The wonderful thing about triggers is triggers are wonderful things

I triggered this morning after eyeing two lovely follicules, one a whopping 19mm beauty and then the ugly stepsister, a 10mm straggler. I'd evidently been told to bring my trigger shot with me to the appointment, but I really don't remember Dr. Stonehenge mentioning this at all. In other words he didn't. No problem, I sprinted the 2 miles home, downhill and then sprinted back up, uphill to his office, pushing an overloaded baby carriage with a very disgruntled baby bundled inside. Since Dr. Stonehenge was long gone to the hospital for his rounds by then, his colleague Dr. Abnormally Friendly gave me the shot. I reminded him that he was the person who had seen me for my miscarriage at the hospital a few months ago. He looked at me very kindly and said, "Oh that was a difficult time...I hope you're feeling better now." I told him I was and that we had some hope for this cycle.

There were a few snags ... naturally. On the way out I got the telephone number of the clinic from Dr. Stonehenge's secretary for tomorrow's sperm washing. Dr. Stonehenge had suggested I call the clinic right away to make an appointment for our coming in tomorrow and I wanted to follow his advice and call from my cell phone right away. But, when I called the clinic it was closed for the holidays and it had been closed since December 21st! Well, pardon my french but welcome to fucking France. They reopen tomorrow. So I went back to the secretary hoping to get the phone number of another clinic or a worst case scenario and so I opened my mouth and said "look, the clinic is closed and I was supposed to make an app..." but she interrupted me and said in a very annoyed tone "WHAT?...I don't understand anything you're saying to me." At which point I said in a sarcastically polite tone "umm yes, maybe because I haven't finished my sentence." It all went downhill from there and she said after rebuking me for not making my appointment with the clinic two weeks ago* that I should just go to the clinic tomorrow and see if they'll take us. Well, seeing as they've been closed since uh, what the first day of Hanukkha, I'm sure we'll have no problems being walk-in patients tomorrow morning. Why, we probably won't have to wait very long at all! In other words, have your husband take a day off from his new job** so he can drive three hours from Lyon and then drive one hour to the middle of nowhere to a wanking station that might or might not let him wank while your egg sits there waiting patiently or not. Oh go on, what have you got to lose!

Asshole.

The second snag was the blood draw. As I left the secretary said, "as long as your husband has his blood draws on file..." or something like that (I swear she spoke one quarter swahili because half of what she said sounded like jibberish to me) and I said "what?" and she sighed really loudly and said "he has to have the blood draws on file in the clinic. You know the ones he did when he did his sperm culture. He does right?" And I sighed knowing full well that he didn't get them. He was never told to. And so I left shaking my head and when I got out in the street the tears starting flowing and they wouldn't stop. I tucked myself and baby S into a shop alcove and pretended to be shoe shopping until they stopped flowing but they didn't stop and so I just kept walking. I cried because I realized that I should have done a series of blood draws too and no one had reminded us. Dr. Stonehenge in all of the chaos of us switching from IVF to IUI had probably figured that we knew we had to have them for ALL procedures. We didn't know and he hadn't reminded us by giving us a prescription for a lab visit.

I went home again and called the secretary back, "Umm these blood draws can you explain the..." she cut me off again "you'll have to ask the clinic when your husband does his sperm sample." "Yes, I know but what I want to know is about me? Do I have to get blood draws too and what exactly are they agan?" And we went around for a few minutes because I could not for the life of me get it through her head that I was looking for information about ME not my husband. Finally she said "ooh lala c'est pas vrai..." which in French means "are you stupid or what?" or something along those lines. And so I said, "can't we just page Dr. Stonehenge at the hospital and ask him to call me?" and she practically screamed "MADAME I SAID THE CLINIC WILL TELL YOU WHAT YOU NEED AND IF THERE'S A PROBLEM THERE'S ALWAYS NEXT MONTH!" And I realized then that there are two sets of people in this world; those that are loving and kind and then this slimy fucking ho.

I considered going to the hospital to ask Dr. Stonehenge in person but I decided to take matters in my own hands. I found a prescription for the blood draws in my old IVF papers and went back uphill 2 miles with the baby carriage in tow to the lab to do them. The results won't be ready for three days though which probably means that the clinic will turn us away tomorrow morning. I'm just so frustrated that I wasn't given the blood lab prescriptions from Dr. Stonehenge when we started the IUI. I know I should have remembered them, lord knows I've done enough of them, but it doesn't seem very efficient that they don't have a better system with all of the papers given to the patient in advance. I have to rely on him and he's always in such a hurry to get me out the door and get on to the next patient that he forgets half of what he's supposed to tell me.***

So that's where we are. And hey if it doesn't work there's always "NEXT MONTH" right.****

*The girl is sadly misinformed if she thinks you can make an appointment for a sperm meeting an egg two weeks in advance, either that or she knows something I don't which could explain LOTS of thing!

**Seb started his new job and we're temporarily living apart because of it. Fertility treatment, new job, moving...hey what stress? No stress here.

***like the time he forgot to tell me that I'd failed my glucose tolerance test for gestational diabetes. He told me one month later when he looked at my file on the computer and said "so how's the diet going?" And I said, "Umm, what diet?"

****I won't tell you what I said to her when she said this to me because frankly I can't even remember half of it. Suffice to say you should never doublecross a woman hopped up on hormones or you will definitely get an earful. She deserved it and lots more. For the first time I have to say I'm happy about my Gonal-F rages.