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To see the normal doctor I rarely have to wait longer than 10mins and often I go right in. To see the midwife I had to wait 30mins at least every time...DH took time off work to come too and it sucked. I got really mad once when I had to wait 40mins!

wow-- that does seem like an unacceptable amt of time to wait did they have any explanation for you?

@Arden: lol, I had the exact opposite experience! my OB's office was crazy great -- always in within 5 minutes, knew who I was and followed my pregnancy closely, and my midwives office was not so great -- never remembered me, got me mixed up with other patients, often had to wait a really long time, etc! BUT, they were really nice people and the care was adequate, and I had a great birth experience with both my OB office and the midwives (2 different births). I'm so glad you had a good experience!!

I'm really surprised by the 30 minute responses!

My doctor is sometimes 4 hours behind because of emergency surgeries. I always call 15 minutes before my scheduled appointment and ask how far behind the doctor is. I'll call 2 hours later to see if anything changed, etc. Then i'll get to the office 30 minutes after the time she told me. This usually brings the wait down to 1 hour (including waiting in the actual room).

I think it's all about managing your expectations, and if you can't handle the waits then consider switching OBs. My friend couldn't handle our doctor's wait times, especially with a toddler so she switched to a clinic that had doctors rotating throughout the day. I learned after the first time (waiting 4 hours) what i had to do to make sure i could work around his crazy schedule.

That is insane! I would be an emotional/angry mess! I mean, after that long of a drive too, it takes your whole day!!

Is it a small town? Do they have too many patients?

This is one of my biggest frustrations. They need to make appointment times longer or build in breaks. My office does a call system for deliveries and you get whoever is on call to do your delivery so they have no excuse there for being late. I had the second appointment of the day a few weeks ago and I waited 90 minutes to be seen because the office manager accidentally only scheduled one midwife instead of two and then booked appointments for both. I wish there were ramifications for them being late but what are they going to do, give your money back? I have switched practices but it is like going from bad to worse. Plus this is the only group that delivers at the place I want to deliver.

Anything more than 30 minutes irritates me, that's why I love my midwife because I've never had to wait more than 10 minutes.