When I discovered I was pregnant, I was referred to Rachel's House right next to Planned Parenthood by a few of my friends and 2 friends of my boyfriend's that he went to church with. Everyone seemed really nice, there were multiple resources to help me and my child including a a fake funding called "mommy money" to help me get items for my unborn child. I thought it was great but too good to be true, and I was right.

 

When I went in for a proof of pregnancy, my boyfriend came into the back room with me to wait for the results while she had us watch about 30 minutes of cute but cheesy informational videos about fetuses in the womb and a questionnaire which was in free write form, asking things about "my life goals," "how do I plan to care for the baby," "what are my plans if the test was positive," and about support from the child's father. When she came back in she seemed thrilled to tell me it was positive, of course we already knew it was from the previous home bought test and even more thrilled when I told her I was not considering abortion, but proceeded to tell us about it anyways.

 

After that she had gotten what seemed like a full record of me and my boyfriend's info and started talking about and giving us literally stacks of pamphlets about adoption and abstinence and STDs. Finally we told her we had planned to get our own place and parent the baby. She then proceeded to ask about marriage, and tried to persuade us that it was not a good idea to move in together when we told her we were engaged but marriage would have to wait because we would not have the time and money to do so with a new born. She handed me a pamphlet that was basically saying our relationship would fail if we lived together, the father would leave me, and I would be a single mother, followed by more adoption info. She tried to persuade me that time and about 2 weeks after that to go to a place called "Mother's Refuge" even after I told her my family situation was good. From what I read, it seemed like they trained young girls with no families to be house wives, and they only left the house with the group of girls and the house mother. She finally got the hint and left it alone.

 

But the strangeness doesn't stop there, I was stupid enough to stay with them for prenatal care in which I had to have my Medicaid card in and have an appointment just to fill out medical history paperwork in which they billed my insurance for. And knowing I had not received any prenatal care (at 27 weeks) they tried to make my care appointment for 2 weeks in advance even though they previously had attitudes about me coming in as soon as possible for it. I was able to get it moved to a week. But couldn't help but start to feel like the place was a bit creepy. I went in for my diagnostic ultrasound, in which Dr. Philgreen was the one appointed to me even though I requested my pcp be Shari Ommen. He and the nurse did not even know how to work the ultrasound, it took them 20 minutes to find one button on the front of the machine and to figure out how to print, and they could not determine her gender, they took no measurements of my baby and gave me no information about her well being despite being asked numerous times, and it being a diagnostic ultrasound, told me they needed to send me to North Kansas City Hospital instead. My boyfriend went back to get my mother, in which the lady at the front desk tried to tell them both that he couldn't go back again, and that my mom couldn't go back, she went back anyways of course, and the doctor seemed out right shocked and disgusted that I had actually brought my mother with me, and was pretty rude to her and well as the other staff were. And he told my mother that he was not qualified to use the machines....what?! And he also gave me false information claiming pap smears were no longer preformed on anyone under the age of 21, and he did a "pelvic exam" instead, which was fake, it was just to make me believe that they were doing things for my health, when really they just wanted to seem legit, and they aren't even qualified to give pelvic exams. I also had blood work drawn for glucose levels, in which the lady called me back and said basically "it's no big deal, only very slightly elevated, but we are going to have you take a 4 hour glucose test challenge."

 

I was done, I had already considered not going back after the ultrasound, but after talking to my mother last night, we did more research on them this morning and found this site along with a complaint site about them, to where Dr. Philgreen had lied to women and told them their babies had died inside them along with other horrible stories. I will never go back there again. I'm glad I went to the hospital and that my little girl is doing very well and very healthy. I should have listened to my mother right off the bat and let her set my ob/gyn up for me, but I wanted to go my own way even though I was completely naive about these kinds of things, I wanted to show independence. And even though my story isn't as bad as the others, it's still pretty scary being an 18 year old first time mom to be, and finding out your clinic is a big fat lie that brainwashes and uses young, uninformed mothers like myself not too mention the horrible thing I heard about them, and the downright creepy, "black market" aura. I will never go the quick, free, easy way again when it comes to health. I'm currently looking for a new doctor with my mom for the remaining 11 weeks of my pregnancy, and I will be warning other girls what a joke this place is.