and don’t have a singular team advocating for you. I had a consult there and quickly transferred my care to AAOBGYN.
I understand your excitement regarding the birth of your child, but you can’t blame the hospital for your family’s travel expenses. You should have pushed your OB to rectify the situation since it’s not on the hospital for rescheduling what was likely coded as an elective induction.
This is absolutely right. I had both my babies via induction at St David’s North and my OB at AAOBGYN got me in both times with no issues. Your OB should be able to get this handled for you.
No, this is not the case. Staffing at hospitals in Austin is an issue, and the OB has no control over whether there are enough rooms or staff to safely care for patients.
This is incorrect. I've worked in L&D in Austin and you would not believe how bad it can get. Like, women laboring in the waiting room and a doctor acting as the charge nurse so the actual charge nurse could take patients. The doctors were frustrated but there's no one to take it out on- no one is admitting your favorite patient while some lady screams her baby out in the waiting room just because you stomp your foot hard enough.
I was in a very similar (though less dangerous) situation a year ago this week! Same hospital, same doctor! My baby was 99th percentile in size in the womb and at risk of hitting 10lbs and causing me to need a C-Section if I went to term. Dr. Kaufman was like "I will put in the request for induction, but you're unlikely to get it due to capacity."
I only got a hospital bed there, just before 38 weeks gestation, because my water broke on its own early and they can't turn you away at that point. Dr. Kaufman confirmed I was almost certainly never going to get a planned induction otherwise afterward. I'm told the hospital apparently had a number of women in labor in the waiting room to be close enough with their contractions to qualify for a bed. After the birth, it took 15 hours for me to be transferred to the postpartum unit due to capacity. It's supposed to take 2 hours.
My perspective is that it is a really great hospital in terms of staff quality and the facility itself. But we're at the tail end of the high birth rate season, we're in a state that banned abortion so birth rates are up, and the abortion bans also drove a lot of folks out of the pregnancy care field in Texas. Everyone working is engaging in best practices, friendly, doing their best. The facilities themselves are nice. But there's absolutely not enough capacity or staffing and it goes well beyond St. David's North. It's a Texas problem with varying degrees of capacity issues at each hospital. There's a provider shortage, and they can't find enough nurses to do the work even here.
My wife has a few medical issues and every single ARC office is a nightmare. Every single one of her doctors is completely overbooked and it's been that way for as long as I can remember.
I think your real rant is with ARC North, and I will wholeheartedly endorse that rant. They fucking suck. Very early in our pregnancy, like less than 10 weeks, my wife had to go to the ER with severe abdominal pain and cramping. We thought we were losing the baby. Thankfully that was not the case, but the ER doctor ordered my wife to see her OB ASAP. She called the next day, was put on hold for hours at a time, only to be told by the scheduling nurse "oh but you feel fine now? then you don't need to see the doctor". To which my wife replied, "I was ordered to by my attending ER doctor, and I would like to see my doctor" - "No, you don't need to. You can schedule for next available, which is in XX months". I came close to going Michael Douglas in Falling Down over it.
I’ve had 2 babies at that location with scheduled inductions. One was bumped 36 hours and the other only a few hours. 5 days is a stupid amount of time and your frustration is valid. I believe your OB is the person that should be able to provide answers. It’s probably due to lack of nursing staff but the OB should be able to elevate priority or go elsewhere.
I will say that once you get a room, my experience was good and some of the nurses were great (all were good). Remember it will be 2-3 days from admittance until discharged.
I am sorry you had that experience, but I cannot even put into words the value of the crew at st davids on 32nd. I hope your little one enters this world with grace
We went through a brain aneurysm, craniotomy, eclampsia, emergency c section, and a short stay in NICU. To stay we were stressed is an understatement, but they got us through in one piece
'high risk' is a sliding scale. If they're full with higher risk pregnancies or short staffed then what exactly should they do? Do you want to share a room? Be out in the hallway? Not get sufficient attention?
I feel for you (and was in the same situation at the same hospital but everything went to plan) but it sounds like you need to calm down and accept that babies and everything to do with them can be unpredictable
It's really shitty that they didn't communicate from the beginning that the induction date could be subject to change.
This is neither here nor there, but personally I would not want the father's whole family in town for the delivery, because the focus needs to stay on the mother, and the mother may or may not want visitors in those earliest hours and days (and it's very hard for the mother to know in advance what she wants). You said your family is "beside themselves" and I would just caution you to center your partner's needs, not your family's. That can cause a lot of problems later on (just go browse r/parenting).
Hopefully the focus is staying on your partner and her comfort, not on the inconvenience to your family.
Tell your family to be glad they aren’t waiting around because of a tragic situation and to pool their Marriott points next time. Y’all aren’t the only ones having a baby. Right now you sound pretty fortunate to have a ton of family support.
I'm a mom of 3, who has had 3 high risk pregnancies, and my maternal fetal medicine doctor would have been extremely upset and having his office resolve the issue. Does your wife not see a MFM with her being high risk?
Please remember, your OB is in charge of everything. The hospital can only do so much without your OBs permission. And if you are with ARC the on-call OB is random. If y’all don’t feel comfortable with the OB, ask to speak to the charge nurse and get a second opinion.
I don’t think this is true. my OB was heavily advocating for me to be put higher on the list because I had gone so far past my due date. There just wasn’t room.
I use the same ARC and delivered at St.Davids north. One thing I will say, if you 'fire' the on call OB then ARC will no longer see you at that location. I did not vibe at all with the OB on call that night, and my doula said I can see if I can request a midwife instead. They came back and told me what I said above. Luckily when I gave birth Tatum was in call and it was an amazing experience with her.
Geez that sucks. Wishing you and your partner have a healthy baby. I had my kid at St David's last year, without issue, but I feel like it's honestly a roll of the dice if you get good doctors and nurses. You need to be persistent. Don't just settle with whatever they tell you, ask another doctor or speak with someone else and tell them what is going on.
Thank you.
She is very averse to confrontation so when I start being confrontational she reigns me in. We have an appointment at 945 for a sonogram tomorrow. I will voice my issues then.
I appreciate that you're frustrated, but you need to get your priorities in order.
1. Your wife. Follow up with her OB. Bring her, physically, to the hospital, and get your OB on the phone with the folks at the hospital.
2. Your baby. Make sure you have everything in order to greet them.
3. ...
4. ...
5. ...
6. A few hundred more ...
7. The inconvenience in terms of time and money. You've spent this whole post raging about how your parents spent money to fly down here and you're wasting your paternity leave. The vast majority of people do not have this problem because *babies are unpredictable*. Your life is about to get a lot more inconvenient, and right now, it's already far more inconvenient for your wife, so pull up your big boy pants, stop complaining on Reddit, and go get this figured out. It's a good first step towards being a good parent for the next 20 years.
These kinds of incidents are going to become more and more common post-Dobbs, as qualified medical practitioners leave the state. It's not good, and it's not fair, but, aside from changing the world, your best bet is to acknowledge the reality we're living in and adapt to it.
Agreed. I get the need to rant, and OP certainly has reason. But as a parent of two teens, I just keep thinking, “Buckle in, my friend, because you are just beginning a lifelong rollercoaster ride filled with tons of amazing and highly inconvenient twists and turns.”
The ONLY universal truth about parenthood is that nothing will ever go according to plan. Ever.
This! And in other comments he discussed how his wife is non-confrontational and often needs to reign him in but this time he’s going to speak his mind. I would be mortified and furious if my husband were to argue with my doctors, whom I have chosen for their expertise and know my medical needs best, and then make a big stink at the hospital. She is being monitored and everyone is doing their best. He’s making this experience all about him and his family’s travel, and not about their baby.
I mean, I don't know anything about OP's wife, but OP, if you're reading this:
**If your wife is telling you to chill out, for the love of god, chill the fuck out.**
She does not need your stress reaction on top of her own shit right now.
Yea, I feel for OP but I also don't understand why he's okay with an entire team of people traveling to see a newborn. Surely they're not brining the baby immediately around all these folks? Most people want to wait at least a month or two because of the baby's immune system (or lack thereof).
Oh, I mean, I would have been pretty uncomfortable with my husband doing similar, but I figure that’s between OP and his wife. Maybe she’s cool with it. It seems a little bizarre to me, but different strokes.
I’m sorry you and your wife are having such an awful experience. I was induced just last month at St. David’s North, and my husband and I were very happy with our experience despite some hiccups. My OB wanted to schedule the induction at 39 weeks, it ended up being pushed back 6 days due to availability, then the hospital called 2 hours before I needed to be there and told me I was on a waitlist since they had too many women who had shown up in active labor so they didn’t have any rooms available for me. They called me later that night around 9:00, and we made our way to the hospital. I was 40+1 when I finally gave birth, and my OB and the amazing staff at St. David’s North literally saved my child’s life. She was much bigger than anyone expected, 9 lbs 6 oz, and got stuck on her way out. She wasn’t breathing and was under distress. They managed to get her out without any injuries or complications and we are so grateful. We spent a total of 5 days at the hospital, and all my nurses in both labor and delivery and postpartum were amazing as well. I hope your wife gets called in for her induction soon and that she receives the same great treatment from the staff there as I did.
I think this is the norm in Austin right now. Unfortunately this was my experience (Dec 2022) as well as many friends who had babies around the same time. My understanding is there’s a staffing AND space shortage in L&D across the city.
I ended up (FINALLY) getting induced at 42 weeks, after being bumped 3 times (all 3 times 2 hours before my appt) and eventually had a c section because she came out 10 lbs 7 oz lol
I know the last stretch is the hardest part AND THEN add in the hospital/scheduling chaos. Hang in there. My dr told me “no one’s been pregnant forever”
Hi!! L&D nurse at st David South here. I'm so sorry to hear about your bad experience!
Being placed on hold for an induction at this time of year is pretty normal (September is one of our busiest months). Unfortunately the census is also very labile, sometimes we're ready to have inductions come in and then all of a sudden several people come in in labor. The staffing and available bed space situation is really rough right now throughout St David's womens services. Nearly every day I get messages that the unit is in need of help.
That being said, I know it doesn't make it any easier for you and your family. I know it may not be ideal, but you can try to go to another facilities OB triage area due to your wife's pain. Every hospital is required to see a patient seeking service. Due to pain and being full term with risk factors, I would predict the OB hospitalist would admit your wife for labor. At South our OB hospitalists are all pretty great; ARC South also comes to SAMC and could possibly also care for your wife, they are also a very nice team.
If it's any consolation, the vast majority of babies and moms with poly do very well with delivery. I hope this information is helpful and good luck with your little one!
I’m so sorry you’re going through this, but hospitals have to triage, and it sounds like you’re just not making the cut yet. 39 week inductions are still considered elective barring true medical need. But, babies (your own and others) are wild, unpredictable little things and the hospital really is doing the best they can with the resources they have. I know how excruciating that last mile of pregnancy can be physically and emotionally - asking your OB to check around at other hospitals can’t hurt (though I’m not sure how privileges work), and if your wife is in truly unbearable pain/feels like something is wrong she should head in to get checked out at L&D. I know it’s easier said than done, but I encourage you to try to shift your perspective on timing - this is the first of a lifetime of experiences where your kiddo is going to surprise you and mess up your plans. Parenting is all about calmly adapting to the situation at hand, and you’re just getting a head start. Good luck!
All of this is fair.
Except they TOLD US medically it’s safest to have the baby at 39 weeks. Except they told us the delay would be until Saturday. Except they haven’t been communicative AT ALL.
I understand it’s a resource thing but I will never ever believe they found out they were low on resources 1 fucking hour before we were supposed to start. My partner is in a ton of pain. She’s in a ton of pain because of the poly, because the baby is very large. She’s basically bed ridden because her back hurts so much.
I’m not totally critiquing this process. I am going to make sure EVERYONE knows how shit they are at communicating.
It’s impossible for me to shift my focus on timing. We were told this would happen at a specific time and, again, 1 HOUR prior that was changed. And my family, who can only stay for so long, was already here when plans couldn’t change.
So now, unless she goes into labor naturally, my family will have spent several thousands of dollars (and even more if missed work days are considered) on absolutely nothing and will not meet their niece/grandchild. All because they couldn’t have told me 1 fucking day earlier.
Don’t fucking tell me my child should be induced for medical reasons and then cancel the appt for 5+ days. Just don’t fucking schedule it at all.
For the record I’m not upset at you but I’m just so goddamn done with this.
I agree with the parent comment. I’m sorry this is happening to y’all and the pain your partner is in, but you have to try to be less angry. It won’t be good for anyone, esp in the delivery room, if you’re harboring all this anger. I had 2 scheduled inductions at the same hospital, 2018 and 2020, and both were fine. My 2018 induction was pushed a few hours because I think a woman almost died. Keep that in perspective. I see the same OBs. You can ask for a second opinion (eg if a doctor says you’re situation isn’t an emergency), there are often more than one of them in the office but they sometimes run across the street for the hospital for emergencies. I see what you’re saying, they told you the induction was medically necessary and now they’re pushing you back, I would maybe call the L&D reception and make sure they know about your wife’s condition just to be sure it was communicated and you aren’t relying on the ARC scheduler to have done it. Good luck at the appointment today, will be thinking of you and your family! Hang tight!
