Dr. Appt Update

This is gonna be a long one, so just a forewarning!!

Since the Dr's office is across town from where we live, I left with plenty of time for red lights, construction, or the occasional accident which results in backed up traffic and detours through side streets. Lucky for me, I didn't have any problems with any of those! Once I arrived at the hospital, I stopped at the registration desk because I wasn't sure what exactly I needed to do or where to go. The lady pointed me towards the elevators and gave me the office number. Boy did I get a strange look from her when I asked if there were stairs I could take! Most people probably would take the elevators going to the 4th floor, but honestly, stairs are an amazing leg workout and as odd as it sounds, I miss walking the stairs at my old job.

But anyways...I arrived at the office 20 minutes early. I got signed in, handed in all the new patient paperwork and grabbed a seat in the waiting room. Thank goodness I brought a book because it was nearly an hour and 20 minutes after my appointment time that I got called back. The receptionist didn't bother to let me know the doctor was running behind or anything (thanks lady). Needless to say, I got through about 1/4 of my book that I just started reading this morning. I mean I understand that doctors get behind and that offices can run late. But for no one to tell me anything seemed a little strange. I mean seriously...it was past lunch time and I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast at 6:30 this morning. Over 6 hours with no food is a long time for this little girl! I need my calories!!!

But I digress once again. Sharp turn back towards the real subject matter....

The nurse finally called me back and apologized a bagillion times about the long wait. Her and I got to talking about "those patients" that always seem to want to sit and talk about every little thing and how the internet is doing some horrible damage to the healthcare system. How many times do we hear people say things like "well, I was looking this up on the internet and..." or "I checked my symptoms on Web.MD and I think I could be dying." [Nothing bad about WebMD. In fact, I'm a very avid user and visitor to the website. I just don't think I'm going to die just because it says my abdominal cramping could be appendicitis.] So yeah...she got my weight (104.0!!! honestly...), height, blood pressure and all that other stuff. We sat and did a brief overview of my health history and all the usual nurse things that they have to do. A few minutes later the doctor joined me and we got to talking about everything too.

Dr. S is an older gentleman, but he definitely knows his stuff and cares about the patients he sees. I could tell that just from the first few moments with him (big difference from Dr. W). We basically went over my complete health history (my GI issues, my IF problems, etc.). He even took the time to go over the copies of my FF charts from the past 2 years and basically came to the same conclusion - we need medical intervention to help us have a baby. We discussed doing an HSG and a post-coital test and continuing on with the Clomid. He suggested doing OPKs (still not quite sure if I want to spend the money on them yet again) to help us time BDing better. He gave me a script for 3 months of Clomid and he said we'd probably evaulate things again after that time period to see what would be best for us. He did make the comment, however, that I was a perfect patient. Not only was I intelligent, prepared, and organized, but I also had a little bit of a medical background and understood and knew what my past healthcare has entailed. I think he was quite suprised at my understanding of all the medical things we discussed.

He also basically is pushing me on to another physician in the practice because she loves working with couples dealing with IF. I was a little bummed about that because he was a really great doctor and I can tell he wants to be there and help the patient as best as he possibly can. Now to basically go through things again with a new physician isn't all that great. I questioned him as far as when he wanted me to do the Post-coital test and HSG and he told me to wait until I see that other doctor and she can decide what to do next. So once again...in limbo.

So once again it's going to be another month or so before we can do anything IF treatment related. I'm hoping that I O on my own this cycle though. I know that if I do, once FF confirms my O date, I'm going to call the office and set up an appointment to see the other doctor so we can get the ball rolling as far as the PCT, HSG and anything else she wants to do. It's such a headache. And to think that IF is hard enough...now to add switching doctors (not at my request) to it all doesn't make it any easier.

Maybe I should have just taken the Clomid on my own. At least then these past few months wouldn't have been wasted...

The day has come!

In approximately 3 hours, I'll finally be meeting with the new OB/GYN doctor. It's rather exciting for me, and I'm praying that this physician will be more personable and have a better bedside manner than the military OB/GYN that I saw last month. I'm just so ready to get the ball rolling with a physician that I actually like. Hubby is hoping that Dr. S will review my history, then send us on our way to an RE. I think he's just as anxious to get things going again as I am. I'll try to post more after the appointment.

I'm also still waiting to hear back on the interview I had 2 weeks ago. I've honestly never had to wait this long to hear back on a position. It's been almost 5 weeks since the job posting closed! I'm going insane!!!

20 minutes later...

Anyone else have problems trying to create a new post? I had to wait for quite awhile before I finally found another route to write this post! Technology is supposed to make things easier, right?

Anyways...I have somewhat good news to report. I got another referral put in for continuing my IF care and after waiting for forever, I finally have it approved. Granted, I have to go to another OB/GYN before I can get referred to an RE, but (and here's the somewhat good news!), I don't have to go to another military OB/GYN!! I was pretty psyched about that. Sure, I'd prefer to go to an RE, but with our insurance, we have to go through an OB/GYN before we can be referred on to an RE because an RE is considered to be more specialized in the field. Darn red tape crap. But to make things worse, I called a few minutes ago to set up the appointment and at first the scheduler told me the Dr. was scheduling out quite a ways. Then she said, "Wait a second, let me check something. We can actually get you in the 15th." I asked if she meant next week 15th and she told me yes. I was super psyched!! I may not be seeing an RE, but at least we won't have to waste another month or two to get the ball rolling again! I couldn't be happier, considering the cards I'm dealt.

Off the IF topic....my 4th of July was amazing! We had 6-8 (depending on the day) of our relatives join us for the weekend, and we had such a good time. Everyone arrived Friday evening and left Monday morning. Saturday though, we spent a good portion of the afternoon at the Royal Gorge, and holy cow is that worth the money you pay to get into it! We had such a great time and the view is spectacular, even if you are afraid of heights! Here's a quick glimpse (and one of my favorite photos from the day):
Gorgeous isn't it? That evening, we had 12 people at our house for a huge all-out BBQ. Sunday, we had planned a picnic at the Garden of the Gods, but we got rained out (more like poured out. The rains were incredibly heavy!!). Overall though, we had an awesome time and I got to show off my amazing cooking/baking skills!