Thursday, October 22, 2009

The plan

Well in my last post I said I had made a decision without discussing with Husband. We finally had a moment to sit down and process together. He did tell me he can't deal when I shut down like I did after the RE appt so that's why it took so long to sit down together. I told him I shut down because he doesn't always share thoughts and feelings with me and I was protecting myself, and us (and the bank accounts)....Its a process. Never the less, we proceeded to have a great conversation.

My plan holds, no drugs, no real charting, and I'm now leaning towards not even testing for ovulation....we'll see next week. Plan for Husband and moving forward; get the bills from the surgery, figure out a plan to pay for all that (and Xmas and J's bday). Then Husband will do the SA's the RE recommended, and most likely visit with the new urologist to see what he has to say. Then we will cautiously see what is covered and not covered by insurance....and move forward. I think we will save up and try one more IUI with the new RE once the urologist has given recommendations.

This new mental place feels kinda mental, I still want another baby soooo much, I just feel calmer about it, for now. Headed out of town to visit Husbands 96 yr old grandmother, taking my mother in-law along - going to be a looonng weekend.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Some updates and a break

So Dr Arrogant himself called me the day after our appointment. Knock me over with a feather. I was eating lunch last Friday, my cell rang and it was him! He was reading my 6 page questionnaire and had a few more questions and recommendations for us. He thought due to family history of female cancers, I should get a mammogram early. He also recommended genetic testing because some of the learning disability history in my family could carry a factor for Fragile X syndrome. I thanked him for calling and told him the SA results from the other urologist should be there soon and he said he would keep an eye out for them. Very interesting.

AF showed up Sunday night - right on time! My OB was right, the D&C changed it....wow.


WARNING - TMI to follow: went from thick, dark, and clotty to red and thin, like a bloody nose that won't stop. Bled through big time overnight. Woke up having to scrub out undies and pj bottoms, yuk. Then spent yesterday changing a super tampon and a regular pad every 2.5 hours. Thankfully this seems to be slowing down today.


OK I'm done with yukky sharing, sorry, it's just a big change. So...upon the arrival of AF, I had a decision to make; take the Clomid the OB gave me (that I stupidly picked up and paid for before our RE appt) or follow the RE's advice and do nothing because "nothing is wrong with me". Without having discussed with Husband, I think that I'm going to just do nothing as far as meds, I may do the OPK to monitor my O day just so we know...but we are headed into the holiday season, I don't think I want this hanging over my head during the holidays any more than it is. We will gather the bills from my surgery, figure out how to pay for that, Christmas, and J's 5th birthday. We will try to just be with the expectation that I probably won't get pregnant and then we can deal in the New Year...or we can stop.....

As of late, I have been digging through our cluttered apartment and have made a discovery....we need more space. There just isn't a home for everything. But I am making a good attempt - we all are. The apartment is starting to feel more organized and tidy. My brain is starting to feel more relaxed and less overwhelmed.

We will see where this all goes. These are just my thoughts for today. We will see what they are tomorrow.

Friday, October 9, 2009

Dr Arrogant

So. Forgive me if this post doesn't make sense, I'm really still processing it all.

Yesterday, Husband and I left work at 1:45 for our 1st RE appt at 2pm. We were told it would be about 40-50 minutes - so that puts us back at work around 3pm right? Cool - Just take it as a late lunch and we are good to go. Wrong! We arrived with plenty of time, checked in, was given loads more paperwork to look over and a very intimidating price guide (YIKES!!!!). I asked if he was running on time and they said yes.... At 2:25 we still had not been taken in so I asked again, and they said we were next. The nurse finally called us in, she took my vitals and weight (yuk - I have got to lay off the chocolate) and then a student Dr came in and apologized for the delay (something about a complicated ultrasound) to go over our history. She verbally asked us all the questions that I had filled out in that damn 6 page packet. Can they not f-ing read? I would have been happy to mail it over early or to fax it to save time. Ugh! Finally just after 3p, Dr came in also apologizing for delay and we got down to business. My OBGYN had warned me that he was an arrogant bastard and that I wouldn't like him - she was right. So I will call him Dr Arrogant.
  1. Dr Arrogant reviewed my records and then proceeded to bash all her methods and pretty much told me everything she did was incorrect.
  2. Dr Arrogant said anything over a 2 for progesterone levels on day 21 was ovulation and that there was no difference in ovulation quality. Dr Arrogant doesnt do day 21 Progesterone blood work because it shows nothing. (OK- a friend of mine who worked with the other fertility clinic in town said her doc said the same as my OBGYN anything lower than a 6 wasn't optimal and she did day 21 draws.)
  3. Dr Arrogant said she should only have done 6 cycles of the clomid not 12. But I didn't really even need that now did I? Because as he had proven, I was ovulating.
  4. Dr Arrogant said her charting for my ultrasounds and surgery was irregular periods and pain. He would have charted it as irregular bleeding. So he thinks she was stretching. Though it did rule out endometriosis and proved that my tubes were open.
  5. Dr Arrogant is going to send a letter to my Dr to educate her on what she did wrong with my case. That really offended me - she did what I asked her to do and I told him that. We were trying to be fiscally responsible, she was assisting and he's going to write her a letter? Great, now I'm in the middle of a pissing war between my doc's. Especially cause he mentioned it several times during the appt. I hope she's expecting that....ugh!
  6. Dr Arrogant then asked about my husbands semen analysis (SA) reports and I said the urologist should have sent them over (side note: On the 30th, I specifically asked for the records to be transferred for the appt on the 8th - they weren't there. When I called this am, the 9th, the girl says oh I'm sorry do you want me to send them now? Yes you f'ing little b-tch and can you pay for the appt we wasted too?) Dr Arrogant said well they are not here are they? So we really can't discuss anything other than hypothetical. He also told me to go pick them up personally. What a f-ing waste! If I had time to do that in the first place I would have.
  7. Dr Arrogant wants to do new SA and depending on those results, which I expect to be poor, do another. Depending on those results, which I again expect to be poor, we should see his urologist. I asked what the difference was between ours and his and without asking who we saw, said that only 2 Dr's in Milwaukee specialized in reproductive urology. I asked a specific question about where the other Dr practices and guess what? That's the doc we saw last year! But his guy is better and more versed so we should go to him. Of course!
  8. In an attempt to figure out how much this all may cost us and what insurance may cover, I asked about how the clinic did the billing. Do they label it all the codes for infertility, or is some of the testing covered etc...just trying to understand. Because I know that my insurance will not cover anything that is labeled infertility. Dr Arrogant proceeded to go into a speech about how some Dr's will fudge the codes so it is paid for but that's cheating everyone. He pretty much said that all his stuff is labeled infertility treatment. He also mentioned that the ultrasounds my Dr gave me every month was a waste of $ and if he was an insurance claims person he would take one look at my chart and know that we were trying to have a baby and deny it all.
  9. Dr Arrogant will do insemination after all the SA's are done and I think would be willing to try another fertility drug (Femera). It would cost $800-$1300. Sigh.
  10. He did give us a follow up sheet with his recommendations from the appt to take home....I was so disappointed and discouraged that I haven't even looked at it.

