horrible, no good, very bad... doctor appointment

So yeah, that was my period starting on Friday.  I called the clinic and got an appointment for a baseline ultrasound on Sunday (aka yesterday).  I had light bleeding and no cramps both Friday and Saturday, which was odd, but I’ll take it.  The cramps started Sunday and continued into today, and now I probably know why.



I have another fibroid.  2 surgeries, 14 fibroids, and thousands of dollars later (plus a number of aggravating phone calls trying to get the billing correct, along with a threat of being sent to collections), and here we area again with another fibroid, just under 2 cm.  It is located within the wall of my uterus, and not impinging on the lining, so no need to remove it, but I’m guessing that is what’s causing the horrible cramps I have every cycle. 



And that wasn’t even the worst thing that happened at my appointment!  My husband, D, was still away at summer camp (I learned after he got back that the camp was for children with congenital hand deformities, and apparently my husband never went to summer camp as a kid, because he had a fantastic time and returned home filthy with a braided bracelet that he had made himself and a cape that was pre-made but he was still really proud of) so I had to go to the appointment by myself.  I had heard from friends who went to the same clinic that the doctor that I was going to see this time was not well-liked.  I can see why.



He started by telling me that I still have a 14.6mm follicle left over from last time that hadn’t reabsorbed yet.  I also (I think) had only 5 total new follicles.  5.  That is not a good number.  He told me I could start a new injectable cycle if I wanted, since the leftover follicle was not too big to prevent it, but that it would hurt and he didn’t want me to come back and blame him.   I tried asking multiple times if the follicle would cause problems with a medicated cycle, but all he would say was that he didn’t want me to blame him for anything if I went home and googled it, and that it was up to me if we continued.  I was like, I have no idea what you’re talking about, how am I supposed to make a decision without more information?  But after a LOT of prodding, he said that it wouldn’t cause any problems, and I am now too scared to google it.



Then he told me that since I had three dominant follicles last time, they wouldn’t increase my dosage.  I was stunned, since based on everything I was told, I had one dominant follicle last time, plus one that was a bit farther behind and hadn’t caught up as of the last ultrasound.  WTH???  I guess the doctor (who was actually a nurse practitioner) and the nurse who was recording everything had some communications issues, or there was another follicle that no one told me about in any of my visits.  I tried explaining this to the doctor, who pretty much accused me of lying in order to increase my meds.  He told me it would be really bad if I ended up with 5 or 10 dominant follicles.  I wanted to slap him and shout “I only have 5 follicles total!  How could I possibly end up with that many large follicles???”  I was pretty much crying by this time.



He informed me that a lot of patients didn’t like him because they only want to hear positive things, and he believed in telling the truth.  I felt more like he believed in giving as little information as possible so that no one could blame him for a bad outcome.  I wanted to hear the truth!  But I wanted to hear ALL of it so I could make an informed decision.



He didn’t talk at all about my tiny number of follicles, the shortness of my cycle, nothing.  I was not happy, but what can you do?  I’m going to be 37 next month, I don’t have a ton of time left, and I certainly don’t have a lot of eggs left.  So  I am currently on the same dose I was on last time.  My prescription-strength painkillers have damped the cramps enough for me to behave normally at work.  I am barreling along towards what I feel will be another failure, a lot more money down the drain.  We have decided this will probably be our last IUI cycle, and IVF using my eggs is probably off the table at this point.  How many viable embryos can we really expect to get with so few antral follicles?



So now I’m not sure what to do next (assuming this cycle doesn’t work, which I am assuming).  I think we will probably move on to either donated eggs or donated embryos.  Donated embryos are the cheapest option I’ve found so far.  If I could find a program that uses donated eggs and D’s sperm and doesn’t cost too much more, that would be the ideal course of action, but I don’t really know where else to look now.  I guess we have a bit of time to think about it.