The Appointment

This is going to be long.

I wanted to wait to update until I had actually gone to the appointment.

I didn't receive a call back from the doctor's office until the following Wednesday (I had originally called on a Friday). The person I talked to for that call seemed to be fairly nice and non-judgemental. We set up the appointment for a few weeks from that date and I was instructed that a packet of papers would be sent to me.
It wasn't until later that I realized that AF would be around on the appointment date. So, I ended up having to call back and reschedule it for another date.

About a week before my appointment, I realized my packet had never arrived. I ended up calling the office but it wasn't until a Friday afternoon (my appointment was the following Thursday). I asked about my packet not arriving and the lady said they had sent one on the 10th of January (this was about a month later that I was calling). We confirmed my address was correct and she said she'd send another one on Monday and hoped it would arrive in time.

The Thursday of my appointment rolled around and I still hadn't gotten the packet. I decided to check the mail before leaving, just in case, and there it was. So, I hurriedly filled it out as best I could before getting on the road. The clinic is only about an hour and a half away but, because of snow, I decided to leave at least three hours ahead of appointment time. The snow was really bad in town and I was worried how the highway would be. Fortunately, it was a lot less snowy out of town and I was able to make good time going over.

By the time I got to the clinic the wind had started to pick up and I could see that another winter storm was predicted to come in around 6:00pm. My appointment was supposed to be an hour long, starting at 2:30, so I figured I'd be nearly home by the time the storm hit.

Inside the clinic, I was surprised by how busy it was. I didn't actually end up seeing the doctor until sometime after 3:30. Though, with all the activity I could hear, it sounded like they were a bit short-staffed that day and even the doctor was spread thin dealing with multiple patients. It seemed like it was not a typical day, so I'm going to try not to hold that against them.

However, when I did finally see the doctor she was very nice and welcoming. She seemed very knowledgeable. I mainly wanted to know what the likelihood was of me having PCOS and endometriosis, as well as how to go forward with getting pregnant.

Based on my symptoms, she believes it is highly likely that I do have PCOS, though she wouldn't officially give me the diagnosis until she gets some test results back. We did an ultrasound which showed I had likely just ovulated (which matched with my BBT chart). One ovary seemed to have activity that indicated PCOS but the other (the ovulatory one) didn't. She saw something on the ovulatory ovary that, if not resolved later, might indicate a possibility of endometriosis, though it was likely related to the recent ovulation.

The good news is that I still ovulate, despite the PCOS. However, the doctor thinks my eggs are just not high quality enough by the time I ovulate, and that may be why I have not gotten pregnant. She said she would like to see me on metformin. She also believes I should take even more Vitamin D, though we are waiting on results from my Vitamin D blood test. I ended up having to get about seven vials of blood drawn for all the tests the doctor wanted.

She also wants me to get my blood drawn for CD3 hormone testing and I'm supposed to call on CD1 to schedule an HSG. She said she prefers to do the HSG at her clinic because apparently they don't do them often in my town and there have been horror stories of them being long and drawn out. She said she does them all the time, so it's better there. The HSG is one thing that is freaking me out because I've heard varying accounts of how painful it is, but I know it is important to see that the tubes are open. However, I don't think the timing will work this month as I suspect the dates for doing one will fall during a coworker's vacation and I cannot take off a whole day of work, or even a half day at that time.

She said that if I want to go through their clinic for cycles that they coordinate all the time with an ultrasound clinic that is in my town. The only difficulty, of course, is being able to get time off work, especially for specific days and times at short notice. I'm not exactly sure how that is going to work though I might only need to take a half-day when the roads are better.

Anyway, for now we are waiting on the results of my blood tests and CD1. Also, the possibility of endometriosis is not off the table but the doctor would like to hold off on any kind of exploratory surgery at this time. I am happy to hold off, though I worry about wasting more time and money if it is present.

Also, after waiting for the doctor, waiting for the ultrasound room, and waiting to get my blood drawn, it was after 6:00pm by the time I finally got out of there.

The wind had really picked up and it was absolutely nasty in the parking lot. When I went to leave, the snow was blowing so hard it was practically whiteout conditions. I could barely see the roadway or any other cars. I figured if it was like that on the interstate, I would pull over and get a hotel. Also, it was rapidly getting dark as the sun had pretty much set. However, by the time I got to the interstate, I could see that the road was just wet, not snowy or icy. It wasn't until I got to the two-lane highway that there started to be snow on the road. It was full dark by this time and the snowplows had not plowed the passing lanes so I'm afraid some people were stuck behind me until we made it into town. I'm so thankful it wasn't worse and that I made it back safe. The snow keeps falling though, so maybe it's a good thing the timing for the HSG won't work out for March. Maybe the roads will be better in April?