My day with Dr. Italian

Day 2 of my UTI. As of 9pm last night it seemed to be on the retreat. Thank god for Cipro. So now I'm nervous that taking this humira is really going to fuck me up. But how the hell else do I get my FSH down? How? I just cut out caffeine, alcohol, sugar...and I'm off to WF's to get fish oils tonight. I have two weeks to try to make a dent. I doubt I'll make it but, hell, you never know. I can get in two shots before the next CD3 FSH and maybe it will help. I'm also doing Cipro and Dr. Hungarian was convinced that infections would make ovaries work harder and require more FSH to get things a'movin'.

Oh crap. If I've blown my chance the second I get IVF insurance I'll just freak.

So this morning I'm laying in bed with the new man...and his 4 year old crawls into bed with us and promptly starts sneezing and says, "I'm feeling a bit sniffly today." Fuck. From UTI to pneumonia in a few days? Seriously folks, I'm not over reacting here. Last December I tested positive for pneumonia after coming off of humira, so it CAN and DOES happen. So I grabbed a roll of TP for his nose and tried to keep the green stuff off of his pillowcases best I could.

So today was my big day at the new clinic. It totally blew my mind that the fees for today would be a freakin' COPAY! $25. I am so used to being raked over the coals from each RE. All day long I found myself freaking out because I wasn't sure how I was going to afford all these payments...and then I'd reel myself in with, "But it's covered!!!! Stop it already!" I'm not sure how long it will take for it to sink in that I have insurance at last.

So the clinic isn't impressive when you walk in the door. It's a bit shabby actually. But it's a satellite office so I'm sure the main place is much more impressive. My initial impressions: upbeat, a bit on the conservative side, realistic. He has a funny habit of talking fast and not looking at people in the eye...I'm not sure if that bothers me or if he's just quirky.

So the meeting went as such: vitals, meeting 1, u/s, meeting 2.

Vitals: OK, so I weighted with my clothes on. I'm 8 pounds heavy from my top shape in NYC over the summer. Ugh. BP is normal, slightly low as usual.

Meeting 1: He said I had a 5% chance of taking home a baby and asked if I was prepared for that bit of realism. Yeah, of course I am. We chatted for at least an hour. I had to reign myself in from asking him his thoughts on every single piece of IF research.

U/S: Dr. Italian fires up the dildo-cam and goes for the ovary on the right. He looks rather surprised and tells the nurse that there are 5, yes five, follicles on the right. One of them (or in addition to the 5, I'm not sure) is forming a cyst. He moves the cam to the left and tells me, "If you thought the right side was good, you should see the left!" Four follicles plus 2 small cysts. 9+ follicles on CD12. I can't tell you how pleased all of this makes me. I also realize that today being CD12 means that on CD2 or CD3 we might have found even a few more as it's hard for the U/S to "see" all the follicles once the cysts start to form.

Meeting 2: Dr. Italian explains that, at my age, he would have expected a single follicle on one ovary and basically nothing on the other side. He does a lot of smiling and fills out a lab slip for me to test my FSH/E2 on my next CD3. He's a bit optimistic. He said he doesn't think my FSH will be much higher than it was in my last IVF (it was somewhere between 7 and 10.5, heck if I can remember anymore). All I know is that if you've been following these posts...I have my doubts. He said he'd only let me cycle if it comes back lower than 12.

Crap.