The Follow-Up

J and I had our follow up appointment yesterday at the fertility clinic.  I picked him up from work at 9:00 so we could make our 10:30 appointment and he wouldn't have to take much time off work.  It was kind of nice making the drive without guzzling water along the way.  (I have deep veins, and for all of those bloodwork appointments, I made sure I was well-hydrated--I read somewhere that it helps make your veins more "visible."  Whether it's true or not, they didn't have trouble hitting a vein once, so I guess I'll keep doing it when I can!)

On the way there, we brainstormed a list of questions we may want to ask.  Of course, we planned to let Dr. W. talk to us first and give us any information she had, then we'd ask any questions we had if they weren't answered.  J even had this whole speech planned out in case he needed it, but he got rather heated by the end.  I asked him if he was going to go in there and embarrass me.  (Doesn't take much.)  He promised he wouldn't, then asked why I would be embarrassed by his concerns and questions.  I simply stated that I didn't think we should go into the appointment angry.  What happened to us could have happened at any time--whether or not it came with a hefty price tag.  It couldn't have been predicted or prevented.

So, we enter to find the Christmas decorations up (funny thing...I saw the Halloween ones, then Thanksgiving, and now Christmas).  We signed in and were given our identification bracelets and a short form to fill out.  It was simple, really: 1.)  List any concerns or questions you want to make sure and discuss with the doctor today.  2.)  Do you need any refills?  Tests?  Forms?  Other?  We filled out our form and commenced to waiting.  Once again, we cleared the waiting room, but were called back very close to our appointment time.  (We had arrived about 25 minutes early--you just never know how traffic is going to be.)  Soon, Dr. W came in our exam room and immediately apologized for our pregnancy not continuing.  She did feel confident, however, that given examinations and hormone levels, it was a "genetically-abnormal" embryo and not a problem with my uterus.  (Thanks.  It's nice to have something work correctly for a change.) 
She also felt that we WOULD be successful, considering we have 9 embryos to work with.  (She seemed impressed by that number.)

Since the only question we wrote down was about the success rate of an FET, she asked pretty quickly if we were considering one in the new year.  We told her that yes, eventually, it was on our to-do list.  She then asked what our hold up would be.  I wanted to scream, Money, lady!  Money!  We just laid down a small fortune to your clinic and ended up with enough tears to flood the Nile!  But I didn't.  Before I could answer, she looked at me and said, "Is it the finances?  Because we can discount this cycle." 

We were originally hoping to have the money saved in time to schedule something (if it worked out) for the week of my spring break, and if not then during the summer when I'm out of school.  Dr. W did point out that if we did an FET with a natural cycle, it would cost less (nearly no drug expenses--just some progesterone, I think), but the timing would be left up to my body and therefore not able to be controlled.  If we choose to do a medicated cycle (complete with Lu.pron, estrogen, and progesterone), we can time things to happen when we want but the drugs will cost about an extra $500.  She's going to send us some information next week in the mail about the cycle, including a sample calendar so we can get a feel for the process.  She did say that because I am a teacher and am out of town that she'll work with me to get the monitoring visits done in the aftenoon so I won't have to miss so many whole work days (half days will be MUCH better for me as we approach the state testing window).  She also informed us that their typical protocol with FET's following a failed cycle was to thaw 2 embryos and transfer whatever survived.  So, if both survived the thaw, they both would be transferred.  We are totally okay with that.

So, I'm not exactly sure what we do from here.  I'm supposed to return to my Met.formin (I'm waiting until Sunday) and call her in a couple of cycles to let her know how regular they are to see if I am a candidate for a natural cycle FET.  J and I have decided that at this point, saving some money is more important than saving sick days.  I still have 95.  As soon as we can afford it (we didn't get any pricing yet except for the drug estimate), there WILL be an FET in our future.  The time and protocol are yet to be determined. 

By the way, there was no charge for the appointment.  I thought that was pretty considerate.

Hugs for E and Allison tonight.  I'm thinking about you, ladies.

Sidenote: Jax lost his first tooth (that we know about) tonight.  My baby is growing up!

Hugs and love,