We left there at 3:50 and walked back into work at 4pm. Thank goodness our bosses are aware of our situation and are very flexible - it still made me nervous. We were an hour later than expected.

I immediately went into bitter shut down mode. We cant afford any of this. We haven't gotten all the billing for my surgery and I expect our portion to be about $1500-$2000. Not alot in the grand scheme of things but that will suck up alot of our savings. Leaving us with none to pay the RE clinic with. And as you all know, you have to pay for those services up front. So lets just save our $, stop looking for a 3 bedroom house and just get a 2 bedroom one - that will save even more $. I will plan a huge rummage sale in May and we can make some $ and stop paying for storing all that baby crap - whoo-hoo more $! Then we can get off this f-ing roller coaster. (I do seem to like the F word today - sorry. It has good enunciation and feels good in my frustration)

Several dear friends and even my husband told me to take some time and rationally process this. It is possible I am PMS'ing as well - today is cycle day 29. A very wise friend stopped me from going down the "I've wasted so much $ and time on this and all for what" road. She said whats done is done and you can only move forward. She is also a nurse and said that while she wishes he wasn't so rude, Dr Arrogant is an expert and he is best qualified to assist us in our path to a second child. Or the poor house, you pick. Oh, wait, that's right we are already there.

OK I have gone to the dark side and need to stop now. I know E is right in her assessment of all of it. My other friends are too. I love you all - thank you for your endless patience with me.

Monday, October 5, 2009

All Clear

So surgery went well (results in next paragraph) and I was a total slug during my recovery time. The 1st three days, Husband was awesome, setting a timer and not letting me go more than 4 hours without pain meds. Slept ALOT. The rest of the time I spent doing, well, not much . Almost no computer time - not even Facebook, lots of bad TV, finished the 7th Harry Potter book, and had a few small outings. But for a very busy non-stop kind of girl, I think it did me some good! Twelve days later I was feeling great (our apartment had gotten a bit confining) and went back to work, four business days sooner than anticipated; albeit wearing running pants instead of dress slacks. Did you know that sitting up at a desk is really hard work? The 1st day back I felt as if I had been doing crunches all day. The 2nd day that feeling didn't hit until about 3pm, the 3rd day it didn't hit until quitting time and Friday I was fine. J was so excited when I was able to pick him up again! Two weeks is a long time for a 4 yr old. Husband was thankful that Dr gave all clear for bedroom activities Thursday before he left for his business trip on Friday. He doesn't come home until very late Tuesday night. He is a very patient man, two weeks is long time for a healthy male adult and the prospect of an additional 5 days seemed enormous - even for me! :)

Surgery results were very positive for me. She found NOTHING wrong. No endometriosis or scar tissue, no blockage of the tubes, and the D&C pathology showed nothing. She told my husband I was as beautiful on the inside as I was on the outside. Love her! LOL! So we have ruled out just about every issue on my side, with the exception of not ovulating properly without meds. Now we know that the problem really lies with Husbands swimmers. At least its a few less strikes against us.

I have to say that I was rather amazed at myself going into the surgery. I thought I would wake up on surgery day all nervous and worried about potential results. I woke up and was calm and organized in my thoughts etc...I didn't even get nervous as I walked into the operating room. Just ready to know whatever the results would be. Now of course the outcome is so much better than I had hoped for, but I believe that I was in a place of acceptance and no matter what happened I would have been OK.

In the meantime, I set up an appointment at a very good fertility clinic 2 blocks from our office to meet with a Reproductive Endocrinologist for his opinion. If he recommends IVF as our only bet, we will politely thank him for his time and leave. That is not even close to an option for us financially and I'm not sure I'm up for the stress of it all. But we shall see - maybe he will allow us to do IUI with a trigger shot to narrow the window. Fertility clinics are also open on weekends when I seem to be ovulating (hence not trying another with my Dr all summer long!) so we will probably do a cycle or two more if the IUI before giving up.

All clear on so many fronts. It feels good, and hopeful and calm. Thanks for all your thoughts and support.