On Friday we had our first meeting with the doctor who will do our In Vitro. It was terrifying. Not because we didn’t know what to expect or because we were afraid of what we’d find out, we’ve already been through that part of it all, but because we are both pretty comfortable where we are right now and the thought of venturing back out into that war zone is … oh gosh. Am I sure kids are worth it?
If I didn’t have religious convictions that taught me the importance of family, I think I’d just get a hysterectomy and move on. I’d go back to school and either be a professor of something or a writer or a therapist and enjoy all my extra income and the undivided attention of my husband.
But, I do have religious convictions, so I have to find a way to close my eyes and step back out there and try to stay safe.
We looked at a bunch of different options, including a doctor in Beverly Hills who charges based on a sliding scale, and a few doctors who do the whole shared risk “money back guarantee” thing, and cost wise as well as comfort wise, it looks like Kaiser is who we’ll be going with. Mainly because they’re the closest to home and if there is one thing I AM NOT DOING it is living through the dreaded two week wait away from home. And because they charge $11K for everything including drugs up to ICSI and assisted hatching. Those are extra.
Until we actually met the doctor, those were pretty much our only criteria. We’ve learned that in this medical game, we are beggars and can therefore not be choosers.
Today we drove an hour away to Fremont in the Bay Area and met with Dr. BFF. His offices were posh, his receptionist sweet and friendly, his nurse concerned and capable and a fellow crafter who was interested in my project du jour, and not a baby or parenting magazine as far as the eye could see. We waited in an exam room while he reviewed our history and Bear got his first view of The Wand. He could not look away.
Dr. BFF called us in and asked us to tell him our history and experiences in our own way, aside from the clinical stats he held in his hand. I went right into doctor-speak with dates and ratings on the pain scale and whipped out my films and records, which he was obviously grateful for, but what he wanted was for us to get to know each other. He asked us where we each grew up, where our favorite place to live was, our opinions on the Red Sox and urban vs rural living, what Bear’s time in South Africa was like, how surprising it was to him when a blond blue eyed mormon boy spoke to him in fluent Korean, and his most romantic vacation with his wife.
He looked at the photos from my first lap and his jaw hit the ground. I told him that Dr. I’mnotlooking said I was clean as a whistle and Dr. BFF said, “looking at this I find that extremely hard to believe.” I could have reached right across the desk and kissed him on the mouth then and there, but he continued to earn my undying devotion by telling me what I was looking at in the photo.
“This is what healthy peritoneum tissue looks like, smooth, see? See how yours isn’t smooth? Look right here, see that? That’s called a window. That tells me that the endo has buried deep inside your organs. I can’t believe your doctor would have gone in that deep, especially since that thing right there is your ureter, so I would think that you would have continued to feel pain even after the surgery. I’m guessing on your right side, probably especially when you try to have sex.”
Bear and I literally sat there with our mouths open. He just described the past four years of my life by looking at a small photo of my organs.
He then went on to give us a list of all the IVF Clinics in town and told us to check them all out, set us up with a plan to make use of the time I have on Lupron to get everything all prepared to jump as soon as my cycle starts, gave us phone numbers that he could be reached at so we wouldn’t have to drive in for special appointments to discuss test results, told us that we might be candidates for insemination after all (which would cost us a whopping $20), commiserated with Bear about embarrassing semen sample stories, and hung out with us at the nurses station until his nurse came back to get us our next appointment.
When we left his office, Bear and I didn’t say a word until we got to the car. Like we were afraid to wake ourselves up from a very good dream.