Thursday March 25th, 2010 started off like any other day. I woke up and needed to pee. I sleepily trudged to the bathroom, grabbing my ovulation predictor home test on the way. Half asleep, I completed the test and waited, not expecting anything. This was the 3rd day of testing and the previous 2 had been negative results so I wasn't really expecting today to be any different. As I waited for either the blank circle or happy face to pop up, Andrew walked into the bathroom. He came over, gave me a hug and then stood next to me, also staring at the test. "What are we looking for," he asked. "A blank circle means negative and a happy face means positive," I explained. At the same instant I said "happy face," a small smiling happy face popped up on the test. Andrew and I looked at each other and both said "Oh boy." I was ovulating.
Following the nurses' instructions, I called CCRM (Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine) to let them know I had tested positive on my home ovulation predictor kit. The woman that answered the phone then put me on the calender for my first IUI (Intra-uterine Insemination) the next day, Friday March 26th at 2:45 pm. This was it - we might be pregnant tomorrow!
Andrew's parents had arrived the day before for a 5 day visit and when they woke up, we broke the exciting news. Thursday went by slowly. I laid around as much as possible, trying to take it easy and keep the anxious excitement at bay. Friday morning and afternoon also seemed to drag by until it was time to leave for the doctor's office. Andrew had the day off work on Friday but I opted to go to the appointment by myself being that the nurse explained it was a very quick and easy procedure, similar to an annual exam.
I arrived at the doctor's office about 10 minutes early. I signed in and sat down in the waiting area. I was asked to pay a $288 balance from my surgery in January that I didn't even know about, $175 for the sperm washing, $170 for the ultrasound, and $125 for the IUI procedure. I handed over my credit card and while they were running the card, I was told I could go downstairs to check in. I took the elevator down to the basement level of the building and followed the signs to Clinical Andrology. I then met with a woman who went over all the specifics of the sperm. It was mostly clinical terms and explanations that were over my head but she assured me that it was a good sample. She showed me the little container that held .93 ml of fluid which contained 29.3 million sperm, placed in in a little red canvas bag, and told me to hold it upright in my hand to keep it at body temperature. As I finished signing paperwork, she told me to go back upstairs and that they'd do the IUI up there. So off I went, walking the halls and riding the elevator back upstairs carrying my little bag of sperm. Weird!
I checked back in with the front desk upstairs and told them I was finished with Andrology. I took a seat in the waiting area again and a few minutes later, a woman in a white lab coat called my name and asked if I wanted an ultrasound. I explained that we were told that the ultrasounds weren't necessary if the home ovulation predictor worked and that I'd rather not have the ultrasound because of the $170 out of pocket cost. She said ok and went back through the door. I returned to my seat in the waiting area. Moments later, she returned and said that my nurse really recommended that I get the ultrasound. So I called Andrew and asked him what he thought I should do. We agreed that we'd go ahead and just do the ultrasound this first month and that we'd skip it in future months if we needed to try again.
So I followed the woman back to the ultrasound room. I undressed and assumed the position, all the while still holding my little bag of sperm. Weird. The ultrasound tech came in and explained that they were looking for my follicle to see if it was mature and if there was an egg there. She checked the right side and there was nothing there so she moved on to my left ovary. As I watched the screen, I tried to make sense of what I saw which wasn't much. The ultrasound tech asked if I'd had a follicle check. Unsure of what that was, I told her that I might've had one back in November but that I wasn't sure. She looked puzzled and explained that if I was doing a natural IUI cycle, it was standard procedure to have a follicle check every cycle. Hmm....no one had ever told me that before. She went on to explain that my follicle was very small and not mature - meaning I had not ovulated and wasn't even ready to ovulate yet. Not good. She left the room and I sat there, wearing my paper sheet, holding my little bag and waiting for the nurse to come in.
After almost 15 minutes, the nurse came back in and explained that the timing was way off. She said I probably wouldn't be ovulating for 3 or 4 more days and that if we did the IUI today, there was really no chance it would take. Still holding that little red bag with a vial of sperm in it, I asked what that meant for the contents of the bag. She said that they would be lost. I didn't know what to do. I called Andrew and quickly filled him in. We decided that if the chances of success were slim to none, that we wouldn't do the IUI that day and would hopefully get our $125 back. After talking to Andrew, I told the nurse our decision and watched her literally pour it down the drain. $425 worth of sperm, $170 to ship the sperm and $175 to wash and prep the sperm....$770 down the drain. I was not a happy patient.