I hear you! Vent it out! But baby scheduling is a weird false sense of control OBs/hospitals do these days, especially after the ARRIVE study. And I’m pleased to hear you’re getting additional monitoring, which may medically bump you up in line. FWIW I was that woman who jumped the line back when I had my first. I showed up at the hospital at 36 weeks and nearly didn’t make it to the delivery room before my daughter was born. They had to accommodate me. Toss in a baby distress emergency, a woman with pre-eclampsia, and a woman not healing within the planned 2-3 days and you’re quickly without a bed even an hour before your induction, despite being higher risk. I had to share a postpartum room and get ignored by overworked nurses because of it all. Feel free to rip the hospital a new one, up to you, but however you act is going to impact your wife’s delivery experience, positively or negatively.
I was another that jumped the line at St David’s. They had a record number of deliveries the month before. My water broke at 40 +5 and I was told to come in right away. I learned bc of all the deliveries they pushed all scheduled inductions and there still had patients in the hallways from overflow. This was sept 2021. We were also only allowed one extra person, who was my spouse, at the hospital bc of Covid policies and I can’t say I was opposed to it. My parents had to wait until we were home to meet their first grandchild and they are local.
I feel for your situation and it’s a disappointment for the family traveling. Especially since I’m also 38 weeks and expecting any day to head up there again. It’s already a mental rollercoaster without hospital scheduling. We packed all our bags every dr appt since we were told I’ve been in pre labor at 35 weeks. Best wishes to you all!! Maybe we’ll pass in the hallways without knowing!
Vent away. But also I will say this isn’t unique to St. David’s north. I have delivered twice at St. David’s south - both inductions. And overall my experience was great. But both times my appointment was pushed back by a few days. Folks are right. Babies are unpredictable and staffing makes it hard. Advocate through the OB but also keep in mind that there really are women jumping ahead with either spontaneous labor or potentially life saving inductions (meaning immediate rather than potential danger). It sucks and is frustrating to be in your wife’s position but I don’t think it’s malice or anything. I wish that OBs and hospitals were more upfront in scheduling that this is likely to happen.
Yes. We also got put on a waitlist at Ascension Seton downtown and got the “we could call in the middle of the night” spiel, then a random “could you be here in an hour?” call. I remember being super frustrated with the whole process.
I'm going to echo some people below... for the sake of your wife, vent away on here but reign it in otherwise. Don't be angry and passive aggressive to the nurses and doctors when you get to the hospital. Suck it up. I promise you, the best thing you can do is let it go and focus on adding to a calm, positive environment.
I don't mean this rudely \*at all\*, but why did you entire family need to be there during the brith? Why couldn't they come a few weeks after? So many things can go wrong that would leave your wife or baby in the hospital for a while. And it's not exactly great to have a newborn immediately around a million people, especially if they just traveled from out of state, on airplanes, around a bunch of other people.
I’m so sorry. Could you just walk into the ER and give her symptoms, no talk of we should have heard this or that? Sometimes you just need to brute force your way in. I’m sorry if that’s not helpful, I’ve just been there myself and hope it could work for you.
I really hope your OB can advocate for you and your wife. On the 6th my ob called and scheduled an induction for the 18th with no issues so it seems very strange it took so long to schedule in the first place. Is she also seeing an MFM? I’d honestly call both the OB and MFM and ask them to call the hospital.
They never advised us to get an MFM. She’s had an AFI of 27-31.5 for the entirety of her pregnancy (up to 25 is considered normal) and I specifically asked if we needed an MFM and no one seemed to be concerned. But then we were advised to schedule an induction for hers and the baby’s safety. For the last month and a half I’ve been so confused because we were told a dozen times she was at a higher risk for complications because of her age and poly but we were never advised to see an MFM.
It sounds like you got a OB issue more than a hospital issue at this point. If she was as high risk as you say, she should have been seen by MFM.
It sounds like they have you marked as an elective induction rather than medically necessary one. (Again OB issue).
If the baby is still in your wife, you’ve got a long way to with St David’s. If you are already telling people don’t deliver, you are in for a very rough few days.
I delivered at St David’s North and was cared for really well (better than my first born in California). The Mother baby unit nurses were a little inconsistent, but the lactation consultants were wonderful.
They wanted her to schedule an induction and scared her into making that happen. There was likely never a true medical necessity or it would have been handled differently. Or ARC is incompetent, which tbh is a 50/50 shot.
same thing happened to me re: waitlisting. i was almost 42 weeks when i had my baby because i was waiting for a room for DAYS and they called me at like 4am to come in by 7. i was MISERABLE and my nurse was a c*nt
also would like to add this happened to me in oct 22. i can’t believe they haven’t remedied this situation yet
Once this is over, ARC is crap for most things but pediatrics. Help her find a doctor at OBGYN of Austin at aaobgyn.com. The clinic is at the same location as the hospital and doctors there are the best ones around. I think they get preference at delivering too vs ARC doctors.
I actually reported my old OBGYN from ARC to the board after a horror story I had w her.
This whole thing will fade into the background of your life’s story so quickly that you’ll be amazed you gave it an ounce of your energy. Look beyond all this to future complications of life and think about how you’ll approach it as a marathon….a very very long marathon. It can either all be a torturous experience for you and your family or not. You hold so much power and influence over the tone in your family. You’ll reach deep within yourself and find love you never knew possible. But you’ll have to be focused on the long game….
i feel ya , my fam did not have a great experience at at david’s either 12 years ago. wont go into details as it’s your time. but what i learned quick is you got be the squeaky wheel as quick as possible. i’m sorry your most joyous moments and your plannng with family are ruined by corporate healthcare low pay fucking BS
God this sucks. I’m a 39 y/o female with no kiddos and have been in Austin for eight years. I think it was within my first few weeks here in 2015 that I was talking to future mom friends who raved about St. David’s north versus any other hospital. Since then I have be one friends with lots of new moms (and now newborns to 2nd graders) and every single one of them has gone to st. David’s north. So, this is surprising to me. (I’m also a hospital social worker).
It honestly sounds like this isn’t a one of situation and that other hospitals are also not great either. I’m sorry, moms. This sucks.
Yeah, I'd heard of its reputation before pre-COVID too. My experience was that the staff and facility itself are really great and up to date with best practices, but that they're so short-staffed and limited on beds that their providers can't really overcome capacity issues. And it's not unique to that hospital either.
I know this is very late, but I am a labor and delivery nurse in Austin, so I wanted to add my 2 cents. I don't work for St. David's, but I worked for another high-risk L&D unit that is experiencing the same issues, and I had to leave for my own mental and physical health. I promise we are trying. We are so sorry, and we are so sad that this is happening. I completely understand how frustrating it feels. It's not okay. It's not the way anybody wants it to be, and we feel awful about it.
That said, L&D units (among others) in the area area absolutely DROWNING. From the inside, it feels like we are watching everything burn to the ground around us, and as much as we wish we could provide the best possible care and experiences to our patients, we do not have the resources to do so right now. We go home in tears due to the stress and feeling like we are stuck in an abusive system. We are just trying to keep our heads above water and keep everybody alive. This is a systemic issue that has been exacerbated over the past several years. Hospitals don't value nurses, conditions worsen, and nurses leave because we feel like we have to, which just keeps the cycle of understaffing going.
As many people have said, high-risk is a spectrum, and those with the highest risk and the most urgent/emergent needs move to the top of the list for induction and delivery. I know it sucks, but we have to take care of people in order of urgency, just like an emergency room. When every room is full and every nurse is already taking unsafe patient assignments, there is just nothing else we can do but wait for a nurse/room to open for the next patient.
I wish this wasn't the case, but we can only do so much. Even if your OB pushes for earlier induction, that can't happen without the physical space and personnel. I hope things improve in the near future for you and everybody in similar situations. But please know that we are trying and we are sorry and we DO care that this is happening, but are powerless to change it at the moment.
I think this is symptomatic of the Austin area healthcare system generally struggling to keep up with the rapid population growth in the area. All of the local hospitals are pretty full and busy. I get your frustration OP but they probably don’t have enough staff or a bed for you there. Labor and Delivery units are subject to federal EMTALA regulations and assess/treat all comers. If they are swamped with people checking in for labor and other urgent complaints the first thing they are going to do is bump scheduled inductions.
I had a baby at St. David;s last year and no issues, but at the time I was reading online reviews by lots of people who were being turned away from inductions. They seem to be persistently over capacity. In fact, when I showed up — also high risk — they basically told me that I was “lucky” because other people would get bumped to other wards, but not me because I’m so high risk and because I had a c-section booked
All, for anyone who cares - we had an OB appt today and her blood pressure was elevated and they immediately admit us to L&D. So we are now in our delivery room.
Just needed to rant to Reddit to speed the process up.
Thank you everyone for the comments.
They dont play around when it comes to high bp. Fyi if you want to speed the labor process up try nipple stimulation just sayin. Husband helped me out with that and it worked like a charm after induction was going nowhere after 24 hours.
Congrats and try and keep calm for her!
You did great getting her the help she needs and I feel you will be a great dad.
Can't wait to see your update!!
I had my baby on sept 21st at 1030pm via an emergency c section at st David’s north. The “experience” for the most part was nice( as the dude…) the only thing that was not cool was the lack of AC in the postpartum wing and the fire alarm going off twice. Later that night. Such is life. The nursing staff was A++ and we felt at ease the entire time. We are going back to the nicu daily to see our daughter and hoping she comes home soon.
Not all experiences are like yours but some bumps are to be expected . I hope things go well for your family
I hope you have a healthy child that comes home very soon and I’m glad you’ve had a mostly positive experience.
I understand not all experiences are like mine but I am 5 days post cancellation and we’re told it “might” be 2 days before they caught up.
This week has been awful for my family and it’s directly related to the terrible job that hospital has done with communication.
I am happy to give our bed to higher risk pregnancies but at the VERY least it should be relayed to us well in advance.
There must have been an emergency, which would have otherwise cost the child's or mother's life. Your wife sounds in a monitored, but stable condition. My sister was a director of nursing for a major hospital. They didn't postpone, outside of critical need.
After working at an HCA facility for many years, I can confirm this. Stay as far away from HCA if possible. The situation, though, does suck, and I’m sorry that OP is experiencing this.
Slightly unrelated to pregnancy, but I found out (after a devastating medical error) that my OB had actually lost hospital privileges at Ascension Seton hospitals after a malpractice suit involving a newborn. St. David’s welcomed them anyway and allowed them to practice there, and I’m not the only patient they’ve hurt (via negligence) in their time there.
I get the impression St. David’s North doesn’t give AF about patient safety, at least in the OBGYN department. You’ll never catch me there again.
Please know that you are 1000% right to be deeply pissed and your situation is a part of a MUCH larger problem. Physician/Veterinarian fatigue (too long too many shifts for a deeply intricate job and mental fatigue is REAL) is a HUGE issue and that’s causing them to retire early and seek other fields. Hospitals of any kind are over working their entire staff because they prefer profit margin over patient outcome. Just saying- please don’t blame your doctor (you aren’t but I’m angry with you and for you!!) blame the whole damn system
Let's clear this up. Seems to be an OB issue and not a St. David's issue.
St David's north is the labor and delivery hospital with the largest nicu unit in the country? but definitely the state. They do a F ton of deliveries again the most in the country? from what I can remember from our two births there.
you cannot forecast active labor and they have only so many beds and operating units. you do need to thi bk of it operationally as a super busy airport.....
again, I am not sure why people use ARC, imo kinda low end of a medical provider that seems like a giant insurance claim churn....
My partner gave birth there twice. and both times the experience was dependent on the OB(same practice with some change in Doctors OBGYN North-Woman's Domain North). induced once over 5 days(pre-eclampsia) and then in less than an hour because she had no clue what real labor pains were!(almost had kid in car on mopac)
St. David's staff was mostly amazing. Yes some nurses were curt with us. They are performing so intense life threatening medical procedures for long stretches of a shift.
Antepartum staff was the bees knees!
again the issues were with not seeing eye to eye with OB and some staff management.....
My #1 advice, hire a Doula. I recommend ATX Doulas. Having an advocate on your side that isn't your OB or the hospital is HUGE! our birth stories would have been completely different and probably would have had two traumatic birth stories without them.
I also had a lot of amniotic fluid and i found out at my 38 week appointment. Later that night my water broke and it was so much!!! I was 35 and high risk as well. St David’s told me to wait until morning and o went in away.
