When I came into his office this morning and after our greeting each other I gave him the rundown, "it's day 14 of Décapyptyl, everything's going well so far...no major snafus!" I think I probably threw him off kilter from his usual speech because he responded with "don't you have any frozen embryos?" I just gave him a blank stare and then shook my head no. What kind of question was that? Of course a million curt comebacks ran through my head as I lay waiting in the dim romantic ambiance of the sonogram room.
"Yeah, we just wanted to do another cycle of injections for old time's sake doc. Humor me and do the scan..."
"Frozen Schmozen we're all natural. No way we'd accept frozen! Get out of here!"
"You mean they can FREEZE them?"
"poor wittle cold baby...awww"
"Umm...somebody forgot to plug...the unit...back...in. They all THAWED!" *sob*
"I just wanted to see you again. I'm madly in love with you Doctor Stonehenge! For god's sake don't tell my husband!" *runs at doctor with flailing arms*
"Oh f*ck I totally forgot. Where IS my head these days!"
"Jeez nobody tells me nothin' no more! I bet they called you first and told you. I AM always the last to know..."
I talked with a friend about this recently because she has the same set of doctors, this bee-zar phenomenon of French infertility doctors not sharing loads of information with their patients, and of the patients sitting back and complacently accepting the ignorance. We talked about French spouses and how they kind of want us to go with the flow and how this is probably part of the norm here, or so it seems. It's something I don't accept and never will. It gets me in lots of little tussles, but it usually gets excused by the fact that I am after all "l'americaine" and I have to know now don't I. Yes, I do. It's my body and it's my right. It's also my habit. I'm sorry if that bugs the caretakers in this country.
Of course I had no frozens and was well aware of it, of course I know my protocol before he even asks me, of course I call the drugs by name and know my cycle day, and of course the fact that my follicles are measuring on target puts me at ease even if he doesn't feel the need to share it with me.
I'm still laughing though. Does he really think I'd have been stupid enough to come in for a suppression scan if I were doing a frozen cycle? Does this actually happen from time to time? I really hope not but the fact that he asks makes me feel like it probably does happen.
2 comments:
The little thing that makes you question everything. Something's not right - Could it be because my doctor does not realize that I have actually begun an IVF cycle? Hm.
Reminds me of the complete lab workup Dieu had done on DH when DH's sperm is already washed and frozen in pipettes for the upcoming ISCI with the donor eggs.
I guess one of the reasons for this is that the financial stakes are not high. A complete workup like the recent wasted one costs nearly 2K dollars in the US, whereas in France the costs are actually much lower, even hidden costs. Lab work is not that expensive here. But in my mind, it's just a vast waste based on the failure of Dieu to have basic details about what is entailed in the donor cycle in mind when I arrive for my appointment.
And again it's the cultural difference. If a doctor was so laid back and casual about the file, not bothering to even look at it before a patient's appointment, just going by routine in most cases, he'd get sued where we come from. But here it's just not the case, and there's no legal pressure to give a seamless appearance of total competence to the patient. We're talking the happy absent minded RE here. This seems to be the norm.
I guess the argument here would be that forgetting details at a patient visit does not indicate incompetence, but for us, things like that just aren't supposed to happen, ever.
I see doctor Stonehenge so much he should dedicate a wing of his office to me, or a corner or something. But you know obviously I'm not anybody special or anything. *sniffle*
Dieu at least has a dossier most of the time. It may not be in the right order or anything but hey, he is ON the case man.
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