Voted “Least Likely to Call You Back”

“Most Likely to Be Sidetracked” – Also a good title that I am sure Dr. Bundren’s staff all received in their high school yearbooks.  J  Last week, Todd and I jumped through hoops…literally like dolphins…to make sure we had our release forms back to Dr. Bundren on Tuesday.  That way, they would fax our file over to all 3 of our future consultations on Thursday or Friday, the days they have set aside to do administrative work.  I’m not kidding that they only do this on 2 days each week.  Anyway, on Friday just after lunch, we learned that the office had already closed for the weekend and my file had not made it to our Monday appointment.  I texted Mary Kathryn to tell her we had to have that file by Monday morning.  Basically, I was told that the office was closed, they were not opening on MLK Day, and my file would be faxed the following Thursday.  Really?!  That’s THREE DAYS TOO LATE!!!  The best part was that I didn’t even receive an apology.  I felt like a girl who just went on a really awesome date, waited patiently for 3 days for the guy to call (stupid rule), and nothing ever happened…not even an explanation as to why he wasn’t calling.  I was so frustrated and hurt.  If I had a picture of the staff, I might have turned it into a dartboard.  However, as I’m slowly learning, I realized that this was completely out of my control, and worrying about it would just ruin a fun evening with Todd.

Luckily, that missing file didn’t hurt us too much at our consultation.  We met Dr. Douglas, the Dallas doctor, on Monday morning.  He was much more personable than we had expected, so that was a great surprise.

He wasn’t pessimistic about our chances, but he wasn’t over-the-moon that he knew he could get us pregnant.  Basically, he said my eggs were acting like little, old ladies (ouch!) and Todd’s sperm were sleepy.  I didn’t write it down, but I thought he told me that he thought I had Decreased Ovarian Response (DOR).  When I googled that, though, Decreased Ovarian Reserve kept popping up, which is super depressing, so I’m not going back there.  Moving on…he isn’t sure that Todd’s sperm aren’t showing some issues that are also causing the IVF to not be successful.  He said that having to use the medication to wake them wasn’t a great sign, where we were told previously that it wasn’t a big deal.  Also, he would not have trusted the frozen sperm (for cycle 2) after they had to be awoken with the drugs before they were even frozen.  Awe, potential wastes of time and money.  Awesome.

He did tell us that he thinks it’s worth one more shot, but he doesn’t recommend we waste our time on anything past 3 cycles.  We had informally assumed we wouldn’t go past 3 cycles when we started this journey; honestly, we didn’t think we would even need 3 cycles to get pregnant.  However, once you get to your third cycle, thinking about giving up after that one is overwhelming.  That is not a decision that will be made today or even tomorrow.

Dr. Douglas did suggest changing my vitamin protocol to something simpler; he’s only recommending I take a prescription prenatal vitamin and keep taking my Co-Q10, Vitamin D, and Metformin.  Also, he wants me to stay on my birth control until one or two months before we decide to cycle.  Then, on the month we are going to cycle, he’ll put me back on the BCP for 10-14 days at the beginning of the cycle.  This will help my ovaries to wake-up a little before the cycle and then my ovaries to suppress and allow the eggs to start developing at the same rate during the cycle.  It’s all a wonderful work of ART (pun intended; ART = assisted reproductive technology).  Anyway, my shots will basically be the same as they were with Dr. Bundren.  Todd and I have a teensy-tinsy bit of renewed hope after meeting Dr. Douglas, though.  I think just hearing that there will be some changes have us thinking that we might find a doctor that can get us pregnant this time.

On a slightly different note, Dr. Douglas’ office staff has been voted most likely to be the best doctor’s office staff ever!  After our appointment, I had a question about the dosage I should take on the Co-Q10 pills.  I called, Vicki (the receptionist) answered, she put me on hold, and within 1 minute, she came back to give me an answer.  WHAT?!  That has never happened to me at any doctor’s office!!  I was blown away, flabbergasted, bumfuzzled.  Todd was stoked!  J  Score one for Dr. Douglas’s office.

If it weren’t for the added cost and stress of having to travel to Dr. Douglas, we might have already found our new reproductive endocrinologist.  Le sigh.  Tonight, we have our appointment with Dr. Ahlering, who is the doctor that practices in Tulsa, St. Louis, and Columbia, Missouri.  Fingers are crossed that these consultations just keep getting better!