…I can drink and eat chocolate again.

It was a day of great people and bad circumstances. I took the morning off to go to two girlie doctor appointments. At the request of the fertility specialist we’d been working with, I scheduled a pap smear with my regular doctor for this morning, and then after that I’d scheduled another appointment with the fertility doctor’s office. Both are to make sure my reproductive parts are healthy and ready before we get into the heavy stuff. I had written down that my pap appointment was 8:40a, but on my drive there, I checked my voice mail just to make sure. I knew that over the weekend, while I was in San Francisco celebrating college roommie Diana’s bachelorette shindig, I had missed an automated call reminding me of that appointment. I stopped breathing when I heard the voice mail play back that my appointment for 8:20 was confirmed. I was 20 minutes late! The receptionist called up to the doctor right away and said that it wasn’t a problem, I was the first patient and they would still see me. Thank gawd. I hurried up and apologized profusely to the nurse who took my vitals, and then profusely to my doctor. Everyone was calmer about it than I was and said it wasn’t a big deal, they’ll catch up. I just hate thinking that I was one of “those” patients who threw off the entire day’s appointments. Luckily they only had one other morning appointment aside from myself. I had the quickest pap smear in history (2-3 minutes just like he promised) and they sent me on my way to my next appointment. It was a great thing they hurried for me, because I had instructions to “empty [my] bladder” at 9am, then to drink 16 oz of water at 9:30am to prepare for the trial transfer and sonohysterogram.

I would’ve been a tad early to the fertility clinic except that the freeway exit I was to get off on was closed due to construction. I went one exit past, then came back on the freeway the other way, hoping the same exit wouldn’t be closed to both northbound AND southbound traffic. The rest of the drive was uneventful and I was just barely on time, so it didn’t help the anxious state I was already in. Signing the consent form for the sonohysterogram, I read about potential side risks that made me even more nervous (bleeding, infection, dizziness, etc.). So in this other doctor’s office across town, I was once again on my back in stirrups, this time for a quick initial ultrasound (everything still looked normal; they counted 8 eggs on one ovary, 7 on the other, which is pretty good). Then the speculum is inserted for the trial transfer, and a very thin clear rubber/plastic hose is threaded through my cervix into the uterus so they can measure where they need to turn and direct the actual hose that they will use to implant the embryo when that time comes. This caused some cramping. I “ow ow ow”ed it a few times and the doctor stopped, letting the cramping subside. “Sorry, that was me,” she said, “I contacted the front of your uterus.” I knew they would have to do that to measure where they can put the instruments later on. You can’t go bumbling around in there when there’s a delicate embryo stuck to the end of that instrument later on. So once the thin hose was in place, the ultrasound instrument went in again for their measurements. And then, “Saline is going in now,” they told me, and I watched a dark cavity blossom on the screen. “Wow, that’s interesting,” I said. Then we all saw something fluttering in the black space as saline fluid inflated and lifted my uterine lining. I didn’t know what I was looking at, attached to the side of the uterus, and the doctor didn’t say anything yet, just took a bunch of screen shots. About a minute later the ultrasound wand came out, and the doctor and nurse said, “Okay, saline will start leaking out now, it’s okay,” and the tube was pulled out. I didn’t feel much leakage, I don’t think they put in much liquid. I was, more than anything, relieved at how quick the procedure was. “I told you it’d be nothing,” the doctor joked. After that, the bad news came. The doctor pointed at a screen shot of two oblongish, droplet-shaped things sticking out the side of my uterine wall. “Those are polyps,” she said. “You’re going to need to get those surgically removed before we can do anything further.” So it turns out that, although the polyps are not dangerous, just 1-2mm skin flaps, there’s a chance the embryo could adhere to a polyp instead of to the actual uterine wall, and that would prevent blood supply from forming to the embryo, or it simply wouldn’t stick and I’d lose the embryo. I was advised to call my regular doctor and schedule the surgery as soon as possible. After that, I’d get a month of recovery, and we’d start this fertility thing again.