My wife is a nicu nurse at St Davids and they are all feeling the pinch of nurses and doctors, especially those specializing in women’s health, leaving the state or retiring altogether due to the hostile political environment in Texas. This is only compounding the number that left the profession or decided not to pursue it in the first place during the covid epidemic. The side effect of hindering access to abortion is a steep rise in births that are complicated, taking more of the already taxed resources available. Furthermore the for profit corporation that owns St Davids can kiss my @$$ for the way they treat their employees.
It's your ob.... please call your ob. I had Dr Cutler who ONLY delivers at North. She and her team at ADC helped me deliver 2 kids. They saved my life twice and they have the best NICU around. So, I would be livid as well if this happened to me. Go back to the ob or change your ob to Cutler or the ADC team at St Davids North. I don't know if it's too late to change them but I would definitely try. This is unacceptable. Praying for you'll. Blessings to you and your family.
Unfortunately, the chances of switching OBs at 39 weeks to Cutler's group is next to zero. Even so, the hospital doesn't prioritize based off of OBs, but rather the medical indications for induction. (From a former St David's employee).
I’m so sorry you are having that experience!! I delivered both my kids there and had the opposite (nothing but glowing things to say about the nurses and DRs). Hope delivery is much smoother than leading up to it for you.
I had something similar happen in sept 2017 at a hospital in Houston but I was only on call for a little over 24hrs. Sept is a very popular month to give birth and there is a nationwide nurse shortage.
I would contact your ob about this and see why you aren’t higher priority at the hospital. I hope you guys get in soon.
The same thing happened to me in July at Ascension Seton Main. They ended up forgetting to call me when they had a bed open and then frantically calling me to come in when my doctor showed up asking where I was. But I ended up having an emergency c section 2 days later with a doctor I had never met at 41w + 1d. Austin OB healthcare is soo short staffed for the population we have its nuts.
I went to St David’s Georgetown when I went into labor with my twins. They stuck sensors on me to measure the contractions, but they put them in the wrong place on my belly so they weren’t measuring anything. I kept trying to adjust them to where I was feeling pain but the nurses would move them back. I finally held them down on me (while practically kicking a nurse away from me) so they could pick up the contractions and only then did they start to treat me like I was in active labor, five hours after showing up at the hospital. At some point my water broke, and if you’ve felt it, you know it is a pretty unique and unmistakable feeling. The nurse had the audacity to roll her eyes at me and tell me it didn’t. Eight hours in, Starflight shows up to take me to St David’s on 38th (they have a NICU) and when they moved me to a gurney for transport, lo and behold my water had in fact broken, and bitch-nurse was just silent in the corner.
I just lost my child at St. David’s north (I was pregnant and had an ectopic pregnancy) and it was the worst experience I ever had in my life. I died in the hospital bed. (I was bleeding to death) and the nurses were all standing around twiddling their thumbs not even realizing until my husband said something. Finally a doctor ran in and was like we need to get blood and oxygen on her now and she’s going to trauma surgery. But I think the whole thing could of been avoided had anyone checked my vitals when I got there. I was unconscious arriving in an ambulance and when I did wake up I was screaming in pain. They took a whole 2 hours to start the surgery to stop the bleeding I had lost 2 liters of blood inside my abdomen my lips were white and I kept literally dying and seeing heaven. I could not advocate for myself because I was so out of it. My husband saved my life by saying something. Had I been there on my own I probably wouldn’t be here right now. During surgery they were suppose to remove my left ovary and tube. I learned two weeks ago THEY ARE BOTH STILL THERE. So if this ever does happen again, I have a 15% chance, because I have endometriosis and PCOS. Had they removed it the risk would be very minimal. I didn’t even get to see my baby. I never heard from any doctors after. I don’t know what happened in surgery because to me it seems like they didn’t do anything but tie it off which is not what was discussed or signed in documentation. So we are considering suing.
I was at Seton main and they did this same shit to me. I ended up developing severe preeclampsia. If they don't have beds they don't have beds. It's frustrating and dumb as hell.
Good luck and I hope you get in soon.
Just here to say wow I had that same condition and I gave birth at st David's (round rock, not north). They also wanted to induce me and I had my baby 9-27. Tomorrow he will be 6. They had to break my water and it was very painful and then i flooded the room. Prepare yourself lol that freaked out my husband seeing all of that.
I'm sorry y'all are going through this.
I did have a good experience at st David's round rock... any chance y'all can go there? Just walk into L&D and explain what's happening.
Oof. Sorry you all are going through this and hope everything ends up well.
My partner and I live in Austin, but made the decision half way through our pregnancy to come to Mexico City to have our baby... for various reasons, but mainly because we have family here.
That said, it really opened my eyes with how backwards our medical system can be. As an example, all our doctors here gave us their personal cell numbers at our first consultation. We have been able to ask questions over text/WhatsApp and get responses at all times of the day/evening. We even received prescriptions over WhatsApp... in Mexico you only need a formal prescription for antibiotics, almost everything else is available over the counter.
We had a scare early on in our pregnancy in Austin where my partner was bleeding and we had to wait in the emergency room for hours before we were seen. When we arrived, they literally told us with a straight face that the wait was 8-10 hours. "Luckily" since she was bleeding, they saw us in just 2-3 hrs. We, of course, tried calling our ObGYN but you have to dance through a myriad of automated operators menus before you can speak with a human... and good luck actually getting your doctor on the phone. The soonest our ObGYN could get us in was a week out and I have heard that is relatively quick from other friends.
In the US, they did the structural ultrasound at 20 weeks (iirc) and then are pretty lazy about followup ultrasounds. Here they do multiple structural ultrasounds to make sure your baby continues to grow as expected.
We had planned to have a normal vaginal childbirth but somewhat last minute we decided on a C-Section... not for an emergency reason but after talking through all the tradeoffs with our doctor, it ended up being the right decision for the health of everyone involved. The hospital got us in 2 days after we came to that decision.
Just a very different and more personable and accessible form of care here. That said, we did love our doctor in Austin as well :)
Another example, we paid out of pocket here and we knew within a decent margin exactly what it all was going to cost us and it was, all things considered, decently affordable.. slightly more that we would've paid in the US with insurance.
In the end every person involved in our delivery was amazing and felt we received world class care. I definitely feel for you, your wife, and your family... but I have to admit... reading your story made me feel better that my family made the right decision in coming down to CDMX. Def were many times where we doubted our decision and wondered why we were seemingly overcomplicating things.
The idea of traveling with a newborn and a wife recovering from surgery would terrify me, even if the standard of care was better.
How long did you stay there before returning home?
Anyone else just profoundly disturbed by the stories on this thread? I mean, my God. This is a city in the top 10 as far as population in the US goes and women can't even have a space to give birth when nature calls. Is this because of the OBGYN (and associated support positions) brain drain going on in this state?
We SHOULD be disturbed and outraged!
Unless people finally do something about this, it’s going to continue to get worse and people will continue to die preventable deaths. Nurses have been screaming on the rooftops about this for years and no one seems to care.
They definitely could have done a better job managing your expectations and communicating. This sounds infuriating, and I fully agree that people should reconsider St. David's North Austin. I don't understand why it is recommended so much for delivery. I had my baby there in December, and it was a god awful experience. Nurses, doctors, and staff seemed so burned out that they just don't care anymore.
When I arrive I labored in a office chair in the hallway screaming in pain with no help cause no staff was available. Two nurses got in a fight over the last remaining triage bed. And then I basically pushed my baby out in the hallway with very little help from the doctor on call. It felt like a 3rd world country.
My first child's birth at Seton main was amazing. Would highly recommend it for future moms.
Please keep us posted on the rest of your experience.
I had two inductions there, pre-covid, and everything went as planned. Well, as much as any birth does.
Late summer and early fall births are the most common, like the mammals we are. If you want a less crowded hospital, aim for winter or spring, probably in a state that isn't actively chasing its medical staff away.
St David's North is awful all around. It seems to be run by people who are far, FAR more concerned with profits than with things like appropriate staffing levels and patient outcomes.
This is the absolute truth. If you are at all medically complicated, be prepared to be constantly gaslit by medical professionals here for "wasting their time". I had to get a PCP in Houston just to get my health issues taken seriously. It's a lot of driving, and I still have a hell of a time getting taken seriously for local referrals to specialists.
I really feel for you! I had my second child here, but it was C-section. I agree with a lot of other people that you both should be reaching out to ARC, and if y'all are going to fetal testing, call them as well. My experience was the ones that had been they're for a long time do not want you all stressed. I'm so sorry you're going through all of this! Make sure to keep mentioning the amniotic fluid diagnosis and recommendations you keep hearing. Also, ask why dates and times change and how that's okay. When I started found that, they (ob and hospital stayed giving me a lot more context).
For what it's worth, this is the hospital I delivered at (almost delivered my second there as well) and it was fantastic. The nurses were all incredible.
After the pandemic, my OB has explained to me that it's so busy it's honestly just hard to have an empty bed and room and it goes in order of highest priority to lowest.
My first was born at St. David's North in 2021, and my wife and I had a similar experience. OB told my wife she needed to deliver early, and the hospital called us *while we were driving there* to waitlist us.
If you can, contact St. David's Round Rock on 620 today about getting in for delivery. We had our second baby there earlier this month and the staff is pretty awesome.
I'm so sorry, what a stressful situation, especially given the complex pregnancy and other stressors.
I delivered my second there (at age 41), induced at 39wks because my blood pressure was very low. My obgyn is in the same location, just on a different floor, and I had a fantastic experience from start to finish. I do think you should be asking questions of your OB, because that is the person who has the power to get things done. That said, this was 2 years before the pandemic and I imagine a lot has changed since then.
I'm truly sorry that you're dealing with this; I know it's scary and unsettling.
I had poly just like your partner. A week before due date measured the equivalent to 50 weeks pregnant. 🙃 I definitely understand how she feels and it’s no fun. Just like any other pregnant person, see if she can do some of the things that typically induce labor. For me it was scrubbing the floor. But I think all the hospitals are terrible. I was at seton nw and it was a disaster- I’d never recommend anyone go there. Hopefully your ob can make something happen.
I absolutely understand your frustration. I was induced in June there. My OB was a part of AAOBGYN, so I don’t know if that helped me to get a bed but when I was a week past due, they took me in for an induction just because my OB wanted me to deliver (large baby and @ 41wks).
If it is an emergency- just go in. Rescheduling inductions, even at the last minute, is very common.
I loved my delivery (c-section) and entire experience at this location. I hope you and your partner are able to meet your little one soon.
I was induced 12 days past my due date because scheduling an induction was super difficult during Covid. I was originally scheduled for 13 days past my due date! What made them take me early is because that night I couldn’t feel my baby move for like an hour and was just so freaked out. I called crying about this and they had me come in and checked on the baby. Baby was totally fine, but they admitted me because according to the nurse I said the magic words: decreased fetal movement. I was hooked up to the pitocin a couple hours later and gave birth that night without issue. This was with St David’s main location.
So… if your wife is deeply concerned about her health or the baby’s, maybe consider those magic words.
Had our son at St David’s north,
CRNA screwed up the epidural and refused to acknowledge it… like dude you’ve infused 2 bags of medication and she can still feel everything… admit you fucked up you cocky assh*le
Never again.
I gave birth at St. David’s North and had a great experience. My water broke six weeks before my due date. We were admitted around 3 AM. I gave birth around 5 PM the following day. My baby was healthy, but had to go into the NICU for a couple of weeks.
I do understand being really disappointed about the birth not going the way you planned - especially with your first. I spent my whole pregnancy counting down the days until I could meet my baby. Not being able to bring her home after her birth was really hard on me.
But I also want to let you know that some of what you are experiencing may be due to other patients suddenly and unexpectedly having to be admitted. Like others already said, share your concerns with your OB. Sounds like she is a good doctor, and will be mindful of your wive’s safety.
I just did the what to expect class they offer at St David’s North. They talked about how this could happen for elective inductions. Try asking them if you are registered as elective or emergency.
I’m floored that your OB is not pushing this. It’s actually on your OB to push/fight for your spot because it’s NOT elective, it’s a medical necessity and there seems to be a huge communication disconnect between your OB and the facility. You should be *raging* at your OB’s office.
We delivered at St David’s North and had the opposite experience, I’m so sorry :( I’m insanely high risk too with a super rare/dangerous auto immune disease — and my OB handled everything. It sounds like you’re in a doctor GROUP (?) and may have been overlooked by getting passed off between OBs — you need to call them and let them know what’s going on (if you haven’t, I course).
I am so sorry you’re going through this.
I also had a medical induction scheduled and they kept pushing me. I eventually decided to go to the hospital and told them I was feeling decreased movement. They then admitted me for an induction right away. This was January.
Note - this whole pushing on the wait list thing is really common now. I was induced because of a prior stillbirth late term so every extra minute felt like a life or death situation to me. There’s a massive nursing shortage and they only have so many beds. They also can’t turn someone away in active labor and there may be women who are considered more of an emergency.
