Thanks, better now..Or I was until I had another freak out. Subtitled: Whats'a woman gotta do to get a gosh-darned phone-call from this IVF Clinic.?

First, thank you for your support and advice. Had a night to sleep on it and I'm feeling a bit more settled.

IVF Nurse called me at 5:17pm. I was expecting a call much earlier to clear me to start meds that morning (CD2). So when I did get a call all day I was stressed. She calls and is like nothing was out of the norm. Because to her, nothing was out of the norm. She just had a busy day, thought I was starting meds on CD3, everything hunky dory. From her perspective nothing had changed since we talked the day before. For me everything had changed. Instead of getting mad or saying nothing which are my normal responses I said, "Ok, let me tell you where I am right now because my responses aren't going to make any sense to you if you don't have my context." I went into my concerns over the very yow antral count, coupled with the fact that I didn't not receive a call all day lead me to believe I was being canceled. I had had 9 hours to stress out and worry (and google). Now that I know they have no intention of canceling me I was having second thoughts about proceeding in this cycle.

She apologized of not calling me. She didn't know I was expecting to start meds that morning and they don't have antral follicle cut-offs. She explained that there were many reasons why my count could be low, she's seen many cycles where people had few astrals and stimmed just fine.

She took a lot of time with me and addressed my concerns as best she could. She also said she didn't want to talk me into going forward if I really didn't want to. She actually struck a very good balance between being reassuring and not trying to persuade me to do something I felt wasn't right.

We left it the a Dr. (My Dr is on vacay) but some Dr. would call me in the morning to talk about it.

It's now 11:45 and still NO CALL! This clinic is PISSING me off with their not calling shit. I'm not setting up a dental appointment here. Not much I can do to force them to call me. Gotta just breath that one out. As each 1/2 hours passes I am getting closer and closer to blowing up and the next person to call me. OK, go to your calm place, Peeveme.

OK so, beyond my fury of not getting calls I did a lot of thinking about cycling or not cycling.

My current thinking is to go ahead. Of course, that was before I spent the past 3 hours waiting for a call. Clam, clam, breath, breath.

1) Given the death spiral my ovaries seems to be on, waiting yet another month seems like a crap-shoot at best.

2) The timing of the antral follicle count may have been the reason for the low count. Usually, antral follicles have the time between ovulation and AF to develop. Normally that's about 14 days plus the first 2-3 days of AF before the baseline scan. Since my LP was a scant 9 days my follicles had 5 fewer days to develop. So they may be there but are a few days behind due to my short LP.

3) Even though I have little hope for the cycle I have to give my eggs another try. I can justify this all I want with sudo-scientific reasoning. But in reality this is an emotional decision. I need to know my eggs are DONE before I can move on to DE. I do not think 1 IVF is giving my eggs a good enough chance. Is my piece of mind worth 15K to me? I think it is.

4) If this cycle really sucks we'll cancel and I'll get most of my money back. So that mitigates the down-side of moving forward with a cycle I don't have much hope for.


Things I learned about myself.

1) I have a need to do something...anything...to take some control in a crisis. That's a very good quality in some circumstances. When it's an emotional crisis it's not so great.

2) I have a lot more work to do before I can move onto DE. That call was really hard to make. I'm glad I made it and started the process. I got a few more photos of the donor. I should know her availability soon. I have a good picture of what it will take financially. I'm really going to have to meet with a professional who has experience in infertility and third-party reproduction.

So that's where I am. I have decided to move forward but now I stressed out because I have not gotten a call form the clinic. Actually, this is a recurring theme with them and frankly I'm getting pissed off. I have been on pins and needled for over 24 hours now waiting to start meds. 24 hours of anguish over should I/Shouldn't I? Now that I have decided I want to move they are not calling me. This morning I was fine. I was clam. I was resolute. Now I'm coming unglued again.



OK I just snapped! I'm so pissed off and I am justified. I loath high maintenance people. I pride myself on being a pleasant patient to deal with, self sufficient, not at all needy. Not overly demanding. Never berating. But it's approaching noon and no call.

I just called the IVF Nurse and in as calm a voice as possible said that I had not received a call from a Dr. I was a patient in crisis. I have been extremely worried for over 24 hours now and was at the end of my rope. Yesterday I was not sure I wanted to proceed with the cycle because of my low antral count. I had decided I did want to proceed but now I wanted to quit this cycle and possibly the clinic because of the lack of attention. This was not the first time I have been left hanging . This is not the first time I have been in crisis and have not received the attention I needed. (Hello false-positive Hep B scare...which was YOUR labs faulty). It was unacceptable this lack of calling me back. As a poor responder prone to dominant follicles I know how important the recruitment phase is for me. Starting meds half way through CD3 was not good especially considering I had such a low antral count.

Damn it. Once again I got myself to a good place by processing, reflecting, calming down and it's shot to hell because my clinic does not CALL ME EVEN WHEN I AM IN CRISIS. AM I being unreasonable? I'n trying very hard to "own" want's mine but I'm thinking this is them. Do I sound crazy? I'm open to that possibility. I'm trying to give them every benefit of the doubt but this seems to happen with them all the time .