So this means that this cycle isn’t going to be “the” cycle. I guess I could’ve drunk champagne and coffee and eaten the chocolate-covered strawberries with the girls this weekend. I can go take a shot of chocolate liqueur and chase it with a cigarette. The nurse said I can stop the prenatal vitamins, but to keep taking the birth control pills for now until the doctor calls and tells me otherwise. Meanwhile, they’ll call the Mr. W’s urologist, who had coordinated his schedule to be available for the sperm retrieval mid-December, and let him know it will all be rescheduled for later on. The pharmacy providing my shots and estrogen patches were also put on hold (I was supposed to start a series of shots called Lupron tomorrow, which I’d spent all week mentally preparing myself for). When the doctor (who is not my fertility doctor but another doctor in the same office) was explaining the polyps to me immediately after she discovered them, she said, “You seem to be very rational about all this.” And I am rational. I’m glad that they did this check first, or it would’ve been a lot of time, medication, and money wasted if something kept the embryo from attaching properly. I’m glad to know that there’s something minor wrong with me that could easily be fixed with a 1.5 hr surgery. Timing-wise, it means I have another month to recover economically from our vacation because all I paid for today was $903 for the ultrasounds and some other things, and not $10,000+ to start on the baby cycle. And I’m pretty sure insurance would pay for my surgery, since this is a non-elective medical issue that would interfere with fertility. The nurse handed me an antibiotic “just in case” since the procedure was invasive, told me to take it soon with food, and I was done there for now.

In the car after walking out of the fertility clinic, I called the regular appointment line for Kaiser and asked how to get a referral for this surgeon. The guy was very nice and sent a detailed message to my primary care doctor, whom I’d just seen earlier that morning for the pap. “He’ll let you know whether he’ll refer you to a general surgeon, or an ob-gyn surgeon.” I heard from my primary care doctor’s office within 15 minutes as I was driving to work. His assistant or nurse asked me to fax my doctor a copy of the Follicular Sonohysterogram Report, which had lots of photos of the ultrasound screen shots. The fertility doctor had printed the report and given it to me, saying my primary doctor may want to see it for the referral. So I faxed that over to my primary doctor’s office as soon as I got to work. His office got back to me within a few hours, relaying my doctor’s message that a referral is not needed in my situation; to just go ahead and call the ob-gyn specialist for an appointment. He also instructed the caller to tell me that the follicles on the ovaries may be normal. That was odd; I was never told anything may have been abnormal with the follicles (egg sacs) in my ovaries. So anyway, I will make that appointment with the ob-gyn shortly since I received this call in the middle of my blog post.

I told Mr. W about the findings at the fertility clinic. He seemed…crestfallen. That surprised me. I felt okay about it; I can see the advantages of finding out all this. But he thought we would be doing baby stuff within days, and now we have to wait at least a month after the surgery to allow my uterus to heal. But really, it’s not a big deal, right? What’s a month when there’s no actual deadline anyway? I’m gonna be over 35 when I give birth no matter what, and this way we ensure it’s not a wasted effort.

I briefed my supervisor on the sonohysterogram’s findings and warned him a future surgery is coming, but that it should be simple and out-patient. He said to go ahead and schedule it based on the surgeon’s availability, and not to worry about work; he’ll figure things out and get me the time off when I need it. He also told me my judge called out today. I was surprised; he never calls out. He comes in on his days off to do extra work. (I later found out he was in a car accident last nite. I should call and check up on him later.) Since I don’t have a judge, this means I can be floated out anywhere. I asked where I was to be this afternoon. My supervisor told me to go to my own courtroom and do whatever work I may still have. Basically he was giving me a freebie. That was very nice of him.

Mr. W and I went to lunch together. He asked me what I’d like to eat, and I suggested pho, knowing he craves that stuff. He was surprised, as I’d sworn off pho at our local area because of the high MSG content. I said I didn’t really care about it at this time, so he took me up on the suggestion. Walking into the pho restaurant, I thought about how I had been refraining from alcohol, fish, caffeine, raw foods, chocolate, etc. because my focus was on giving the baby the best chance at health. It wasn’t difficult, altho it was a bummer. I would’ve liked to celebrate the same way as the girls did this last weekend (everyone was respectful of my dietary restrictions and didn’t pressure me about anything). But because my goal was something so much bigger than myself, I wasn’t even tempted to drink tea or taste the free chocolate bon bon the restaurant made for each girl. I had refrained from MSG and unhealthy foods long before the baby thing, but I had done that for myself. My personal health (and yes, vanity to a degree) was very important to me. But after I started prepping my body for a pregnancy, THAT became the focus of the goal of health. Suddenly, that focus no longer exists for now. And instead of reverting back to my original focus that had been a part of my thought process for so much longer, I instead felt like I had no focus. No goal. I felt a little self-destructive. But what changed, physically? Nothing. I didn’t LOSE a baby. Human psychology is interesting. But I’ll refrain from drinking myself into oblivion tonight; I will still have use for this body, even if later than originally expected.