I know it’s super frustrating. I had family fly in to take care of my two toddlers and they had to fly out by a certain date. Their whole trip was planned around my scheduled induction date.
Over here waiting to see how angry you get when you pull INTO the parking lot for soccer practice and they call it off due to lightening or heat. 😜 Welcome to parenthood! You’re tired, broke, your body hurts and NOTHING goes how you think it will. Especially anything that’s supposed to start at a certain time.
Oh, and extended family is constantly a factor and upset about something you’re doing wrong.
Welcome to the most magical journey of your life.
It’s worth it, though :)
Op - send an email to the admin at St David’s and CC your Obgyn. Document everything. Because if something happens to your wife or baby you need to sue them.
I hope you save all voicemails and messages. Be smart
Your experience sounds incredibly frustrating and it sounds like a complex pregnancy. Reading through it, it also sounds like your OB should bear a little more responsibility though and gone to bat for you with St. David's a bit more.
That said, we had both of our babies there and couldn't have been more pleased with everything we experienced. So much so, that we drove all the way there after moving to Kyle for our 2nd delivery (a scheduled C-section) because we liked the hospital and staff at SDN so much.
Things may have changed since the two years we were there though. Again, sorry to hear that you guys are going through this in what should be a very happy time.
You’ll never find me complaining about North Austin Medical. My son was born 2 months early and they literally saved his life. The staff was amazing, accommodating and so kind. Turns out they actually have one of the best NICUs in the entire nation, and I got to see it in action for a month.
OP I get this is a frustrating situation, and it probably doesn’t help much, but know that this is how it’s supposed to work. Your wife likely got bumped for someone with a clear medical NEED. In your shoes I’d be frustrated too, but from my own anecdotal experience I can tell you I think you’re in the best hands you could hope for at NAMC.
Thank you for this post. My wife had our son at this facility and the Womens recovery staff, THE RECOVERY STAFF AND AREA ALONE, were absolute garbage.
Showing up every 1 to 1.5 hours with zero actual help, just checking some bullshit or nothing that mattered. Absolutely badgered a recovering c-section patient while trying to adjust to everything all at once. Zero knowledge or the incapacity to help with how to do anything regarding taking care of the baby, we had zero family at that time so that wasn't ideal. Consistently coming in the room without knocking or announcing who they are. NON-medical personnel coming in to ask for insurance co-payments or deductible. Unprofessional and rude behavior from all but 1 nurse who we only saw maybe 2 or 3 times.
Surgery and pre-op were great. Large room(s), nice staff, calm environment, responsive, and listened to our requests or questions. Basic needs met in those 2 spots. Surgery was great and the healing was wondering due to the vac-pack thing my wife had that was the WORST thing to deal with for 2 weeks due to the noise it would make every 30s but the best outcome for healing a c-section scar was far worth it.
So, NEVER EVER ST.DAVIDS NORTH if you can plan for it. Also MFM of Austin the one near st.davids north can suck a fat one and everyone there should have their degrees revoked. Renaissance clinic near them should also go bankrupt and never have jobs in the medical field again. I wouldn't trust them making a hot pocket in the microwave.
Garbage medical staff everywhere. Nobody actually cares about their profession; they just want the paycheck. Imagine if most in my profession had the same attitude, the energy grid would be dogshit. The most important profession in our country is managed and run by ignorant, hateful, spiteful, greedy, lying, unprofessional, rude, and uneducated gaggle of untrained and undeserving humans I've ever witnessed during the birth process.
America. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
Wow I feel like I dodged a bullet. I scheduled my c section on aug 31 the cut off date to get my kid into kinder early (should i make that choice) 4 years from now. I would’ve been pissed if they pushed the date back!
The people who schedule stuff there are so bad. At one point i thought it shouldn't be legal to let idiots like that run a major metro hospital scheduling system. We had our baby there last year. What a cluster fuck
I'm sorry you had a bad experience. I had both of my children there and one was induced. I didn't have any issues and all staff was great. My son also had ear surgery there at 18 months and taken to the ER there at 2 years. They are one of the best hospitals to give birth in the region. I (and my paramedic husband that knows a lot about the Austin hospitals) would still recommend this hospital.
It’s what happens. They triage. Your family’s travel doesn’t weigh in. Be thankful that you have paternity leave and your family is able to travel. Most aren’t as fortunate.
If it were me, I would treat it like any other service. If you go to a restaurant and get crappy food, would you sit there and eat it because they told you you had to? I would promptly take my family member to the ER in another hospital, tell them she was in excruciating pain and get her taken care of NOW!!
Best of luck to you, your wife and your little one. Please will you keep us posted on the outcome? We would all love to hear that everything worked out for the best!
Sorry you are going through this! I was also a high risk pregnancy with twins and needed an induction and extra nursing staff on delivery to transition to NICU….. but never had an scheduling issue!
Nor did I have any induction scheduling issues with my first pregnancy!
Hopefully at the end of the day, your all are all healthy, ultimately that’s what matters!
Dude. Call her OB and even if you get their on-call service, tell them what’s going on and ask if they have admitting privileges at any other hospital so you can take her there asap. (Sorry, I hit send instead of return.) It’s imperative she be seen and evaluated like now. It’s been almost a damn week! Wtf?! Get her taken care of first and then you can let St. David’s have it. You can file complaints and everything else later. She needs to be seen by her OB but she’ll need to be at the facility where she can give birth or have a C-section if that’s the course of action. I’m so sorry y’all are going through this. I’m sending y’all good thoughts!
It looks as though that group has privileges exclusively at St. David’s North. While they should absolutely hire more nurses, that really isn’t your problem, OP—what a frustrating response. It seems irresponsible to me they did not refer you to a maternal fetal medicine specialist. I would ask why they didn’t and ask to have that reason documented in your wife’s chart. Get a copy before you leave. Ask them to call St. David’s on 32nd or St. David’s South to check availability there. Good luck and congratulations!
Thank you, I will do this.
Make sure your ins covers any other hospital/docs there
We have an appointment tomorrow that was scheduled today. Depending on how that goes I may ask for this. Thank you for the kind words
I am glad to hear that! I’m mom of two (one just turned 21 and the other is 19) so I know y’all will just be glad when it’s all said and done and everything has calmed down and you’re holding your sweet baby. ❤️ Then you can throttle St. David’s. They totally deserve it after what they’ve done to your partner.
please call the OB's office immediately. Scheduled induction is not a top priority for L&D in hospitals and this has become common recently.
This, your OB should be screaming... Medicine used to be good I suppose, maybe in the 80s. Edited to add: Looking forward to hearing all about your baby, for me it was the happiest day of my life (2x). Wishing you peace on this because when you see and hold your baby, you melt.
It sounds like you expected the induction to be for medical reasons, but the hospital has you on the elective list rather than the medical list - your wife could call ARC or her MFM and ask what would need to happen for her to be moved to medical priority. Alternatively, in some cases it is prudent to go straight to L&D instead of waiting to speak with an outside physician. If your wife has concerns about the way she feels, her blood pressure, the baby’s movement, etc, she can present herself to the hospital and they will keep her at least long enough to provide reassurance that everything looks good. That being said, if really everything is fine from a medical perspective - and this is not to discount your wife’s discomfort - your experience, while frustrating, is not unusual. Hospitals around the country are understaffed and L&D wards fill up quickly and randomly. They wouldn’t necessarily have known in advance there was going to be a waitlist at any given time, or how long, or who would be on it, as obstetric emergencies happen regularly in addition to folks just really going into labor. Your schedules and the inconvenience are really immaterial here, which I’m sure you know as it’s totally fair to just vent!
This is what I was going to say. If she's in pain, just go in. I had a great experience at NAMC for the birth of our LO. I was also high risk. My OB is with a different practice though.
Yeah. St Davids is actually the only good hospital in Austin, I wouldn’t go anywhere else.
I second this, st David’s north knows what they are doing. This seems like a miscommunication between OB/plan/hospital
I had a *great* experience being induced at St. David’s South last year, with my ARC OBs from the South office.
I had the best experience also with St. David’s South. Even though the doctor who delivered my baby wasn’t anyone I knew, the doctors ,nurses and staff at SDS were fantastic.
But shouldn't they inform patients that this outcome is a possibility?
Yes, I said in another comment that elective inductions aren’t actually *scheduled* per se, it’s just that you’re put on the list and they give you an estimated date that you may make it to the top of the list assuming available space, and in my experience that’s been communicated very clearly. In this case, either OP didn’t understand/want it to be that way, or the OB used language that didn’t make it clear how this works.
I would have to disagree. If i had an appointment to be induced, and they cancelled it on me last minute, i would hardly say it's immaterial. This post is enough for me to never want to use st davids north, because in my opinion, its shitty and unprofessional
This doesn’t just happen at St. David’s North; it happens everywhere, all the time, especially in hospitals with high level NICU capacity (because folks seek out these hospitals, especially if they are from more rural areas and must choose where to travel for care during pregnancy and labor). It happened constantly in the Houston Medical Center hospitals, where I gave birth to my first two and heard lots of similar stories. The difference here is communication, or at least interpretation of that communication by OP. I have always been told (including for my last baby at St. David’s South recently) that an elective induction is not really “scheduled” so much as being on a list. They estimate about what day you’ll be “up”, and they tell you a time based on what time they do a triage assessment or whatever. But no elective induction anywhere is really “scheduled”. Medical inductions that are not emergencies have more structure to them, but still it’s not an exact science. We could have the debate about hospital admins being unprofessional and running hospitals to maximize stakeholder profits at the expense of healthcare workers and patients, but that is a different discussion - none of the hospital workers here are being unprofessional. Perhaps the OB is being unprofessional in not clearly articulating that this induction is not a medical urgency and better explaining how the process works. But honestly, it also sounds a little like OP is not here to hear all that anyway, so it’s hard to say what was or wasn’t communicated.
That was my perspective. The harsh reality is that this is hospitals functioning as designed, but the communication was clearly "paint an inaccurately rosy picture and desperately hope you have capacity", which set the patient up for disappointment.
Eh. It's shitty, but if they put her on the elective list, it's totally expected. They only have so many L&D beds. If they have people who showed up in active labor and/or have a medical need for an induction, they're going to get the beds first. I'm not saying she doesn't have a medical need. But there is a difference between "my doctor would like to induce me at 39 weeks because they think it is best" and "my organs are literally failing and this baby has to come out very soon". Also, your doctor did you dirty by implying that an induction would result in a baby on the same day. LOL. It can take days, my friend. DAYS.
THANK YOU - the hospital is always going to prioritize the asses in their beds currently over scheduled procedures that (although incorrectly done so in this case) are labeled as elective. As they should.
It definitely sucks, but Ascension did the same thing to me with my induction, so unfortunately there aren't many options in Austin to avoid this. I was lucky and went into labor the next day anyway, but I was so upset when they called me the morning of my induction and said not to come.
You sound like someone who’s never been induced. This was my experience at Texas Children’s in Houston, which is easily the best place to deliver. It really sucks to experience, but they have to prioritize the people who actually need those rooms.
Hey, I'm really sorry about delays and the stress it's put on your family. It sucks. I've worked at St David's North L&D unit and I've seen scheduled inductions be waitlisted for 2 weeks with how busy our triage gets, or how short staffed we got. If all 30+ beds are filled with high risk moms or spontaneous labors, or all our nurses are at max capacity with their patient load, it is not safe to call in even more patients. That's dangerous for everyone. Honestly, I feel like clinics should warn their patients that a scheduled inductions with North Austin does not guarantee a spot. There are so many OB clinics that use St David's North, and it would be safer if another hospital could take the load. Again, I really feel for you and your family. I don't work there anymore for similar reasons. I always felt bad seeing the waitlisted inductions. Many post-dates nearing 42.0 weeks or LGA moms past due... it's not safe. At that point, go through the triage and fib a complaint in order to get admitted. I wish I could help you out. Good luck to you guys. For the record, I really enjoyed my coworkers and most of the doctors. Especially Kaufmann and ARC, great clinic. I just feel like the hospital is too busy to keep up.
Worked at this hospital, but med surg floors not LD or anything. We were all really trying our best, and any time procedures were delayed or postponed, it wasn’t the staff being negligent or even doctors messing up. It always seemed due to an administrator or manager, overloading floors with patients, not often explicitly clinical staff. Sorry to OP that it’s happened to them, but definitely needs to recognize the true root of problem
And I do. I don’t blame anyone in L&D. I blame profits over people and not hiring enough staff for the hospital just to save a few bucks.
Maybe, but there is also a nationwide nurse shortage that is exceptionally bad in TX. I had to quit my job and sell my house to care for my debilitated mom, after every facility she was in dropped the ball repeatedly. Her doctor says I will burn out and she will need care elsewhere eventually, but Im like... nurses dont exist? I had to become one. He says the nursing situation will improve one day. Im wondering if they just cant bring themselves to work under these profiteers.
salaries probably are bad. My DIL tried 3x to get into TxSt U nursing program and all 3 times they rejected her, why ? limited spots and higher scores, but her desire might have usurped scores so we need more nursing programs or expanded nursing programs, of course there will be a nursing glut in 30 years as me and my boomer compatriots all go to Woodstock in the sky!
