The Next Step

My wish was granted in that my obgyn wanted nothing to do with me anymore since I spectacularly failed to ovulate this time. They wanted me to see a specialist that comes to their practice once a month, and the earliest appointment was Nov. 16th. That was okay, right?

Yeah, I kind of wanted to see someone sooner than two and a half months from then. (I talked to them last week.) I called the place directly and they could get me in Sept. 25th, and the place my insurance suggested could see me on Sept. 8th. I decided to make both appointments and see if I liked this other place first. The Sept. 8th place is an hour from where I live, but they have an office here for monitoring purposes. The Sept. 25th place is three hours from where I live, and the office they have here for monitoring is the one I'm at which has been giving me all kinds of trouble. Yeeeeaaaah, tough choice. I had pretty much decided if this new place wasn't like, the apocalypse of bad I was going to go with them.

So I filled out all my forms and made my husband sign everything and fill out his part, and I got up at 5:00 a.m. to drive over there so I could be back for my afternoon class. Due to a terrible traffic situation, I was half an hour late, (stuck on the highway, then I went to the wrong building, then I couldn't find parking at the RIGHT building), so I was practically having a panic attack. I *hate* to be late and I was sure they would say, "Oops, you missed your window, come back three weeks from now." But they had mercy on me! They were incredibly efficient and nice and helpful, and I just fell in love with the whole office (which now I realize is so much more important than falling in love with just your doctor).

I saw the doctor, and we discussed that with the Clomid not working, the next step is injectibles. (Ovulation induction by taking shots to grow the follicles, then a shot to release them unto my uterus.) This new place has a ton of monitoring in place for that, and they are going to check out my tubes and do a post-coital test, in addition to bloodwork AND ultrasounds every step of the way. My insurance covers the monitoring and the tests (with some co-pays and hospital fees thrown in there) but not the drugs. Not one little bit. I have to call to see if I can put the drugs down for my deductible or not. My husband takes regular medication and we're constantly getting refund checks for him since he hit his deductible long ago. Me? No problems except my ovaries don't work.

ANYWAY, they did a complete physical, then I had an extra session with a nurse counselor to re-explain the treatment and walk me through it (and hook me up with pharmacy brochures) and then ANOTHER extra session with a financial counsel who already knew how my specific insurance worked. I got a progesterone in oil shot to kick start my period. Then some blood work and a urine sample and I was good to go. Everything else I get to do here, where I live, except for the dye test for my tubes.

In some ways this is a huge step. I can already tell you my husband does NOT want to inject me with drugs (or go to his injection training this Friday ... or have twins (not that he's against multiples per se, but the higher risk did startle him a bit)), however we're taking this one step at a time. All I'm capable of doing right now is seeing if the big, heavy artillery drugs will help me ovulate. Then we will see where we go from there. My husband and I are taking this medical journey together, but we are doing so one step at a time.