FRUSTRATED.

***UPDATE: Just spoke with my nurse... She said that my RE is not concerned at all with my progress and is keeping my medication dosage the same! They said they are being cautious with me due to my young age and that I may just stim for a few days longer than normal. Needless to say... I feel much better! Next appointment is on Saturday at 9:30... I will be cheering on my follicles until then! :) ***

(Warning: Long post ahead full of whining and complaining… continue reading at your own risk.)

I am INCREDIBLY frustrated right now. Here’s what has been going down….

Tuesday – 3/29 – IVF Monitoring Appointment #2 – I went in hoping to see some follicle growth! For my first monitoring appointment, I had 22 follicles but none over 10 mm. So I was super disappointed after this second ultrasound when I found out that I still didn’t have any follies over 10! :( I did actually have 23 follicles instead of 22… I guess they miscounted at my first appointment. My estrogen came back at 200 and something… (I forget the exact number) so they decided to increase my medication dosage. No biggie…I was only on 108 ius of Follistim and 75 ius of Menopur to begin with. They increased them to 150 ius of Follistim and 112 ius of Menopur for Tuesday night and Wednesday night. The ultrasound tech told me that this was all normal and that she was sure that we would be measuring some bigger follicles on Thursday morning. Awesome.

Wednesday – 3/30 – Yesterday morning I was organizing some IVF related paperwork when I came across some information from my injection class. Everyone in the class was given a paper with their IVF protocols and medication. I noticed while I was there that it said I would be using a Lupron trigger. I remember thinking that was strange since the protocol my nurse had sent me a few days prior said I would be using an HCG trigger. I figured the class instructor had made a mistake and I made a mental note to ask my nurse about it but forgot to ask her the next time I spoke to her.

A few days after the class, all of my medication came – along with the HCG trigger. Perfect… I was certain that the class instructor had indeed made a mistake. I didn’t really think about it much more until I came across the paper work yesterday morning. I needed to call my nurse anyway to have her order more Menopur so I thought I would just mention it to be sure.

Here’s how the conversation went:

Me: Hi there… quick question: I was looking over my injection class paperwork and it says that I should be using a Lupron trigger rather than the HCG. I just wanted to verify that I AM supposed to be using the HCG trigger since that is what’s on the protocol that you originally emailed me and since you also ordered that medication for me.

Nurse: Um, … really? That’s strange. Well, let me check with the RE.

Me: Oh, okay.

(… a few minutes later…)

Nurse: Hi. Wow… you are right. She wants you triggering with Lupron. I’m so glad you caught that!

Me: Um… ok.

Nurse: So are you self pay or does your insurance cover your meds?

Me: Well, I do have insurance coverage for medication but I still have a co pay. And… I already PAID my co pay for the HCG that you ordered.

Nurse: Oh no big deal. We can get you a Lupron trigger when you come into the office tomorrow. It’s only like $20.

Me: Well, again, I already paid a co pay for the HCG that YOU ordered for me that I will no longer need. I’m not sure I understand why I need to pay for the Lupron since it really wasn’t my mistake. Is there any way I can bring in my HCG trigger and just trade it for the Lupron trigger?

Nurse: Um, well… yeah, that will work. I won’t be here when you come in tomorrow but you can just talk to any of the nurses and they will take care of it.

Me: Hmmm… ok…. So… can you order me some more Menopur? Or are you going to screw that up too? (Just kidding… I did not say that… I was nice… )

Okay…. So I got off the phone rather upset. First of all… I miss my old nurse. She was AWESOME but she is on maternity leave (of course, right? She left right before my IVF cycle… perfect) … so now I have this new nurse. And she is nice enough but I have always gotten the impression that she is unorganized. And she also seems to be the slightest bit impatient when she calls me and I have questions.

Secondly, I am not a nurse. That is not my job. This is my first IVF cycle and I really don’t think that I should be the one to make sure that my nurse has ordered the correct medication. Isn’t that what they are there for? To make sure everything goes as smoothly as possible? I understand that mistakes happen but I don’t know. I’m just annoyed by the whole thing.

Thursday – 3/31 – IVF Monitoring Appointment #3 – When I went in for my appointment this morning, I tried to go in with a good attitude. I asked to speak with a nurse right away and I didn’t have any problems exchanging my medication. The nurse that I spoke with was super nice, patient, and seemed really organized. I almost offered her money to become my new nurse but I decided against it. :)

Today when they took me back for my ultrasound, I was excited to see how things were progressing. It seemed like it was taking forever… I could see lots of follicles on the screen and the ultra sound tech was measuring, measuring, measuring for what seemed like a really long time. I kept thinking, “This is awesome! They are growing!”. Finally the ultrasound tech asked me, “Who is your doctor?” I told her and thought, “Wow! Things must really be moving along! Maybe she wants to check if my doctor wants to tell me to trigger tonight!” But before I got too excited she said, “Your largest follicle is 10.3 mm”. I think I almost fell off the table. What the heck! I said, “Are they all around the same size at least?” She said, “Yes, you have a lot of follicles at around 10 mm so that is good, but your doctor will probably have some ideas on how to get them growing. Your nurse will call you later.”

So I was really upset when I left. Tonight will be the 8^th night of medication. I thought normally people stim for an average of 10 days! I know that I started out on a lower than normal dosage of meds but I really thought I would have a better response than this. It’s really disappointing. I just wish that my body would cooperate for ONCE.

So right now I’m just waiting for my nurse to call me with my blood work results and the new game plan for medication/next monitoring appointment. I’m just hoping that there will BE a game plan…