Expecting mother Natalie Rodriguez of Kansas City, Missouri, spent the last three months in a Kansas City women’s health clinic, waiting for the office to “find an open exam room” or “run her insurance” or “get back from Panera.”
“One time they went to Panera for a whole week,” says Rodriguez, nervously rubbing her belly. “I would go back to work, but now I’m so close to maternity leave that I guess I’ll just wait.”
Rodriguez, who works as a project manager, claims that once she was told it would be a matter of minutes before the OBGYN was ready to see her. Five hours later, the receptionist called her up to sign paperwork. “By that point, I had gotten through a whole Entertainment Weekly, front to back, and then back to front just for fun, and then completely backwards to try and find any hidden messages,” says Rodriguez. “Every time I stood up to check with the receptionist, she just picked up the phone and started talking into it.”
She adds, “Did you know that Miranda Lambert spelled backward is Treblam Adnarim?”
After having her vitals taken three days later, Rodriguez was out of the exam room. “I was waiting to talk to Dr. Lawrence,” she explains. By the time Dr. Lawrence was available one month later, Rodriguez had used up all of her remaining vacation days for the year. “This is my first pregnancy, so I just assumed this was normal,” she shrugs.
While her doctor was called to multiple births over the course of the next two months, Rodriguez passed the time making fashion collages out of old magazines and IUD brochures. “I needed something to keep me from losing it. Thank goodness there was wifi there!”
Dr. Lawrence finally saw Rodriguez upon entering her third trimester. “Once I finally got into the room so he could explain, Dr. Lawrence told me to get some rest and prepare for labor.”
Rodriguez was finally discharged from the waiting room that day. But, she says, her obstetrician wants her to increase her appointment frequency as the birth approaches. “He’s very busy, though, so it might be a bit of a wait.”