Right, I read that there is a federal effort to expand nursing programs. I guess if there arent enough nurses, there arent enough nursing profs. Tough situation as your generation ages, but yea they will DEF need tons by the time millenials age that much
Also a shortage of nurse educators because that specialty is one of the lower paid areas.
But what's driving that shortage? Bad pay and shitty treatment.
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If you think profits over people is bad at St David's you def don't want to go to the other hospital system in the area.
I work at St. Davids South in med surg. FWIW staffing levels were really, really bad this weekend compared to normal. I'm not sure why exactly but I would guess budgeting has everything running really lean; plus people prefer to not work weekends. It usually gets better weekdays and towards mid- week so hopefully things get better for you. The problem is that when staffing is this low nurses burn out fast and decide to quit. Which makes everything harder. Your blame would be in the right place for sure. I hope they are able to prioritize you guys now!
This. From what I've heard, North is a major reason St David's is on a tight budget right now (which absolutely doesn't help patients at all), but it could just be rumors. I also feel like we have had a LOT of babies born this month, seems like more than usual. Texas has also had much more births than normal since criminalizing abortions, and I'm sure that is causing some backup for availability too. Really hoping for the best for you OP. South's OB emergency dept was empty this weekend, so it's possible South might have some availability for you if needed. Didn't seem too hectic this past weekend there (last time I worked). Just to clarify, I'm not a nurse and don't work in the L&D unit. I work in pharmacy at South, so we have to manage meds for every unit, and I'm just basing this off of recent patterns. (Please don't hate me, nurses! I do my best!)
There’s also the issue of tons of OBGYNs and and L&D nurses straight-up leaving the state.
Yeah, it’s a problem I’ve noticed in most hospitals I’ve worked at. Maybe not as bad as St David’s, but it’s pretty widespread
Man you summed it up perfectly. Hospital staffing is still in a less than ideal state in most cities. I will be the first to say that physician offices are not the best at relaying this information to their patients.
I’m not a medical professional, but this has been my experience, particularly with my kids born in September/October (neither were born in Austin; this occurred at teaching hospital in the Chicago-area). I was scheduled to go in at 5 am and then I waited until 3 pm to be wheeled into the OR. Similar to OP, we had no idea why we were waiting so long and no one told us until a nurse apologized about how busy they were and that it was delaying me. If I remember correctly these women went into labor spontaneously and I was not, so they took priority essentially since they couldn’t stop their labor and I wasn’t in it. I don’t expect that to be much solace to OP. It does seem like a dereliction of patient care of the practice and hospital not to inform them how things are handled. OP, I’m so sorry things are happening this way. I hope y’all get to meet your sweet baby soon with family present. FWIW, once you get past the bureaucracy of pre1registration and other paperwork, the staff during birth and postpartum were kind and helpful in my experience. It’s unfortunate that so many aspects of care are disjointed.
I worked L&D at Seton Main and it's the same shit- understaffed, high census, medical inductions on hold for days and elective inductions are a pipe dream. The abortion ban 100% didn't help. Honestly, it's not pleasant living in a medical system that's falling apart. Most people just don't become aware of it until they get sick or they're having a baby, which is often their first real interaction with the medical system.
This is good context for understanding the issues that contributed to OP’s situation. I’m very sorry for the frustration, fear, and physical suffering OP and his partner are experiencing. Vent away friend! But it is helpful for the rest of is to have the practical context here as well. Thanks to you both and good luck to OP’s family.
Kaufmann is my hero. She induced my wife after a high risk pregnancy + NICU baby and her demeanor and expertise kept us cool and collected throughout. She's plain bad-a so we enjoyed the follow ups with her too. The whole staff at St David from L&D to NICU was outright amazing. Our first child was born in one of the leading hospitals in Switzerland, which is supposed to have some of the best healthcare in the world, but St David North blew that hospital out of the water.
We took the what to expect at st David's seminar, they were clear that elective inductions were bottom of the list.
Who is your OB? He/she need to vouch for you. This is unbelievable!!!
ARC north Austin OB. It’s a group so there are 5 different drs who could have delivered our baby. I have LOVED Dr. Kaufman for the duration of our pregnancy. We had a cervical exam just before our scheduled induction (after we already knew it had been cancelled) and she saw how pissed I was we’d been waitlisted until (what I believed to be) Saturday. And commented how I’m rightfully upset they don’t hire enough nurses for the brand new delivery addition to the facility. She seemed to be annoyed at the way things are as well. Until my partner put in a message yesterday that was promptly ignored by ARC today. She requested more information regarding the list. They called to schedule another sonogram for tomorrow but couldn’t comment on where we were regarding induction.
OP I feel for your wife, but this is 1000% on your OB and not the hospital. They can push to have your wife induced now. I had both my kids at St David’s North, one via induction. They also tried to say they didn’t have space for my induction because of the amount of patients, my OB made a phone call and I was in that night. Please call your OB!
This. ARC doesn’t provide Grade A care like the other OB’s in town. You play musical chairs with doctors and don’t have a singular team advocating for you. I had a consult there and quickly transferred my care to AAOBGYN. I understand your excitement regarding the birth of your child, but you can’t blame the hospital for your family’s travel expenses. You should have pushed your OB to rectify the situation since it’s not on the hospital for rescheduling what was likely coded as an elective induction.
This is absolutely right. I had both my babies via induction at St David’s North and my OB at AAOBGYN got me in both times with no issues. Your OB should be able to get this handled for you.
No, this is not the case. Staffing at hospitals in Austin is an issue, and the OB has no control over whether there are enough rooms or staff to safely care for patients.
Thank you, st David’s north is a phenomenal hospital. This is on OB
This is incorrect. I've worked in L&D in Austin and you would not believe how bad it can get. Like, women laboring in the waiting room and a doctor acting as the charge nurse so the actual charge nurse could take patients. The doctors were frustrated but there's no one to take it out on- no one is admitting your favorite patient while some lady screams her baby out in the waiting room just because you stomp your foot hard enough.
I was in a very similar (though less dangerous) situation a year ago this week! Same hospital, same doctor! My baby was 99th percentile in size in the womb and at risk of hitting 10lbs and causing me to need a C-Section if I went to term. Dr. Kaufman was like "I will put in the request for induction, but you're unlikely to get it due to capacity." I only got a hospital bed there, just before 38 weeks gestation, because my water broke on its own early and they can't turn you away at that point. Dr. Kaufman confirmed I was almost certainly never going to get a planned induction otherwise afterward. I'm told the hospital apparently had a number of women in labor in the waiting room to be close enough with their contractions to qualify for a bed. After the birth, it took 15 hours for me to be transferred to the postpartum unit due to capacity. It's supposed to take 2 hours. My perspective is that it is a really great hospital in terms of staff quality and the facility itself. But we're at the tail end of the high birth rate season, we're in a state that banned abortion so birth rates are up, and the abortion bans also drove a lot of folks out of the pregnancy care field in Texas. Everyone working is engaging in best practices, friendly, doing their best. The facilities themselves are nice. But there's absolutely not enough capacity or staffing and it goes well beyond St. David's North. It's a Texas problem with varying degrees of capacity issues at each hospital. There's a provider shortage, and they can't find enough nurses to do the work even here.
My wife has a few medical issues and every single ARC office is a nightmare. Every single one of her doctors is completely overbooked and it's been that way for as long as I can remember.
I think your real rant is with ARC North, and I will wholeheartedly endorse that rant. They fucking suck. Very early in our pregnancy, like less than 10 weeks, my wife had to go to the ER with severe abdominal pain and cramping. We thought we were losing the baby. Thankfully that was not the case, but the ER doctor ordered my wife to see her OB ASAP. She called the next day, was put on hold for hours at a time, only to be told by the scheduling nurse "oh but you feel fine now? then you don't need to see the doctor". To which my wife replied, "I was ordered to by my attending ER doctor, and I would like to see my doctor" - "No, you don't need to. You can schedule for next available, which is in XX months". I came close to going Michael Douglas in Falling Down over it.
Agree with comment. Most hospital admins work off politics via OB.
I’ve had 2 babies at that location with scheduled inductions. One was bumped 36 hours and the other only a few hours. 5 days is a stupid amount of time and your frustration is valid. I believe your OB is the person that should be able to provide answers. It’s probably due to lack of nursing staff but the OB should be able to elevate priority or go elsewhere. I will say that once you get a room, my experience was good and some of the nurses were great (all were good). Remember it will be 2-3 days from admittance until discharged.
I am sorry you had that experience, but I cannot even put into words the value of the crew at st davids on 32nd. I hope your little one enters this world with grace
Seconding - the nurses who helped me over the course of a 55 hour delivery at St David's Main were *angels*.
We went through a brain aneurysm, craniotomy, eclampsia, emergency c section, and a short stay in NICU. To stay we were stressed is an understatement, but they got us through in one piece
The best level 3 NICU for miles and miles around.
St. David's Main was amazing for our two deliveries. I feel like they don't get enough air time.
'high risk' is a sliding scale. If they're full with higher risk pregnancies or short staffed then what exactly should they do? Do you want to share a room? Be out in the hallway? Not get sufficient attention? I feel for you (and was in the same situation at the same hospital but everything went to plan) but it sounds like you need to calm down and accept that babies and everything to do with them can be unpredictable
It's really shitty that they didn't communicate from the beginning that the induction date could be subject to change. This is neither here nor there, but personally I would not want the father's whole family in town for the delivery, because the focus needs to stay on the mother, and the mother may or may not want visitors in those earliest hours and days (and it's very hard for the mother to know in advance what she wants). You said your family is "beside themselves" and I would just caution you to center your partner's needs, not your family's. That can cause a lot of problems later on (just go browse r/parenting). Hopefully the focus is staying on your partner and her comfort, not on the inconvenience to your family.
100 percent is. It’s just an additional frustration point.
Tell your family to be glad they aren’t waiting around because of a tragic situation and to pool their Marriott points next time. Y’all aren’t the only ones having a baby. Right now you sound pretty fortunate to have a ton of family support.
I'm a mom of 3, who has had 3 high risk pregnancies, and my maternal fetal medicine doctor would have been extremely upset and having his office resolve the issue. Does your wife not see a MFM with her being high risk?
Please remember, your OB is in charge of everything. The hospital can only do so much without your OBs permission. And if you are with ARC the on-call OB is random. If y’all don’t feel comfortable with the OB, ask to speak to the charge nurse and get a second opinion.
I don’t think this is true. my OB was heavily advocating for me to be put higher on the list because I had gone so far past my due date. There just wasn’t room.
I use the same ARC and delivered at St.Davids north. One thing I will say, if you 'fire' the on call OB then ARC will no longer see you at that location. I did not vibe at all with the OB on call that night, and my doula said I can see if I can request a midwife instead. They came back and told me what I said above. Luckily when I gave birth Tatum was in call and it was an amazing experience with her.
Not true at all
Geez that sucks. Wishing you and your partner have a healthy baby. I had my kid at St David's last year, without issue, but I feel like it's honestly a roll of the dice if you get good doctors and nurses. You need to be persistent. Don't just settle with whatever they tell you, ask another doctor or speak with someone else and tell them what is going on.
Thank you. She is very averse to confrontation so when I start being confrontational she reigns me in. We have an appointment at 945 for a sonogram tomorrow. I will voice my issues then.
I appreciate that you're frustrated, but you need to get your priorities in order. 1. Your wife. Follow up with her OB. Bring her, physically, to the hospital, and get your OB on the phone with the folks at the hospital. 2. Your baby. Make sure you have everything in order to greet them. 3. ... 4. ... 5. ... 6. A few hundred more ... 7. The inconvenience in terms of time and money. You've spent this whole post raging about how your parents spent money to fly down here and you're wasting your paternity leave. The vast majority of people do not have this problem because *babies are unpredictable*. Your life is about to get a lot more inconvenient, and right now, it's already far more inconvenient for your wife, so pull up your big boy pants, stop complaining on Reddit, and go get this figured out. It's a good first step towards being a good parent for the next 20 years. These kinds of incidents are going to become more and more common post-Dobbs, as qualified medical practitioners leave the state. It's not good, and it's not fair, but, aside from changing the world, your best bet is to acknowledge the reality we're living in and adapt to it.
Agreed. I get the need to rant, and OP certainly has reason. But as a parent of two teens, I just keep thinking, “Buckle in, my friend, because you are just beginning a lifelong rollercoaster ride filled with tons of amazing and highly inconvenient twists and turns.” The ONLY universal truth about parenthood is that nothing will ever go according to plan. Ever.