I got dressed and met up with the nurse in a consultation room where she explained that since I'd gotten a false positive on the home kit, she wanted to have me come back in Monday morning for another ultrasound. She said this cycle would probably just be a learning curve for us but that we might still be able to inseminate this month, depending on what the ultrasound showed on Monday. So I headed back up front, made an appointment for Monday morning and then went back to the lab to have my blood drawn to check my thyroid levels. After going through the IVF with Greg and all the IUI prep work this time around, I've gotten to know the nurse that usually draws my blood. She asked if I'd just been inseminated and I said no and then told her what happened. She was shocked. She said that it's standard procedure to do the follicle checks each cycle before they thaw the sperm and that this was a big mistake by my nurse. Both she and the ultrasound tech said pretty much the same thing. Funny how the nurse didn't let on that she'd made a mistake and kind of made me feel like it was my fault. Not cool. Needless to say, I am not at all happy with Rachel, my nurse. I feel like there is a huge breakdown in communication and that she has made mistakes that are costing us both financially and emotionally.
I left the office shaken. I was emotional because I'd been super anxious and excited about possibly getting pregnant. And I was super upset and angry at the $770 that had just been poured down the drain. I got in the car and called my mom to vent. I sat in the parking lot, watching the snow fall and got more and more angry as I re-lived what I'd just experienced, telling my mom every detail. After hanging up, I drove the couple miles home. I came in, went straight to my room and burst into tears. The stress was getting to me. I told Andrew everything that happened and gave him the full detailed version of events. He was NOT happy. He immediately got on the phone and tried to reach the doctor's office. It was 4:38 pm and the office closed at 4:30. So he ended up having the answering service connect him to the voicemail of a patient services representative and he left a message saying he expected a call back on Monday morning.
With nothing resolved, I had to get all dressed up, hair, make-up, jewelry and heels for a Rachel's Challenge benefit dinner that night. The last thing I wanted to do was go to a party at that point. But I sucked it up, got done up, went to the party and ended up having a nice time. It was a good distraction from all the drama.
Monday morning bright and early I was up and heading to my 8:00 am ultrasound appointment. I got right in and the ultrasound tech (a different one this time) surprisingly said "Your follicle has already collapsed. You've already ovulated. We can still do the IUI this cycle but it would have to be today." Yikes!! I had woken up with a bad headache Sunday morning and felt pretty crappy all day. I should've known that I had ovulated on Sunday - I usually get those sick migraine headaches because of hormones. So when she left the room to let me get dressed, I quickly called Andrew and filled him in. He said we might as well just do it if they think it might work this month so we hung up agreeing that we would go ahead and use another vial of sperm and try to inseminate later that day.
I got dressed and went out to the consultation room and waited for my nurse. She came in and said that she wanted to just use this month as a test period and not inseminate this month. Great; another change in plans. She explained that because the home kits didn't work for me, she wanted to see me on cycle day 11 next month for an ultrasound, and then probably again 2 days later for another ultrasound. When the follicle looked like might be ready, she said they want to give me an HCG injection (aka: a trigger shot) to force ovulation. That way, they could time it and do the insemination exactly 36 hours after administering the trigger shot. This way they can eliminate some of the guesswork and be sure of the right timing.
So that's where we stand now. Lots of emotional ups and downs the last couple days. One good note to all of this is that my awesome husband spoke to the powers that be and was able to get them to credit our account for all of Friday's shenanigans. That makes me feel a whole lot better knowing that they will reimburse us for all that money that was poured down the drain. Geez - I guess I shouldn't be surprised by any of this because nothing is ever easy with me! When will I learn to just expect the unexpected?? And now we wait for next month to start the cycle all over again. Happy happy, joy joy. Good thing my precious babies are worth it. I go through heck for them before they've even been conceived but it's all worth it in the end to have another precious member added to our family.
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