Waiting to Start

We’ve finally getting to delve into the world of infertility treatments, because for the last three months, we’ve been on standby. Actually, we’ve been on hold since November. First off, as you folks on the same road as me know, you can do nothing after your consult until the great hand of the insurance company deems that you can. Then you need to have the initial tests, and then more insurance approvals. Then you must, at least at our RE, attend an IUI informational session, along with all the other couples in the same boat. And I’m sorry, but going to a session two days before Christmas wasn’t going to happen in my house without serious psychological harm being done to my mind (in that everything-must-be-perfect-for-the-holidays-now-trim-that-tree-and-wrap-those-presents-and-who-cares-as-long-as-the-cards-are-postmarked-by-Christmas mode).

So we finally get to a session in January. Then DH travels in February. Then in March and April, I’ve got too thick of a lining at the start of my cycle, and they want nothing to do with me. Actually, my RE wants to do a hysteroscopy and endometrial biopsy in April, so we schedule it for a Monday I happen to have off (but so do the kids and DH). The Monday happens to be the day after Easter Sunday, and on Easter Sunday, the Center calls my house and leaves a message, changing my 2:00 p.m. procedure to 11:30 a.m. We, of course, are at Easter dinner at my folks with my brother and his family, and we don’t get the message until that night. Now comes the fun part: how can you physically get a 10-year-old to his orthodontist appointment twenty miles away from where you need to be dropped off thirty minutes later for your procedure? The answer: you can’t, unless you call your aunt, who was going to watch your kids that afternoon while DH took you to the original appointment, and she graciously offers to drop you off. So I get dropped off at my reassigned time, and get all the way through the gates of scrutiny. Just before they come to give me the La-La-Land I.V., the nurse hands me a prescription for an antibiotic, which I quickly realize is harmful to fetuses. I mention this to her, and her eyes glaze over. She asks why I would be concerned, and I tell her that I am ovulating (according to those sticks I keep peeing on every month), and since we had five minutes to ourselves while we were hiding the Easter eggs, DH and I had “unprotected relations”. She goes in search of my RE, who kindly explains that, while he truly doubts that I would be getting pregnant on my own with the lining issue, my procedure is now OFF; he doesn’t want to risk flushing an embryo into my tube. So another month is down the drain.

I should explain one thing here. My mother’s mother’s mother died of endometrial cancer, which was finally diagnosed one Easter when she and my great-grandfather were visiting my grandparents. She starts to hemorrhage, and her son-in-law, my grandfather, who was an OB/GYN, took her to the hospital and ending up consulting on her diagnosis. So my concern isn’t so much that I can’t get pregnant because my lining is continuously too thick, but that there’s something more ominous going on down there. At this point, I mentally decide that if, in the great scheme of things, my losing Jimmy and the Little One were so that I would be followed this closely and that something bad would be caught and treated early so that I would live to see my grandchildren, then I would be somehow find resolution in all of this.

We plan to do the procedure early in May, and it’s done by one of the other REs on a Friday. He mentions inflammation, and I’m put on that antibiotic that stopped everything in its tracks last time. Then I’m told to wait for the results, that I’ll get a call in 7 to 10 days.

You know what happens already. No call. I wait two weeks, and then I call. The first nurse says that the results aren’t even in my file (electronic or paper). Then she calls back, says everything is fine, and we can go ahead with our scheduled April/May IUI. Please note from above, it’s now mid-May. I call the Center in a very agitated state, requesting that my RE call me regarding this budding FUBAR chain of events. He calls me back within thirty minutes (very impressive!), and tells me that all the test results read “normal”, that the other RE shouldn’t have said “inflammation” and that I’m to call CD#1 of my next cycle so we can start the IUI process. He adds that, if I have any other concerns or problems, call him directly (wow, a doctor that will speak directly with his patients!). So, now, after four Follistim shots, I wait for the call regarding this morning’s bloodwork, and for my head to stop hurting where I've been banging it against the wall of bad customer service...