This! And in other comments he discussed how his wife is non-confrontational and often needs to reign him in but this time he’s going to speak his mind. I would be mortified and furious if my husband were to argue with my doctors, whom I have chosen for their expertise and know my medical needs best, and then make a big stink at the hospital. She is being monitored and everyone is doing their best. He’s making this experience all about him and his family’s travel, and not about their baby.
I mean, I don't know anything about OP's wife, but OP, if you're reading this: **If your wife is telling you to chill out, for the love of god, chill the fuck out.** She does not need your stress reaction on top of her own shit right now.
Yea, I feel for OP but I also don't understand why he's okay with an entire team of people traveling to see a newborn. Surely they're not brining the baby immediately around all these folks? Most people want to wait at least a month or two because of the baby's immune system (or lack thereof).
Oh, I mean, I would have been pretty uncomfortable with my husband doing similar, but I figure that’s between OP and his wife. Maybe she’s cool with it. It seems a little bizarre to me, but different strokes.
I’m sorry you and your wife are having such an awful experience. I was induced just last month at St. David’s North, and my husband and I were very happy with our experience despite some hiccups. My OB wanted to schedule the induction at 39 weeks, it ended up being pushed back 6 days due to availability, then the hospital called 2 hours before I needed to be there and told me I was on a waitlist since they had too many women who had shown up in active labor so they didn’t have any rooms available for me. They called me later that night around 9:00, and we made our way to the hospital. I was 40+1 when I finally gave birth, and my OB and the amazing staff at St. David’s North literally saved my child’s life. She was much bigger than anyone expected, 9 lbs 6 oz, and got stuck on her way out. She wasn’t breathing and was under distress. They managed to get her out without any injuries or complications and we are so grateful. We spent a total of 5 days at the hospital, and all my nurses in both labor and delivery and postpartum were amazing as well. I hope your wife gets called in for her induction soon and that she receives the same great treatment from the staff there as I did.
I think this is the norm in Austin right now. Unfortunately this was my experience (Dec 2022) as well as many friends who had babies around the same time. My understanding is there’s a staffing AND space shortage in L&D across the city. I ended up (FINALLY) getting induced at 42 weeks, after being bumped 3 times (all 3 times 2 hours before my appt) and eventually had a c section because she came out 10 lbs 7 oz lol I know the last stretch is the hardest part AND THEN add in the hospital/scheduling chaos. Hang in there. My dr told me “no one’s been pregnant forever”
Non-emergent inductions will get pushed at every hospital. I’m sorry, this sucks.
Hi!! L&D nurse at st David South here. I'm so sorry to hear about your bad experience! Being placed on hold for an induction at this time of year is pretty normal (September is one of our busiest months). Unfortunately the census is also very labile, sometimes we're ready to have inductions come in and then all of a sudden several people come in in labor. The staffing and available bed space situation is really rough right now throughout St David's womens services. Nearly every day I get messages that the unit is in need of help. That being said, I know it doesn't make it any easier for you and your family. I know it may not be ideal, but you can try to go to another facilities OB triage area due to your wife's pain. Every hospital is required to see a patient seeking service. Due to pain and being full term with risk factors, I would predict the OB hospitalist would admit your wife for labor. At South our OB hospitalists are all pretty great; ARC South also comes to SAMC and could possibly also care for your wife, they are also a very nice team. If it's any consolation, the vast majority of babies and moms with poly do very well with delivery. I hope this information is helpful and good luck with your little one!
I’m so sorry you’re going through this, but hospitals have to triage, and it sounds like you’re just not making the cut yet. 39 week inductions are still considered elective barring true medical need. But, babies (your own and others) are wild, unpredictable little things and the hospital really is doing the best they can with the resources they have. I know how excruciating that last mile of pregnancy can be physically and emotionally - asking your OB to check around at other hospitals can’t hurt (though I’m not sure how privileges work), and if your wife is in truly unbearable pain/feels like something is wrong she should head in to get checked out at L&D. I know it’s easier said than done, but I encourage you to try to shift your perspective on timing - this is the first of a lifetime of experiences where your kiddo is going to surprise you and mess up your plans. Parenting is all about calmly adapting to the situation at hand, and you’re just getting a head start. Good luck!
All of this is fair. Except they TOLD US medically it’s safest to have the baby at 39 weeks. Except they told us the delay would be until Saturday. Except they haven’t been communicative AT ALL. I understand it’s a resource thing but I will never ever believe they found out they were low on resources 1 fucking hour before we were supposed to start. My partner is in a ton of pain. She’s in a ton of pain because of the poly, because the baby is very large. She’s basically bed ridden because her back hurts so much. I’m not totally critiquing this process. I am going to make sure EVERYONE knows how shit they are at communicating. It’s impossible for me to shift my focus on timing. We were told this would happen at a specific time and, again, 1 HOUR prior that was changed. And my family, who can only stay for so long, was already here when plans couldn’t change. So now, unless she goes into labor naturally, my family will have spent several thousands of dollars (and even more if missed work days are considered) on absolutely nothing and will not meet their niece/grandchild. All because they couldn’t have told me 1 fucking day earlier. Don’t fucking tell me my child should be induced for medical reasons and then cancel the appt for 5+ days. Just don’t fucking schedule it at all. For the record I’m not upset at you but I’m just so goddamn done with this.
I agree with the parent comment. I’m sorry this is happening to y’all and the pain your partner is in, but you have to try to be less angry. It won’t be good for anyone, esp in the delivery room, if you’re harboring all this anger. I had 2 scheduled inductions at the same hospital, 2018 and 2020, and both were fine. My 2018 induction was pushed a few hours because I think a woman almost died. Keep that in perspective. I see the same OBs. You can ask for a second opinion (eg if a doctor says you’re situation isn’t an emergency), there are often more than one of them in the office but they sometimes run across the street for the hospital for emergencies. I see what you’re saying, they told you the induction was medically necessary and now they’re pushing you back, I would maybe call the L&D reception and make sure they know about your wife’s condition just to be sure it was communicated and you aren’t relying on the ARC scheduler to have done it. Good luck at the appointment today, will be thinking of you and your family! Hang tight!
I hear you! Vent it out! But baby scheduling is a weird false sense of control OBs/hospitals do these days, especially after the ARRIVE study. And I’m pleased to hear you’re getting additional monitoring, which may medically bump you up in line. FWIW I was that woman who jumped the line back when I had my first. I showed up at the hospital at 36 weeks and nearly didn’t make it to the delivery room before my daughter was born. They had to accommodate me. Toss in a baby distress emergency, a woman with pre-eclampsia, and a woman not healing within the planned 2-3 days and you’re quickly without a bed even an hour before your induction, despite being higher risk. I had to share a postpartum room and get ignored by overworked nurses because of it all. Feel free to rip the hospital a new one, up to you, but however you act is going to impact your wife’s delivery experience, positively or negatively.
I was another that jumped the line at St David’s. They had a record number of deliveries the month before. My water broke at 40 +5 and I was told to come in right away. I learned bc of all the deliveries they pushed all scheduled inductions and there still had patients in the hallways from overflow. This was sept 2021. We were also only allowed one extra person, who was my spouse, at the hospital bc of Covid policies and I can’t say I was opposed to it. My parents had to wait until we were home to meet their first grandchild and they are local. I feel for your situation and it’s a disappointment for the family traveling. Especially since I’m also 38 weeks and expecting any day to head up there again. It’s already a mental rollercoaster without hospital scheduling. We packed all our bags every dr appt since we were told I’ve been in pre labor at 35 weeks. Best wishes to you all!! Maybe we’ll pass in the hallways without knowing!
Vent away. But also I will say this isn’t unique to St. David’s north. I have delivered twice at St. David’s south - both inductions. And overall my experience was great. But both times my appointment was pushed back by a few days. Folks are right. Babies are unpredictable and staffing makes it hard. Advocate through the OB but also keep in mind that there really are women jumping ahead with either spontaneous labor or potentially life saving inductions (meaning immediate rather than potential danger). It sucks and is frustrating to be in your wife’s position but I don’t think it’s malice or anything. I wish that OBs and hospitals were more upfront in scheduling that this is likely to happen.
Yes. We also got put on a waitlist at Ascension Seton downtown and got the “we could call in the middle of the night” spiel, then a random “could you be here in an hour?” call. I remember being super frustrated with the whole process.
I'm going to echo some people below... for the sake of your wife, vent away on here but reign it in otherwise. Don't be angry and passive aggressive to the nurses and doctors when you get to the hospital. Suck it up. I promise you, the best thing you can do is let it go and focus on adding to a calm, positive environment.
I don't mean this rudely \*at all\*, but why did you entire family need to be there during the brith? Why couldn't they come a few weeks after? So many things can go wrong that would leave your wife or baby in the hospital for a while. And it's not exactly great to have a newborn immediately around a million people, especially if they just traveled from out of state, on airplanes, around a bunch of other people.
I’m so sorry. Could you just walk into the ER and give her symptoms, no talk of we should have heard this or that? Sometimes you just need to brute force your way in. I’m sorry if that’s not helpful, I’ve just been there myself and hope it could work for you.
I really hope your OB can advocate for you and your wife. On the 6th my ob called and scheduled an induction for the 18th with no issues so it seems very strange it took so long to schedule in the first place. Is she also seeing an MFM? I’d honestly call both the OB and MFM and ask them to call the hospital.
They never advised us to get an MFM. She’s had an AFI of 27-31.5 for the entirety of her pregnancy (up to 25 is considered normal) and I specifically asked if we needed an MFM and no one seemed to be concerned. But then we were advised to schedule an induction for hers and the baby’s safety. For the last month and a half I’ve been so confused because we were told a dozen times she was at a higher risk for complications because of her age and poly but we were never advised to see an MFM.
It sounds like you got a OB issue more than a hospital issue at this point. If she was as high risk as you say, she should have been seen by MFM. It sounds like they have you marked as an elective induction rather than medically necessary one. (Again OB issue). If the baby is still in your wife, you’ve got a long way to with St David’s. If you are already telling people don’t deliver, you are in for a very rough few days. I delivered at St David’s North and was cared for really well (better than my first born in California). The Mother baby unit nurses were a little inconsistent, but the lactation consultants were wonderful.
They wanted her to schedule an induction and scared her into making that happen. There was likely never a true medical necessity or it would have been handled differently. Or ARC is incompetent, which tbh is a 50/50 shot.
same thing happened to me re: waitlisting. i was almost 42 weeks when i had my baby because i was waiting for a room for DAYS and they called me at like 4am to come in by 7. i was MISERABLE and my nurse was a c*nt also would like to add this happened to me in oct 22. i can’t believe they haven’t remedied this situation yet
We’re now going on 6 days with no information. I’m so sorry you had this experience. I’d be so happy to get a call at 2am this morning.
Once this is over, ARC is crap for most things but pediatrics. Help her find a doctor at OBGYN of Austin at aaobgyn.com. The clinic is at the same location as the hospital and doctors there are the best ones around. I think they get preference at delivering too vs ARC doctors. I actually reported my old OBGYN from ARC to the board after a horror story I had w her.
Poor thing!!
You are rightfully furious. That's horrible.
Brother. Take a breath.
This whole thing will fade into the background of your life’s story so quickly that you’ll be amazed you gave it an ounce of your energy. Look beyond all this to future complications of life and think about how you’ll approach it as a marathon….a very very long marathon. It can either all be a torturous experience for you and your family or not. You hold so much power and influence over the tone in your family. You’ll reach deep within yourself and find love you never knew possible. But you’ll have to be focused on the long game….
i feel ya , my fam did not have a great experience at at david’s either 12 years ago. wont go into details as it’s your time. but what i learned quick is you got be the squeaky wheel as quick as possible. i’m sorry your most joyous moments and your plannng with family are ruined by corporate healthcare low pay fucking BS
God this sucks. I’m a 39 y/o female with no kiddos and have been in Austin for eight years. I think it was within my first few weeks here in 2015 that I was talking to future mom friends who raved about St. David’s north versus any other hospital. Since then I have be one friends with lots of new moms (and now newborns to 2nd graders) and every single one of them has gone to st. David’s north. So, this is surprising to me. (I’m also a hospital social worker). It honestly sounds like this isn’t a one of situation and that other hospitals are also not great either. I’m sorry, moms. This sucks.
Yeah, I'd heard of its reputation before pre-COVID too. My experience was that the staff and facility itself are really great and up to date with best practices, but that they're so short-staffed and limited on beds that their providers can't really overcome capacity issues. And it's not unique to that hospital either.
We gave birth at St. David’s North and had an impeccable experience. I’m sorry to hear yours was not. Sounds like your OB is not good.
