We are T-minus.... uh... approximately 2 days and counting

This post is disjoint and somewhat stream-of-consciousnessy... we were at our dear friends Lee and Christie's party (they live just outside of Chattanooga, TN) last night and got back home exceedingly late, so I'm short on sleep and longish on stuff to say. Bear with me.

First, the important stuff - our ultrasound went well this morning, and we're a go for retrieval, probably Tuesday morning some time early-ish.

That said, I need to also tell you that I didn't much like the Sunday staff at the clinic this morning. Our regular greeter-and-scheduler behind the counter (Mary Ellen) wasn't there to greet-and-schedule us, which is fine (she's a sweetheart, and well deserving of any days off she wants), but nobody was there to greet-and-schedule, which was annoying. We've been there before, we know the drill, so Wanda wandered over to the bloodletter's (also known as the flebotomist's) room to get pricked yet again while I wandered to the one of the few couches in the waiting room (and of the many things that sadden me about the waiting room, this is in the top two - so few sofas imply not many people coming who have someone else to sit with, implying that lots of people are coming to this waiting room alone, which is no way to go through this process at all (the other thing in the top two is how many people are always in this waiting room no matter what time of day we show up (usually ten minutes late) for an appointment... infertility is such an overwhelming problem that so many people experience and it's getting the moral equivalent of the silent treatment from mainstream media sources, which could (and should) be providing mountains of information to everyone so that people are conscious of the fact that it's no longer a taboo subject, nor should it be anyway (and on a completely selfish note, I must admit that seeing a person sitting all alone in the middle of one of the few sofas, so that those of us who come in pairs can't sit together and snuggle, is one of my new pet peeves)), picked up some year-old copy of Scientific American (oooh, article about robotics!), and waited for someone to show up (it's worth noting that this was the first Scientific American magazine I've ever seen in this waiting room in two years (gack), which is typically full of parenting magazines, baby magazies, women's golf magazies (I swear that's true), etc).

About 5 minutes later a woman wearing nappy sweats comes out of the elevator, looks surprised to see a queue at her desk and exclaims "Wow, I just went upstairs for a few minutes and look what I come back to find!" (I wondered why, since she was wearing sweats, did she take the elevator - stairs seemed like they would have been more appropriate, but perhaps I mis-judged the implication of her outfit). Now, you might not think it, but Sunday morning is a busy day at the clinic. They're only open a half-day and yet they still try to get a full day of ultrasounds and consults in, so it's always humming nicely. Leaving the front desk for any amount of time seems like a bad idea to me, but then coming back and being surprised you left people waiting, well... that's just plain idiotic.

As I'm waiting for Wanda to return, three women eye me on the couch sitting by myself, and then eye the sopt on the sofa next to me. I'm fairly engrossed in my magazine (but not so engrossed, as I sometimes get when reading, that I have completely shut out the entire world around me (the article on robotics isn't a interesting as I'd hoped - for a really good science magazie check out New Scientist, available on a newstand near you)), and I'm not aware of giving off any "fuck off" vibe, but none of them sit down next to me, opting instead for one of the many plush chairs scattered around the lobby. I can't help but wonder how their thoughts evolved for that decision making process.

We had a new ultrasound technician today, someone we've never seen before in the two years (gack) we've been getting ultrasounds at this clinic. She's professional and prim, and doesn't quite give Wanda enough time to get properly disrobed before coming into the examining room (part of Wanda's disrobing process, which involes stripping from the waist down in the little bathroom attached to the examination room and then swathing her lower extremities with a large sheet of this thin paper material, is making sure I see her naked butt - this is an important ritual for us, as it takes away from some of the terribly clinical nature of what is about to happen), which is a little off-putting but we know they're in a bind for time (so we improvise : Wanda flashes me as she sits down on the table).

What follows is by far the quickest ultrasound we've ever been through. This is noteworthy because the last 3 ultrasounds we had were all quite long and arduous. One of Wanda's ovaries has decided to hide again, probably behind her uterus, and finding that sucker during the ultrasound has stymied two of the best technicians they have there, Melinda and Kim, both of whom we like enormously (all of the ultrasound nurses (excepting today's nurse, whose name escapes me entirely - Wanda might remember) are matronly, broad women with gruff, affectionate mannerisms which can't help but to put one at perfect ease almost immediately). Melinda and Kim have had to resort to all sorts of unusual methods for trying to get a glimpse of that thing, including going to the top-of-the-tummy ultrasound they usually do when there's a baby already inside the womb. The thing is just canny. So when new tech lady has us in and out in 5 minutes, we can't help but to wonder if she's that good or just didn't care enough to give the very best. I suspect the latter. That's just the mood I'm in right now.

What put me in this mood was our brief consult with yet another person we've never seen before today at the clinic. After our ultrasounds we have consults with (other) nurses who look at the pictures of the ultrasound and figure out what our next course of action is. These are nerve-wracking sometimes because at any point during these consults they can say "Nope, not gonna happen this time, stop the drugs, stop everything, thank you for playing. As a consolation gift, we will give you back the portion of that enormous deposit you made which we haven't yet spent." Our usual consult nurse, Nancy (and our other usual consult nurse Crystal), almost surely had the day off (Nancy and Crystal are other wonderful women who deserve any time off they can get), so we got some woman who I don't think ever told us her name (Wanda might have heard it, I don't remember). [Of course I remember...her name is Lynn] She sat us down in her consult room, took one look at me, handed me the paperwork for the bill and said, in a profoundly patronizing tone of voice, and I'm quoting exactly this time (for once):

"Here, you can have the bill, that way you can feel like you're actually a part of this process."

...

My response was, "I'll tell you what, why don't I kick you in your fucking ass so hard you can floss your teeth with my fucking shoelaces you stupid piece of shit! Not a part of this process! What kind of bullshit attitude is that to take with anyone going through this nightmarish hell? I ought to chuck you out of this fucking window and then jump out after you to make sure I land on you, and your stupid bedside fucking manner!"

OK, I didn't really say this. What I did instead was to accept the paperwork with a smile and cut my eyes over to Wanda, (who was looking at me with no small concern), give her a grim, ironic little smile, and receive a brief wink in return.

Honestly... what a thing to say. As if I don't worry every single day about the fact that I never really feel like I'm doing enough to help my wife through this crazy thing, to have that said to me by a professional...

< heaves exasperated sigh >

On the other hand, part of me understands this assumption on her part. We hear horror stories from our ultrasound techs about husbands who say the most appalling things to their wives as they matriculate through infertility treatments. We just heard yesterday a story about a husband who told her wife "Honey, you can carry my twins and get as fat as you want, that's fine. But once you give birth I'm putting you on a strict diet! I don't want you fat for long!"

What's wrong with people? THAT fucking specimen of humanity was granted twins. Do you know what I'd do for twins (well, besides what we're already going through) right now? Stories like that make my blood boil, but they also serve to highlight just exactly how this unknown consult nurse drafted her opinion of men dancing the in-vitro boogie.

Anyway, the point of all of this is that we're on schedule for our retrieval Tuesday morning, followed by a transfer likely Friday. When we get the information we'll distribute.

OK, so the call from the clinic just came in, we're going to push drugs for one more day and then have another ultrasound tomorrow morning to get another follicle count and see how the they continue to mature. This is excellent news, as it means that Wanda's hormone counts are at good levels, and that means she's making more follicles and her body is withstanding the hormonal manipulation very well.

We'll post again after tomorrow's ultrasound and give you the latest!