Not exactly a hands off approach this time ’round

Donor egg cycle is fast approaching and I am liaising with the nurse co-ordinator from my clinic re drugs etc today, and I find out that Dr Dickhead has put my donor on orgalutran as the suppressant this time. Why? Yes, she overstimmed with the gonal F dose last cycle, but what has that got to do with swapping the synarel for the orgalutran? Why not just reduce the gonal F dose? I don’t get it. Clearly, I am not an IVF specialist, but I do know that orgalutran has a habit of not suppressing enough, and then you can ovulate early (missing egg collection altogether). This has just happened to another donor friend of mine. Her clinic is putting her on lucrin instead this time. [Which is what I have always used, and has worked for me]. And the synarel worked for C last time, so why mess about with it now?

I had a good moan to the co-ordinator and for a bit of extra backstory I told her how Dr Dickhead had treated me in the ultrasound room last cycle. She was upset to hear he had behaved so badly, and totally on my side when I said that now I felt like I couldn’t trust his motives and that it was a horrible position to be in, to feel like a Dr might be deliberately vindictive towards you by changing medication to something that may well not work. I know that is probably a bit of an over the top response, but the fact remains that I don’t feel he has my best interests at heart and I don’t trust him. I hung up feeling heard by her, but not happy about the situation at all.

The fact also remains that my donor is not prepared to go through this again, so we need to be focusing on our best option, and not dicking around playing experiments with this cycle. I spoke with DH about it tonight when he got home, and he was pretty pissed off too. Said I should phone C and have her contact the clinic and demand to stay on the synarel. She agreed, but it turns out she can’t do that until Friday at the earliest, so I will have to make the initial call, and insist, with as much clout as I can muster, that he change his protocol. I can only hope the co-ordinator hasn’t already sent out our drugs in today’s post. She doesn’t work tomorrow so I can’t talk to her till Thursday, and who knows when she’ll be able to speak with Dr Dickhead – and whether she’ll be able to change his mind. At the end of the day, although the patient is paying for the service, they don’t seem to be in charge of the show. Funny that.

It is a bit too late to swap clinics now, though how I would love to! The wait list for other clinics would just be a total pain in the arse, and I know C wants this over and done with ASAP. But I feel pretty sure I won’t be working with them again.

The other day, a friend I have known for about a year, who lives in my town and whom I met at painting class, offered to be an egg donor. She seemed quite serious about it, but you never can tell until you get down to the nitty gritty. Anyway, I guess it is another option if this all doesn’t work out. Which should be reassuring, but in some ways it is worse – complicating matters by giving me more options. I know that sounds ungrateful, and that I’d be looking a gift horse in the mouth, but I feel so fed up with the whole process. The thought of dragging myself through the counselling thing again, and another three month wait at the end of that. Shit. But if I didn’t take up the offer, would I regret it? Very likely.

Anyhoo, that is neither here nor there right at this point in time. But something I may need to think on in the very near future. Plus the whole find-another-surrogate thing. God I wish I’d started TTC at 28 instead of 33. Maybe I’d have been at this point at 35 instead of 40. I’d still be just as mentally and emotionally exhausted, but at least my body would be in a better position to cope. Tick tock tick tock.

…..So anyway, how’s that for more of a hands-on approach??