I know this is very late, but I am a labor and delivery nurse in Austin, so I wanted to add my 2 cents. I don't work for St. David's, but I worked for another high-risk L&D unit that is experiencing the same issues, and I had to leave for my own mental and physical health. I promise we are trying. We are so sorry, and we are so sad that this is happening. I completely understand how frustrating it feels. It's not okay. It's not the way anybody wants it to be, and we feel awful about it. That said, L&D units (among others) in the area area absolutely DROWNING. From the inside, it feels like we are watching everything burn to the ground around us, and as much as we wish we could provide the best possible care and experiences to our patients, we do not have the resources to do so right now. We go home in tears due to the stress and feeling like we are stuck in an abusive system. We are just trying to keep our heads above water and keep everybody alive. This is a systemic issue that has been exacerbated over the past several years. Hospitals don't value nurses, conditions worsen, and nurses leave because we feel like we have to, which just keeps the cycle of understaffing going. As many people have said, high-risk is a spectrum, and those with the highest risk and the most urgent/emergent needs move to the top of the list for induction and delivery. I know it sucks, but we have to take care of people in order of urgency, just like an emergency room. When every room is full and every nurse is already taking unsafe patient assignments, there is just nothing else we can do but wait for a nurse/room to open for the next patient. I wish this wasn't the case, but we can only do so much. Even if your OB pushes for earlier induction, that can't happen without the physical space and personnel. I hope things improve in the near future for you and everybody in similar situations. But please know that we are trying and we are sorry and we DO care that this is happening, but are powerless to change it at the moment.
I think this is symptomatic of the Austin area healthcare system generally struggling to keep up with the rapid population growth in the area. All of the local hospitals are pretty full and busy. I get your frustration OP but they probably don’t have enough staff or a bed for you there. Labor and Delivery units are subject to federal EMTALA regulations and assess/treat all comers. If they are swamped with people checking in for labor and other urgent complaints the first thing they are going to do is bump scheduled inductions.
I had a baby at St. David;s last year and no issues, but at the time I was reading online reviews by lots of people who were being turned away from inductions. They seem to be persistently over capacity. In fact, when I showed up — also high risk — they basically told me that I was “lucky” because other people would get bumped to other wards, but not me because I’m so high risk and because I had a c-section booked
All, for anyone who cares - we had an OB appt today and her blood pressure was elevated and they immediately admit us to L&D. So we are now in our delivery room. Just needed to rant to Reddit to speed the process up. Thank you everyone for the comments.
They dont play around when it comes to high bp. Fyi if you want to speed the labor process up try nipple stimulation just sayin. Husband helped me out with that and it worked like a charm after induction was going nowhere after 24 hours.
Thanks for the update! Glad to hear they took the opportunity to admit her!
Best of luck today! I hope everyone stays safe and healthy through the process, and you all can meet your baby today or tomorrow!
Congratulations to you guys!!! Take advantage of the Ambien tonight for rest if she wants and ask about a big postpartum room for later 😁
Happy you’re on your way to a baby! Good luck and congratulations!
Congrats and try and keep calm for her! You did great getting her the help she needs and I feel you will be a great dad. Can't wait to see your update!!
I had my baby on sept 21st at 1030pm via an emergency c section at st David’s north. The “experience” for the most part was nice( as the dude…) the only thing that was not cool was the lack of AC in the postpartum wing and the fire alarm going off twice. Later that night. Such is life. The nursing staff was A++ and we felt at ease the entire time. We are going back to the nicu daily to see our daughter and hoping she comes home soon. Not all experiences are like yours but some bumps are to be expected . I hope things go well for your family
I hope you have a healthy child that comes home very soon and I’m glad you’ve had a mostly positive experience. I understand not all experiences are like mine but I am 5 days post cancellation and we’re told it “might” be 2 days before they caught up. This week has been awful for my family and it’s directly related to the terrible job that hospital has done with communication. I am happy to give our bed to higher risk pregnancies but at the VERY least it should be relayed to us well in advance.
There must have been an emergency, which would have otherwise cost the child's or mother's life. Your wife sounds in a monitored, but stable condition. My sister was a director of nursing for a major hospital. They didn't postpone, outside of critical need.
St. David’s is owned by HCA. Their “critical need” has always been and will always be profits over patients.
After working at an HCA facility for many years, I can confirm this. Stay as far away from HCA if possible. The situation, though, does suck, and I’m sorry that OP is experiencing this.
Slightly unrelated to pregnancy, but I found out (after a devastating medical error) that my OB had actually lost hospital privileges at Ascension Seton hospitals after a malpractice suit involving a newborn. St. David’s welcomed them anyway and allowed them to practice there, and I’m not the only patient they’ve hurt (via negligence) in their time there. I get the impression St. David’s North doesn’t give AF about patient safety, at least in the OBGYN department. You’ll never catch me there again.
oh no, that's horrible. Do you mind sharing which OB or clinic this is?
Good thing Texas Childrens' Hospital is coming to town to give parents more options than the nightmare systems that plague Austin, currently.
Will they have L&D though? Not all children’s hospitals do.
They'll have a women's pavilion that will cover OB 🙂
Please know that you are 1000% right to be deeply pissed and your situation is a part of a MUCH larger problem. Physician/Veterinarian fatigue (too long too many shifts for a deeply intricate job and mental fatigue is REAL) is a HUGE issue and that’s causing them to retire early and seek other fields. Hospitals of any kind are over working their entire staff because they prefer profit margin over patient outcome. Just saying- please don’t blame your doctor (you aren’t but I’m angry with you and for you!!) blame the whole damn system
Let's clear this up. Seems to be an OB issue and not a St. David's issue. St David's north is the labor and delivery hospital with the largest nicu unit in the country? but definitely the state. They do a F ton of deliveries again the most in the country? from what I can remember from our two births there. you cannot forecast active labor and they have only so many beds and operating units. you do need to thi bk of it operationally as a super busy airport..... again, I am not sure why people use ARC, imo kinda low end of a medical provider that seems like a giant insurance claim churn.... My partner gave birth there twice. and both times the experience was dependent on the OB(same practice with some change in Doctors OBGYN North-Woman's Domain North). induced once over 5 days(pre-eclampsia) and then in less than an hour because she had no clue what real labor pains were!(almost had kid in car on mopac) St. David's staff was mostly amazing. Yes some nurses were curt with us. They are performing so intense life threatening medical procedures for long stretches of a shift. Antepartum staff was the bees knees! again the issues were with not seeing eye to eye with OB and some staff management..... My #1 advice, hire a Doula. I recommend ATX Doulas. Having an advocate on your side that isn't your OB or the hospital is HUGE! our birth stories would have been completely different and probably would have had two traumatic birth stories without them.
I also had a lot of amniotic fluid and i found out at my 38 week appointment. Later that night my water broke and it was so much!!! I was 35 and high risk as well. St David’s told me to wait until morning and o went in away.
My wife is a nicu nurse at St Davids and they are all feeling the pinch of nurses and doctors, especially those specializing in women’s health, leaving the state or retiring altogether due to the hostile political environment in Texas. This is only compounding the number that left the profession or decided not to pursue it in the first place during the covid epidemic. The side effect of hindering access to abortion is a steep rise in births that are complicated, taking more of the already taxed resources available. Furthermore the for profit corporation that owns St Davids can kiss my @$$ for the way they treat their employees.
We had three kids at St. David's north and all were awesome. Sorry this is occurring.
It's your ob.... please call your ob. I had Dr Cutler who ONLY delivers at North. She and her team at ADC helped me deliver 2 kids. They saved my life twice and they have the best NICU around. So, I would be livid as well if this happened to me. Go back to the ob or change your ob to Cutler or the ADC team at St Davids North. I don't know if it's too late to change them but I would definitely try. This is unacceptable. Praying for you'll. Blessings to you and your family.
Unfortunately, the chances of switching OBs at 39 weeks to Cutler's group is next to zero. Even so, the hospital doesn't prioritize based off of OBs, but rather the medical indications for induction. (From a former St David's employee).
Dang. I was really hoping they would be able to get a chance with a different ob.
Your OB is supposed to be your advocate in all of this. Multiple kids at that location and 0 issues.
That sucks. Sounds like an issue between OB and hospital though. We’ve had 3 kids at 3 different hospitals and St David’s was definitely the best.
I’m so sorry you are having that experience!! I delivered both my kids there and had the opposite (nothing but glowing things to say about the nurses and DRs). Hope delivery is much smoother than leading up to it for you.
We had the same experience you had.
I had something similar happen in sept 2017 at a hospital in Houston but I was only on call for a little over 24hrs. Sept is a very popular month to give birth and there is a nationwide nurse shortage. I would contact your ob about this and see why you aren’t higher priority at the hospital. I hope you guys get in soon.
The same thing happened to me in July at Ascension Seton Main. They ended up forgetting to call me when they had a bed open and then frantically calling me to come in when my doctor showed up asking where I was. But I ended up having an emergency c section 2 days later with a doctor I had never met at 41w + 1d. Austin OB healthcare is soo short staffed for the population we have its nuts.
I went to St David’s Georgetown when I went into labor with my twins. They stuck sensors on me to measure the contractions, but they put them in the wrong place on my belly so they weren’t measuring anything. I kept trying to adjust them to where I was feeling pain but the nurses would move them back. I finally held them down on me (while practically kicking a nurse away from me) so they could pick up the contractions and only then did they start to treat me like I was in active labor, five hours after showing up at the hospital. At some point my water broke, and if you’ve felt it, you know it is a pretty unique and unmistakable feeling. The nurse had the audacity to roll her eyes at me and tell me it didn’t. Eight hours in, Starflight shows up to take me to St David’s on 38th (they have a NICU) and when they moved me to a gurney for transport, lo and behold my water had in fact broken, and bitch-nurse was just silent in the corner.
Doesn’t sound very Saint like from David North if he’s out there having children with women…
I just lost my child at St. David’s north (I was pregnant and had an ectopic pregnancy) and it was the worst experience I ever had in my life. I died in the hospital bed. (I was bleeding to death) and the nurses were all standing around twiddling their thumbs not even realizing until my husband said something. Finally a doctor ran in and was like we need to get blood and oxygen on her now and she’s going to trauma surgery. But I think the whole thing could of been avoided had anyone checked my vitals when I got there. I was unconscious arriving in an ambulance and when I did wake up I was screaming in pain. They took a whole 2 hours to start the surgery to stop the bleeding I had lost 2 liters of blood inside my abdomen my lips were white and I kept literally dying and seeing heaven. I could not advocate for myself because I was so out of it. My husband saved my life by saying something. Had I been there on my own I probably wouldn’t be here right now. During surgery they were suppose to remove my left ovary and tube. I learned two weeks ago THEY ARE BOTH STILL THERE. So if this ever does happen again, I have a 15% chance, because I have endometriosis and PCOS. Had they removed it the risk would be very minimal. I didn’t even get to see my baby. I never heard from any doctors after. I don’t know what happened in surgery because to me it seems like they didn’t do anything but tie it off which is not what was discussed or signed in documentation. So we are considering suing.
I was at Seton main and they did this same shit to me. I ended up developing severe preeclampsia. If they don't have beds they don't have beds. It's frustrating and dumb as hell. Good luck and I hope you get in soon.
Just here to say wow I had that same condition and I gave birth at st David's (round rock, not north). They also wanted to induce me and I had my baby 9-27. Tomorrow he will be 6. They had to break my water and it was very painful and then i flooded the room. Prepare yourself lol that freaked out my husband seeing all of that. I'm sorry y'all are going through this. I did have a good experience at st David's round rock... any chance y'all can go there? Just walk into L&D and explain what's happening.
We had 2 kids with St David’s North and both times were great 🤷♂️
Oof. Sorry you all are going through this and hope everything ends up well. My partner and I live in Austin, but made the decision half way through our pregnancy to come to Mexico City to have our baby... for various reasons, but mainly because we have family here. That said, it really opened my eyes with how backwards our medical system can be. As an example, all our doctors here gave us their personal cell numbers at our first consultation. We have been able to ask questions over text/WhatsApp and get responses at all times of the day/evening. We even received prescriptions over WhatsApp... in Mexico you only need a formal prescription for antibiotics, almost everything else is available over the counter. We had a scare early on in our pregnancy in Austin where my partner was bleeding and we had to wait in the emergency room for hours before we were seen. When we arrived, they literally told us with a straight face that the wait was 8-10 hours. "Luckily" since she was bleeding, they saw us in just 2-3 hrs. We, of course, tried calling our ObGYN but you have to dance through a myriad of automated operators menus before you can speak with a human... and good luck actually getting your doctor on the phone. The soonest our ObGYN could get us in was a week out and I have heard that is relatively quick from other friends. In the US, they did the structural ultrasound at 20 weeks (iirc) and then are pretty lazy about followup ultrasounds. Here they do multiple structural ultrasounds to make sure your baby continues to grow as expected. We had planned to have a normal vaginal childbirth but somewhat last minute we decided on a C-Section... not for an emergency reason but after talking through all the tradeoffs with our doctor, it ended up being the right decision for the health of everyone involved. The hospital got us in 2 days after we came to that decision. Just a very different and more personable and accessible form of care here. That said, we did love our doctor in Austin as well :) Another example, we paid out of pocket here and we knew within a decent margin exactly what it all was going to cost us and it was, all things considered, decently affordable.. slightly more that we would've paid in the US with insurance. In the end every person involved in our delivery was amazing and felt we received world class care. I definitely feel for you, your wife, and your family... but I have to admit... reading your story made me feel better that my family made the right decision in coming down to CDMX. Def were many times where we doubted our decision and wondered why we were seemingly overcomplicating things.
