A Misunderstanding?!!

So, background information. I am 8 months pregnant. We just moved and I moved my prenatal care from a large HMO to a midwife. She just got my records from the HMO. I was very happy with the move because I was feeling like "they" were treating a different pregnancy than the one I was having. "They" (the doctors and nurses) kept pressuring me to take tests for conditions which I had no risk factors for and no symptoms of. "They" also wanted me to schedule an induction as they had classified this pregnancy as high risk.

More background info. This is my third child. My first two were born at home (on purpose) at full term, healthy, with no complications. I am a Group-B carrier, which means that antibiotics are usually administered as a standard in the hospital, I treated the group B at home with both pregnancies. Turns out... that neither child would have even been exposed because with both pregnancies my water did not break until the babies crowned. I also labor very quickly (less than 6 hours with both). I had a lot of contractions and began dilating very early with both of them, never enough to actually 'push' me into labor. I am 5'9" and weigh about 135 (pre-pregnancy). I used to weigh closer to 150 but broke my back and lost about 40lbs to muscle atrophy... which I have tried and tried to regain... but after 10yrs... its gone, I have accepted it. I am happy to keep my weight up to 135 which is a challenge. If I am not careful, like eating more than everybody at the table, I can easily start dropping weight. I also work as a model. I am not famous, I don't make a lot of money, but its fun and inconsistent. I only work with people I like more than once... and people I don't like, I just don't work with. I have an agent, they pay me, I pay taxes.

So, the midwife who is now handling my prenatal care... gets my records from the HMO. She says, "they've got you classified as high risk". I tell her, "I know... and the whole story..." She says that's not all... they say you are a 'possible eating disorder' and that you are a "model". Oh, more info about my midwife... I know her because she is the mother of my friend, another Ford Model. So, she is very aware of my work and knows I am not a delusional anorexic who believes that if I starve myself I will someday be a working model. Anyway, she found this very amusing that with quotes around model and assumption that I have an eating disorder they obviously did not believe that I was serious when I answered the occupation question.

I am so upset about this because it is not the first time a doctor has tried to diagnose me with an eating disorder... oh, my records also stated that I was obsessed with food. I am obsessed with food... I LOVE IT! I love to cook it, cut it, knead it, wash it, taste it and consume it. I love to know the chemical make-up... fats, carbs, sugars, fibers, how much vit A? vit D? any Riboflavin? I love food. I count calories for fun. I play games with the numbers in my head. I am a walking encyclopedia when it comes to nutrition and diet. Americans have such a ridiculous relationship with food that the word diet has totally lost its meaning and so when a 5'9" 130lb woman says diet... it is immediately assumed she is anorexic. Diet is like the word metabolism... it includes everything you put in your mouth. Just like metabolism includes every metabolic process, like peeing. People never think of that. My friends think I am crazy because I have in my head calorie counts for just about every food that is in my usual diet... fruits, vegetables, pasta, rice... ooh, love rice, basmati, jasmine, brown, short, long, wild...beans. I am not big on animals (its the texture.), so I don't really know a lot about calories for them, just the basics like fat content, vitamin content etc. Anyway, I can look at just about any plate of food and come up with a calories, vitamins, fiber, etc. and be pretty accurate. I am just now starting to count fast food calories... which are astounding by the way. I don't eat much fast food so I just pick up some info here and there. AAhhhh, I am getting off point.

So anyway, it bothers me that I am constantly fighting this "possibility of eating disorder" thing. I can't remember a doctor in my life that didn't immediately think I had an eating disorder. I am thin, but not that thin. Usually, I am a size 6. But when my midwife told me "they" had written that I am "obsessive" about food.... it clicked. It's not that I am thin, it's that food is an interest for me.... so the minute a doctor mentions food, I go off and spout out all this info I have about food in my head. They don't see that I am autistic and rambling... they think I have an eating disorder. So, how am I supposed to get competent medical care when doctors are constantly misinterpreting the information I have? I am autistic... I spend hours thinking about food. I am the same way with drugs and herbs. It fascinates me that we can put things into our body that affect our metabolism in so many ways. Diet Coke for instance. Zero calories in 12oz. Doesn't that blow anyone else away? How did they do that? I won't continue that line of thought ;O). So, anytime I talk to a doctor and they give their opinion on a drug or treatment, I always have one of my own. The problem is most doctors are busy doctoring and don't have time to research new drugs and treatment... they get an overview from a salesman and make opinions based on that. To find a good doctor you have to find a "teaching" doctor. They are at "teaching" hospitals and universities. There's other criteria too, but this is a good place to start. Since they are so busy doctoring... they are totally confused when non-biased info is presented to them via this overly talkative patient. I hope that with a diagnosis, maybe it'll help. But given that they can't see my Autism, I am not confident that the medical community will ever be able to offer me care I can use... simply because they can't see my Autism. And, they (generally speaking) don't realize that some Autistics can talk, and talk. So, I am beginning to think, I will always be diagnosed with an eating disorder, and possible drug problems. Because I know more than I should about those things. I have no idea how to cope with that possibility. I hate it... It makes me angry, but I know that the more I try to clarify... the more 'they' will believe I have these disorders.