Sorry for leaving you all hanging – that was a bit dramatic of me, wasn’t it? I started to feel better late in the day on Thanksgiving and was fully functional by Friday. Still, I think that’s a ridiculously long time after an HSG. Anyway, I’m all good now, so I can’t complain.
Beyond that, there’s nothing to do but wait, so wait I will.
Oh, on the insurance front, we realized there’s no reason to stop having my husband’s insurance, even though I’ll also have my own insurance. It doesn’t cost us anything to include me on his insurance – once you have more than one dependant, it’s the same no matter how many dependants you have, so whatever it is, it is. So we’ll keep his insurance as secondary insurance. This means if we decided to stick with The Hatchery, which is not covered under the new insurance, my husband’s insurance would cover it. Nice little loophole there, huh? Pain in the tush, but useful. It gives us options. I’ve never dealt with having a primary and secondary insurance before, so I have to figure out how that works logistically, but once I figure that out, I’m sure it will be a breeze. Right. Because dealing with insurance is ALWAYS a breeze, right?
Meanwhile, I received my medical record from my last go-round with fertility treatments. That made for some fun and light reading one night. Oh baby. Or babies, as the case may be. There were some inaccuracies in my medical history, which annoyed me. I hate inaccuracies, but at least these were unlikely to affect my pregnancy outcome or my treatment. But there were also inaccuracies in some of the nurse’s progress notes (not in any of the notes from my primary nurse). For example, in my discharge notes from a nurse at my “graduation” from my first pregnancy, the nurse noted that she counseled me on prometrium and baby aspirin use. I was never on baby aspirin. Was I supposed to be? I’m fairly certain I was not supposed to be because I asked about this in a subsequent pregnancy and I was told not to take it. But if a new doctor read this progress note, he might erroneously think I should be treated with baby aspirin. Particularly since I miscarried that pregnancy in the 13th week.
And then the shocker. In my 6th IUI cycle, I found the ultrasound report from Feb. 12th, 2007. Trigger day. That day they measured 9 follicles. I clearly remember those 9 follicles. One of them was 16.4 mm. Not big enough to trigger – optimal is 18mm. But the others were close behind… 15.8, 14.2, 14.0, 14.0, 13.8, etc. The doctor covering monitoring that morning said they’d have to look at my bloodwork and make some decisions… cancel or trigger early, which would likely mean writing off the cycle all together because that lead follicle was too small to be worth anything yet. But waiting until it was an 18mm cycle was going to risk letting the others catch up and would probably guarantee a cancelled cycle or quintuplets. Later that day, I got the call – no more Follistim; trigger that night, come in on Valentine’s Day for IUI. My doctor had no hope that cycle would yield a baby, but we were ready with a plan. We had the IVF protocol lined up and ready to go, and all the drugs were ordered already.
Little did they know how many of those non-viable follicles would turn into viable heartbeats.
What they never told me, and what I discovered in that ultrasound report, was that in addition to those 9 follicles they measured that day… there were 30, count ’em, THIRTY other follicles that they DIDN’T measure hanging out in my ovaries that day.
Thirty.
If I’d known that, I never would have let them trigger me that day. Never. At least, not without some explanation for why they didn’t think I was going to hyperstim. Looking at that report now, brings back the rush of anger, fear, panic, sheer terror that I had back then when I was first hearing that I had a viable HOM pregnancy. I feel like I re-lived those weeks of panic all over again in the space of just a few minutes staring at that page. I can’t get it out of my mind. I love my babies more than words can describe. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t even consider trying again. I have so much love for them, I can’t imagine not wanting to bring more into this world.
But I feel – I feel betrayed in a way. I feel like the very doctors who swore up and down to me that “oh we NEVER have HOMs!” and “It’ll never happen to you!” just should have known better that day. They just should not have rolled the dice that day. They knew I wasn’t going to stop after that cycle. They knew it wasn’t like I was going to walk away. They knew they were going to get a lot more of my money with an IVF cycle the very next month if they canceled that cycle. So why were they compelled to take such a risk? I love my babies. I wouldn’t trade them for anything. But what it took to get them here? It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and I feel strongly that if I was meant to be their mother, I would be, no matter what. I just wish – I wish I felt more like I’d become their mother because of something out of the control of that clinic. Looking at that report? I feel like they had so much control that day, and could have – nay, should have – pulled the plug on that cycle.
And with that… I’ll be walking back into their offices in January and thanking them for my beautiful babies. And asking them for more. One at a time.
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ChezPerky 