Borderline (Come on! Sing Along!)

Feels like I'm goooooing to loooose my miiiiind!

Before I go into all that, welcome to all of the Stirrup Queens (and SPJ's) who found me via the Lost and Found Page. It's great to start a new blog and see actual traffic, and I am pleased to have finally bitten the bullet and joined the online infertility community and been made to feel so welcome so quickly. You guys rock.

I met with Mom for lunch today, and she seems to have assimilated the conversation of last night. I do count myself as being incredibly lucky- she and Dad are offering to subsidize my drug costs. Never underestimate the determination of Armenians who want to be grandparents.

Well, plus they probably don't want another Christmas Day when my aunt in Chicago calls to announce that my cousin is going to make her a grandmother for the fourth time, isn't it amazing! I'm a fourth time grandma! And your Dad doesn't have any grandkinds yet, and he just turned 59! You guys better get crackin'! I ended up choking back tears over the post-dinner Scrabble fiasco.

In my defense, it was exacerbated by the fact that my freshly married brother bought his new bride an SUV with third row seating, and I added one and one and made three, and then panic set in. I'm not the only one whose done this. Right? Right?

It turned out that no, they're not pregnant, they're just yuppies. (Actually, they want the room for their Jack Russell Terriers. Go know.)

So. Ultrasound. Otherwise known Chez Jenna as "My date with the all-seeing dildo."

Yes, I am that classy.

Evidently, my ovaries are happy little sacks of sunshine and rainbows. No cysts. They found Righty with a minimum of problems, so perhaps he has made up his mind to actually do some work this cycle, as opposed to resting on his laurels. Whatever the ovarian equivalent of laurels might be. Lefty (AKA Ol' Faithful) was as usual present and accounted for. When I finish this whole thing, I think I want to send him movie tickets and a gift certificate to Chili's.

As for my uterine disco lounge, it is open for business.

The ultrasound lady also told me the inspirational story of a woman with the same stats as me- three cycles with Clomid, luteal phase defect, got pregnant on her first cycle of Gonal-F.

So, everything was par for the course. I put my clothes on, went into room 5 (which whould have my name on the door, I feel like I live in there.)

I am going to be doing 225 IU for the first 5 days, 150 IU for two days after that, then bloodwork and ultrasound, then another IUI, followed by progesterone suppositories from hell.
(I had to call Freedom Pharmacy to order another 300 IU pen to make up my full dosage.) They showed me how to prime the Gonal-F pens, and the ghetto method of siphoning out the extra meds with a spare syringe. I was feeling pretty good, until I started to ask questions.

I waited until I had mastered the Gonal-F pen, and then made a squinchy face and said,

"So, what do we know, exactly? My husband and I are both basically fine, right?"

"Right."

"Except for the luteal phase thing."

"Right."

"Ok, so there's no way of testing if my eggs can actually be fertilized until an IVF procedure, right? Are we just going by the fact that I am under 35, as far as egg quality goes?

"Well, your FSH is borderline, so...."

Hold the phone. Because nobody has ever mentioned that any of my levels were anything but stellar, so this came as kind of a shock to me.

"What exactly do we mean by borderline?"

"We ideally want something under 8. You're just above, at 8.4. It's not a big deal. We just usually pursue more aggressive treatment if the FSH is up above the 9 range."

So, have they been wasting my time with the whole Clomid thing? Because that's how I feel. I am PISSED. Super pissed. Because if I had known all of this, I would have started injectables three freaking months ago.

I think I am going to look into my other options. I am not necessarily attached to Dr. Combover, and while I like his office staff, if we are going to be shelling out thousands of dollars out-of-pocket, we better get results.

According to my OB-Gyn (whom I love) this clinic is the best game in town. However, going out of town is an option. Luckily, we're three hours away from both L.A. and San Francisco, so if it gets to the point of IVF, I have a feeling we are going to go with another clinic...and realistically, I am going to have to get my name in there pretty soon if I want to stick to our timetable. I need to look at success percentages and see how the clincs statewide measure up.

Ok. Off to go prime my pen!

Edited to add: Ok, what was I worried about? After Ovidrel, this stuff is cake!