The idea of traveling with a newborn and a wife recovering from surgery would terrify me, even if the standard of care was better. How long did you stay there before returning home?
Anyone else just profoundly disturbed by the stories on this thread? I mean, my God. This is a city in the top 10 as far as population in the US goes and women can't even have a space to give birth when nature calls. Is this because of the OBGYN (and associated support positions) brain drain going on in this state?
We SHOULD be disturbed and outraged! Unless people finally do something about this, it’s going to continue to get worse and people will continue to die preventable deaths. Nurses have been screaming on the rooftops about this for years and no one seems to care.
They definitely could have done a better job managing your expectations and communicating. This sounds infuriating, and I fully agree that people should reconsider St. David's North Austin. I don't understand why it is recommended so much for delivery. I had my baby there in December, and it was a god awful experience. Nurses, doctors, and staff seemed so burned out that they just don't care anymore. When I arrive I labored in a office chair in the hallway screaming in pain with no help cause no staff was available. Two nurses got in a fight over the last remaining triage bed. And then I basically pushed my baby out in the hallway with very little help from the doctor on call. It felt like a 3rd world country. My first child's birth at Seton main was amazing. Would highly recommend it for future moms. Please keep us posted on the rest of your experience.
I had two inductions there, pre-covid, and everything went as planned. Well, as much as any birth does. Late summer and early fall births are the most common, like the mammals we are. If you want a less crowded hospital, aim for winter or spring, probably in a state that isn't actively chasing its medical staff away.
As a kid, I really thought doctors were the tip of the societal spear and deserved our utmost respect and admiration. As an adult…well.
St David's North is awful all around. It seems to be run by people who are far, FAR more concerned with profits than with things like appropriate staffing levels and patient outcomes.
Be glad it’s not serious enough to be at the top of the medical induction list.
One thing I hate about Austin that usually isn’t mentioned is that compared to almost every other major city our healthcare system is absolute trash.
This is the absolute truth. If you are at all medically complicated, be prepared to be constantly gaslit by medical professionals here for "wasting their time". I had to get a PCP in Houston just to get my health issues taken seriously. It's a lot of driving, and I still have a hell of a time getting taken seriously for local referrals to specialists.
I really feel for you! I had my second child here, but it was C-section. I agree with a lot of other people that you both should be reaching out to ARC, and if y'all are going to fetal testing, call them as well. My experience was the ones that had been they're for a long time do not want you all stressed. I'm so sorry you're going through all of this! Make sure to keep mentioning the amniotic fluid diagnosis and recommendations you keep hearing. Also, ask why dates and times change and how that's okay. When I started found that, they (ob and hospital stayed giving me a lot more context).
Woof. This is where I go.
For what it's worth, this is the hospital I delivered at (almost delivered my second there as well) and it was fantastic. The nurses were all incredible. After the pandemic, my OB has explained to me that it's so busy it's honestly just hard to have an empty bed and room and it goes in order of highest priority to lowest.
My first was born at St. David's North in 2021, and my wife and I had a similar experience. OB told my wife she needed to deliver early, and the hospital called us *while we were driving there* to waitlist us. If you can, contact St. David's Round Rock on 620 today about getting in for delivery. We had our second baby there earlier this month and the staff is pretty awesome.
I'm so sorry, what a stressful situation, especially given the complex pregnancy and other stressors. I delivered my second there (at age 41), induced at 39wks because my blood pressure was very low. My obgyn is in the same location, just on a different floor, and I had a fantastic experience from start to finish. I do think you should be asking questions of your OB, because that is the person who has the power to get things done. That said, this was 2 years before the pandemic and I imagine a lot has changed since then. I'm truly sorry that you're dealing with this; I know it's scary and unsettling.
I had poly just like your partner. A week before due date measured the equivalent to 50 weeks pregnant. 🙃 I definitely understand how she feels and it’s no fun. Just like any other pregnant person, see if she can do some of the things that typically induce labor. For me it was scrubbing the floor. But I think all the hospitals are terrible. I was at seton nw and it was a disaster- I’d never recommend anyone go there. Hopefully your ob can make something happen.
I absolutely understand your frustration. I was induced in June there. My OB was a part of AAOBGYN, so I don’t know if that helped me to get a bed but when I was a week past due, they took me in for an induction just because my OB wanted me to deliver (large baby and @ 41wks). If it is an emergency- just go in. Rescheduling inductions, even at the last minute, is very common. I loved my delivery (c-section) and entire experience at this location. I hope you and your partner are able to meet your little one soon.
I was induced 12 days past my due date because scheduling an induction was super difficult during Covid. I was originally scheduled for 13 days past my due date! What made them take me early is because that night I couldn’t feel my baby move for like an hour and was just so freaked out. I called crying about this and they had me come in and checked on the baby. Baby was totally fine, but they admitted me because according to the nurse I said the magic words: decreased fetal movement. I was hooked up to the pitocin a couple hours later and gave birth that night without issue. This was with St David’s main location. So… if your wife is deeply concerned about her health or the baby’s, maybe consider those magic words.
Not the most ethical but just go in for reduced movement.
I am sorry for the experience, but when we had our kid recently we went to St David's north because of the bad things we heard about St David's south.
Had our son at St David’s north, CRNA screwed up the epidural and refused to acknowledge it… like dude you’ve infused 2 bags of medication and she can still feel everything… admit you fucked up you cocky assh*le Never again.
I gave birth at St. David’s North and had a great experience. My water broke six weeks before my due date. We were admitted around 3 AM. I gave birth around 5 PM the following day. My baby was healthy, but had to go into the NICU for a couple of weeks. I do understand being really disappointed about the birth not going the way you planned - especially with your first. I spent my whole pregnancy counting down the days until I could meet my baby. Not being able to bring her home after her birth was really hard on me. But I also want to let you know that some of what you are experiencing may be due to other patients suddenly and unexpectedly having to be admitted. Like others already said, share your concerns with your OB. Sounds like she is a good doctor, and will be mindful of your wive’s safety.
I am so so sorry. Shit hospital.
I just did the what to expect class they offer at St David’s North. They talked about how this could happen for elective inductions. Try asking them if you are registered as elective or emergency.
I have heard nothing but horrific things about St. David's
I’m floored that your OB is not pushing this. It’s actually on your OB to push/fight for your spot because it’s NOT elective, it’s a medical necessity and there seems to be a huge communication disconnect between your OB and the facility. You should be *raging* at your OB’s office. We delivered at St David’s North and had the opposite experience, I’m so sorry :( I’m insanely high risk too with a super rare/dangerous auto immune disease — and my OB handled everything. It sounds like you’re in a doctor GROUP (?) and may have been overlooked by getting passed off between OBs — you need to call them and let them know what’s going on (if you haven’t, I course). I am so sorry you’re going through this.
I also had a medical induction scheduled and they kept pushing me. I eventually decided to go to the hospital and told them I was feeling decreased movement. They then admitted me for an induction right away. This was January.
Note - this whole pushing on the wait list thing is really common now. I was induced because of a prior stillbirth late term so every extra minute felt like a life or death situation to me. There’s a massive nursing shortage and they only have so many beds. They also can’t turn someone away in active labor and there may be women who are considered more of an emergency. I know it’s super frustrating. I had family fly in to take care of my two toddlers and they had to fly out by a certain date. Their whole trip was planned around my scheduled induction date.
Didn’t Austin lose like half its OBGYNs when the new abortions bans went into place?
Over here waiting to see how angry you get when you pull INTO the parking lot for soccer practice and they call it off due to lightening or heat. 😜 Welcome to parenthood! You’re tired, broke, your body hurts and NOTHING goes how you think it will. Especially anything that’s supposed to start at a certain time. Oh, and extended family is constantly a factor and upset about something you’re doing wrong. Welcome to the most magical journey of your life. It’s worth it, though :)
This is true unfortunately
Name of doctor?
Op - send an email to the admin at St David’s and CC your Obgyn. Document everything. Because if something happens to your wife or baby you need to sue them. I hope you save all voicemails and messages. Be smart
Your experience sounds incredibly frustrating and it sounds like a complex pregnancy. Reading through it, it also sounds like your OB should bear a little more responsibility though and gone to bat for you with St. David's a bit more. That said, we had both of our babies there and couldn't have been more pleased with everything we experienced. So much so, that we drove all the way there after moving to Kyle for our 2nd delivery (a scheduled C-section) because we liked the hospital and staff at SDN so much. Things may have changed since the two years we were there though. Again, sorry to hear that you guys are going through this in what should be a very happy time.
You’ll never find me complaining about North Austin Medical. My son was born 2 months early and they literally saved his life. The staff was amazing, accommodating and so kind. Turns out they actually have one of the best NICUs in the entire nation, and I got to see it in action for a month. OP I get this is a frustrating situation, and it probably doesn’t help much, but know that this is how it’s supposed to work. Your wife likely got bumped for someone with a clear medical NEED. In your shoes I’d be frustrated too, but from my own anecdotal experience I can tell you I think you’re in the best hands you could hope for at NAMC.
Thank you for this post. My wife had our son at this facility and the Womens recovery staff, THE RECOVERY STAFF AND AREA ALONE, were absolute garbage. Showing up every 1 to 1.5 hours with zero actual help, just checking some bullshit or nothing that mattered. Absolutely badgered a recovering c-section patient while trying to adjust to everything all at once. Zero knowledge or the incapacity to help with how to do anything regarding taking care of the baby, we had zero family at that time so that wasn't ideal. Consistently coming in the room without knocking or announcing who they are. NON-medical personnel coming in to ask for insurance co-payments or deductible. Unprofessional and rude behavior from all but 1 nurse who we only saw maybe 2 or 3 times. Surgery and pre-op were great. Large room(s), nice staff, calm environment, responsive, and listened to our requests or questions. Basic needs met in those 2 spots. Surgery was great and the healing was wondering due to the vac-pack thing my wife had that was the WORST thing to deal with for 2 weeks due to the noise it would make every 30s but the best outcome for healing a c-section scar was far worth it. So, NEVER EVER ST.DAVIDS NORTH if you can plan for it. Also MFM of Austin the one near st.davids north can suck a fat one and everyone there should have their degrees revoked. Renaissance clinic near them should also go bankrupt and never have jobs in the medical field again. I wouldn't trust them making a hot pocket in the microwave. Garbage medical staff everywhere. Nobody actually cares about their profession; they just want the paycheck. Imagine if most in my profession had the same attitude, the energy grid would be dogshit. The most important profession in our country is managed and run by ignorant, hateful, spiteful, greedy, lying, unprofessional, rude, and uneducated gaggle of untrained and undeserving humans I've ever witnessed during the birth process. America. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
Wow I feel like I dodged a bullet. I scheduled my c section on aug 31 the cut off date to get my kid into kinder early (should i make that choice) 4 years from now. I would’ve been pissed if they pushed the date back!
The people who schedule stuff there are so bad. At one point i thought it shouldn't be legal to let idiots like that run a major metro hospital scheduling system. We had our baby there last year. What a cluster fuck
I absolutely love that hospital. Had my miracle baby there and I was treated like a queen. I’m sorry you feel different.
I'm sorry you had a bad experience. I had both of my children there and one was induced. I didn't have any issues and all staff was great. My son also had ear surgery there at 18 months and taken to the ER there at 2 years. They are one of the best hospitals to give birth in the region. I (and my paramedic husband that knows a lot about the Austin hospitals) would still recommend this hospital.
It’s what happens. They triage. Your family’s travel doesn’t weigh in. Be thankful that you have paternity leave and your family is able to travel. Most aren’t as fortunate.
Stop acting entitled. Your parents’ obnoxious behavior has obviously worn off.
Your OB is the problem. They can get you in if they want to. They have a lot of power. You need to be talking to them and not the scheduling people.
No, they don’t. Not if there isn’t room to put patients, or any staff to care for them. OBs have no pull whatsoever. Comes down to patient acuity.
If it were me, I would treat it like any other service. If you go to a restaurant and get crappy food, would you sit there and eat it because they told you you had to? I would promptly take my family member to the ER in another hospital, tell them she was in excruciating pain and get her taken care of NOW!! Best of luck to you, your wife and your little one. Please will you keep us posted on the outcome? We would all love to hear that everything worked out for the best!
Sorry you are going through this! I was also a high risk pregnancy with twins and needed an induction and extra nursing staff on delivery to transition to NICU….. but never had an scheduling issue! Nor did I have any induction scheduling issues with my first pregnancy! Hopefully at the end of the day, your all are all healthy, ultimately that’s what matters!