Got Records?

My medical records from George's office came in the mail today! I'm so excited!!! It was like this:

My hott OB/GYN George

The mail

My RECORDS!!!

I'm pretty excited about this - I've been waiting 3 weeks. And there it is: my 16 month Infertile Journey - all laid out on 58 pages of lab reports, surgery reports, and treatment notes.

I will hand-deliver my records to my RE tomorrow. She will review them and decide what additional tests she wants me to have done. Maybe I can do those tests this week! Maybe she'll really let me start the Lupron for an IVF cycle as soon as my progesterone results come back tomorrow (yeah, yeah, I still haven't done my progesterone test..) even though I haven't had the IVF Orientation yet (yes, I realize the chances of this are pretty slim).

Either way, I'm excited to have these firmly in hand so that I'm not WAITING on anyone else (which I hate! I like to do my own procrastinating).

I was planning to kick George's hott ass to the curb - mainly because I have some fundamental disagreements with the way his nurses make treatment decisions (and the fact that the nurses were directing my care for so long in the first place) and with the fact that he put me on Lupron to supress my "microscopic" endometriosis after laparoscopy last year, which in my completely non-medical opinion (unless you count 4 years of pharmacy school that ended with me divorcing husband #1, slipping into unmedicated depression, skipping 4 out of every 5 classes, failing all classes due to aforementioned skippage, and dropping out, which, you know, I do) was a big, fat, stupid waste of time AND did not magically result in my ovaries deciding to ovulate every month or in more than 24% of Forest's sperm deciding to swim in a straight line - weird, huh? (Wow! That was quite an impressive run-on sentence, there, n'est pas?)

BUT - after looking through my records I am now thinking about keeping him. I think his office means really, really well and they did do a lot for me and they didn't make me "try" for a year before doing testing and ovulation induction to at least give us a shot. I just think they are in over their heads trying to do the work of an RE. For gynecological surgery and obstetrical care, I think George will still rock.

I dunno. I guess I'll worry about getting knocked up first and leave the 'To George, or not to George' issue for Future Amy to deal with.

So, for today's question: Do you guys think it's overkill to make a binder for the RE separated by cycle with labels for the tests & stuff? I mean, I know she's a doctor and all, but I think some of it could use some context, like: "Cycle 1 (Jun-07) CD3 Tests" or something.

IVF = No Big Deal?

Okay, blog friends: I need some input. Am I weird to think that IVF is not really scary? I mean, I think this clown is really scary:

But I think IVF is cool and exciting. More like a trip to Bora Bora than an evil clown:
Am I in the minority here? It just doesn't seem like that much more than ovulation induction with injectables + IUI. So now I'm just hoping it's significantly more successful than those have been for me.
While I'm on the subject, I know some ladies hate vaginal ultrasounds, but I think the transducer looks rather...almost...friendly:

I just asked my husband for an adjective to describe it and he said, "E.T.'s finger?" Now, I've never really considered E.T.'s finger doing the job of the transducer there, but the healing touch of E.T.!?!? How can that be undesirable?

So, what say you?

poll by twiigs.com

Entering the Blogosphere

Wow - I'm actually blogging! This is my attempt to tell my complicated infertility story and my journey to **hopefully** have a baby with the most awesome, wonderful, spectacular, astonishingly magnificent husband in the universe. I know you all probably think your husbands are pretty neat, but mine is simply the best. I should know - I've been through some husbands. But that is a story for another blog... I was inspired to blog by some wonderful and witty ladies who formerly posted in the "trying to conceive" section of a popular pregnancy-centric website. As one of these ladies blogged, that site recently jumped the shark and went through a period of utter goofyness (which, I'm sorry to say, I might have instigated, rather inadvertently). Anyway, these ladies have great blogs like Conceive This!, The Baby Blog, Dreaming of Baby, and waiting on the womb to change. So I guess I'll start with my current status and maybe fill in the background as I go. I am getting ready to start my first (and hopefully only) IVF cycle. When I get to day 21 of this cycle (next Monday - 9/22), I will have my progesterone level checked to see if I ovulated (see, the whole tricky ovulation business is where my lady parts generally get hung up...hence the need for infertility treatments). If I didn't ovulate (which will be the highly likely result of this test), I will start provera to bring on my period. I'll take that for 10 days, then once my new, exciting cycle starts, I'll go in for a 4-D ultrasound of my uterine lining (to make sure there are no polyps...I'm prone to those) and a trial embryo transfer <---- this is to allow them to "map" my cervix and record the depth of my uterus (I'm sure it's really deep, I went to good schools, pondered existential philosophies, etc.). Then I'll start Lupron to tire out my poor little pituitary gland so that it can't secrete any pesky leutinizing hormone (LH) too early, which would cause me to ovulate before the super-exciting retreival. Next step: start follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) injections (I'm an old pro at this) and wait to mature some beautiful follicles!
So, I hope this all sounds as exciting to anyone reading this as it does to me! Here's to 2009 babies for everyone!