Wasted

Yesterday, Mr. S. and I needed to get away from it all, so we did. We ended up in Napa on a beautiful day and for just a moment's time, standing in the crisp late Fall air with a Cabernet (or two or three) in hand, I almost couldn't remember what I was trying to forget. The list seems to be endless nowadays.

First, I am still in shell shock from Thanksgiving. It was, by far, the worst holiday I have ever experienced. I won't go into the details, but I will say that Mr. S's family was delightful. Mine, not so much. I spent the meal trying hard to ingest what lay on my plate, but not having the stomach to do so. It was dysfunction of the grandest proportions and as someone who desperately avoids drama and has worked hard at having a serene life and a home that can be looked upon as my ultimate haven, I was sickened by it all. Needless to say, I was happy to see it end. Sometimes, family is not all its cracked up to be.

Napa came on the heels of another grand disappointment. We were scheduled for our pre-IUI ultrasound Saturday morning and before we went in, I expressed a number of concerns to several people, including:

1. On cd 2, I had a follie that was already at 12. My fear was that my body, in all it's messed-up glory, had already managed to select a dominant follicle and that no amount of drugs could correct this. However, my NP assured me this was not the case.

2. Originally, my IUI was slated to fall on Thanksgiving day, but the clinic was closed. I asked the NP if there was any way to navigate around this (perhaps within a day or two) and after some calculations on a calendar and some changes in timing with my meds, she said it could be done and that we would instead have our IUI on the following Monday. Monday...four whole days later. I thought that was odd. I was worried that even with moving the meds around, we would miss ovulation. I indicated that rather than risking such a thing happening, I would prefer to skip the entire cycle. However, again, she assured me this would not be the case and being that I am not a medical professional, I deferred to her.

3. After asking for a higher dose of Menopur, the NP recommended that I do another round of C.lomid instead, as I responded so well to it previously. Despite my initial protest, I took her word for it.

So, I had questions and concerns that still felt unanswered. After this initial ultrasound, my fears compounded, but with everything else going on in my life, I couldn't dig deep enough for the energy to correct it. So Saturday morning rolls around and we meet with a doctor (a first in this clinic as we've always seen NPs).

And those suspicions of mine? Yeah. Every single one of them came true, including:

1. On 200 mg of C.lomid, I only had one mature follicle. ONE. No, I take that back, not mature, overripe (almost 26). I had 4 other follies around 12-13. The doc said the other ones would have grown more had my body not already chosen it's star.

2. Judging by the size of that beefcake, it is entirely possible that we have already missed ovulation. For the first time ever, we were instructed to go home and immediately have intercourse, despite the fact that this may drive his count down for Monday morning. But at this point, Monday morning is a bust anyway.

3. The doctor was just as confused as I was about the C.lomid prescription. This was, as I suspected, a step backward.

So here I sit, an entire IUI wasted. It is quite possible that all of this could have been avoided had the nurse practitioner not been more concerned about the convenience of her clinic schedule. I made it clear that if there was any question, I wanted the cycle canceled altogether and moreover, I learned after the fact that there was a sister clinic in another town that would have been able to take us on Thanksgiving day. But after all of the emotion I've invested in everything else, it's hard to find enough outrage to make a big deal about it at this point. I will go in on Monday morning, go through the motions, go on the magic speculum ride, but I believe I've currently found the cure for keeping my expectations low this time around. In a way, it's strangely relieving. This 2 WW will not register on my radar. But hope is becoming more elusive as every day passes.

I will face one more IUI after this. I will request someone else to preside over it and I will demand to be pumped chalk full of Menopur. One last try before January and believe me, when that arrives, there will be no questions left unanswered.