Disappointment

I've been a bad blogger, I know.  I've thought about writing so many times in the past couple of weeks, but life has just gotten in the way, you know?

I went back to the fertility doctor last week.  To say that was a disappointment would be a huge understatement.  Just walking in the door, I wondered if this was the right thing to do.  Just the smell of the place hit me and tears sprung to my eyes.  Last time I was here I was still pregnant, just saw my lifeless baby on the ultrasound screen.  I'm so not ready to do this all over again.

Then it gets even worse.  I go to check in and the receptionist looks puzzled and says do I have an appointment?  Apparently when they called back the previous week to change the appointment time, it never got entered in the books and I was not down for anything at all.  So she goes to look me up in the database.  Finally says, oh you were supposed to be here on April 23rd.  I stare at her in disbelief.  I tell her I was there on April 23rd, found out we'd lost the baby that day.  Hello!  So she scrambles around in the back for awhile leaving me standing there wondering what I should do.  I'm really fighting back tears now, willing myself not to break down here in the waiting room.  Should I just run out the door and never look back?

She comes back and says one of the nurses will meet with me and starts to take my co-pay for the appointment.  I told her if they were trying to squeeze me in with the doctor not to bother because I didn't want to be rushed for time with her.  I was there to finally get answers and was not going to stand for being brushed aside again.  She said no, I'd just meet with a nurse and decided not to make me pay (which I can say was the only redeeming thing about the entire experience).

Finally the nurse calls me back to a room-- one of the ultrasound rooms no less, thankfully not the one where I last saw my baby.  She basically asks me why am I there.  Gives me my thyroid level results, says the doctor was happy with the level and we can start trying again now.  I'd asked for specific thyroid tests other than just TSH, but of course they hadn't run those and had no idea why I would want that sort of thing.  I asked her what they would do differently in my next pregnancy, should we decide to go that route.  She said they would not do anything different the next time around.  Would still wait to start blood thinners until a heartbeat, even though some evidence points to starting at a + pregnancy test or even before.  I tried to ask the difference between Heparin and Lovenox and why they decided to put me on Heparin last time.  She said they are the same medication, which I know for a fact is completely untrue.  She basically just said next time I get my period to call and they would prescribe Clomid for me.  I asked why would they do that when it's clear I don't have a problem getting pregnant on my own.  She tried to insist that I got pregnant on Clomid last time, which I clearly did not.  Either way, it just felt like she was trying to push another unneccessary medication on me and not at all willing to do what I thought would be best.  She said then just call us when I get a + pregnancy test and "leave the rest to us".  Gee, that was the same advice I got from the doc last time and hmm... how well had that turned out??

Then she said I should go talk to their therapist.  True, I was clearly upset and near tears, but I'm not about to go to this therapist who they clearly have a deal with if they refer patients there.  We already fell for that when they sent us to their pharmacy to fill my Heparin prescription, claiming other places wouldn't measure it correctly.  By this time I was really fed up and ready to leave, but of course people-pleaser in me is still trying to be nice to this woman.  I got her to go over my chart with me to show me what all I had tested positive for, pointing out that no one had ever explained all of this to me other than to say in passing that I was hypothyroid (which turns out is not a diagnosis at all) and had Factor V Leiden.  No one explained what that means for me now or in the future.  Before I left, since I actually had a so-called medical professional in front of me, I decided to ask what were my birth control options from now on.  Even sitting there, I had decided I was not ready to try again any time soon and wanted to move forward, focusing on adoption.  Stupid me to think she might have an answer to that.  She kept coming up with birth control options and I had to explain to her why that wouldn't work for me.  Can't take birth control pills because of increased risk of blood clots.  Can't do IUD because of my ectopic history.  In the end, she basically said she didn't know, would ask the doctor and e-mail me about it.  Big surprise that I never heard back, right?

All in all, a huge disappointment and waste of time.  It just felt like the final sign I needed that that was not the right place for me.  I am not at all ready now to go down the "trying to conceive" road right now.  Don't know if I'll ever be there again.  But I know I'm not there now and that's okay.

That evening I came home and told Shannon about the whole awful experience and he said he was relieved.  He'd never really liked that place and never trusted them, felt like they pulled a bait-and-switch on us, promising us all this individual attention that we never got after the initial appointment.  He said he'd tried to stay supportive for me, but he's glad we'll never be back there again.  So I guess there's another good thing of all of this:  Shannon and I can talk openly and honestly about the whole thing and be there to encourage one another when the road gets tough.  And boy, has it been tough...