Last chance for natural conception

Today it dawned on me that as a result of my last cycle being shorter than expected, I am probably going to be away for a work conference right at peak ovulation time. DOH.  This is going to be our last chance to conceive naturally before we start IVF. (Yes I still have hope that we can beat the odds!)  Soooo, what’s a girl to do? I’m thinking an ice box and turkey baster will be required.  Wait.  That’s NOT natural!

I can just hope that I ovulate later than expected or have another short cycle!

OR Chis will just have to drive 4 hrs to DC and stay with me for one night and then get up super early and drive 4 hrs back before work. Ummmm, do you think I will be able to convince him to do it?? I’m pretty sure he will be not be down for that.

Oh well. It will be what it will be.  Nature is unpredictable anyway.

Lost blood work frustrations

When I first had all my infertility testing back in December last year, my doctor gave me TWO orders for blood work.  The first order was to test my cycle day 3 hormone, FSH LH etc.  The second order was to test for baddies that can affect the health of a pregnancy, such as HIV, Hep B & C, syphilis, in addition to having an immunity to Rubella and Chicken Pox (I’ve had these jabs, so I hope I have immunity!!) which are all a legal pre-screening requirement for IVF.  I received my results for Day 3 tests, but never saw my results for HIV etc.  I just assumed all was good, and never thought anything more of it until…..I met my IVF nurse the other month.

After much hunting, it turns out they never drew blood for my second order.  I KNOW I gave them that second order, so I am really annoyed.  It was only last month I received the bill for this blood work back in December, so I had no clue they never did the tests.  The bill I received for $500 I thought would have covered all these tests.  But it turns out it costs over $1000 for both orders of blood work!! So, frustratingly, the nurse had to send me a new order which took almost a week to get to me in the post (I forget how snail snail mail is here, I should have just picked it up from the office).

This time I went directly to the lab who does the analysis rather than to hospital to have my blood drawn.

Now, you would have thought that going straight to the specialists who take blood day in day out would be good at it.  But oh no.  Not this one.  After one vial of blood was collected with the needle still in my army, the nurse was like… “Come on….where did it go?  Why is nothing coming out? Hmmm…” as he wiggled the needle and I tried very hard not to shout out ‘OWWWWWWW THAT FRICKING HURTS!!’ Thankfully after what seemed like forever “Oh!! There’s the vein!”.  But I won’t be totally mean about this nurse.  He was entertaining, and did immediately recognise my accent and asked where in the UK I was from.  I congratulated him on his talent for recognising a British accent and we talked about how surprising it is how many people have no clue where I am from.  He even understood what I meant when I said “Cheers” as I left.  So I’ll let him off the hook.

So after all that, let’s hope I do have immunity to rubella, otherwise I am going to have to wait ANOTHER cycle to start IVF.  Now that will make me pretty mad 😐