Let the IVF Madness Begin

Friday I received a list of IVF tests and meetings that I must complete in the mail. Upon reading the extensive list I immediately entered panic mode, because of my dh's hectic schedule. He will be traveling for business for the next three weeks, then be home for one week. After that he has two weeks of jury duty that he has to do at that time because it's already been rescheduled twice, since the county tried to get him to do it other times when he was already going out of town on business. So much for a random jury selection process that is supposed to be the ideal.

So, under the circumstances I immediately called the RE's office to schedule the appointments. Fortunately, the office staff was completely sympathetic and didn't make me feel like the demanding patient that I know I was being.

We had to dash off immediately to get dh's FDA mandated blood work done, since it was 3:30 p.m. on a Friday. The RE's office had to have the results before the one week we had available to do everything else. Since I have extremely small veins and dh passes out when he has blood drawn, we were less than enthusiastic about the short notice.

Fortunately, dh was able to get his blood drawn. He was woozy, but didn't pass out this time. I wasn't so lucky. My small veins require meticulous preparation for blood work. We had been shopping for hours the day before and I had been distracted by the scariness the flood of fifteen inches of rain we had just received. As a result, I was semi-dehydrated and my veins were nowhere in sight. The phlebotomist and I agreed I was in no condition to have five vials of blood drawn, so we would just do it next week when I had the opportunity to be prepared.

We have a marathon of other appointments and meetings that will last all day on April 26. The exciting events will include a uterine sounding, another semen analysis, an IVF specific injection class, and a myriad of meetings with various office staff members. I am wondering what will fill the two hour meeting with the embryologist, since I'm new to the whole IVF experience.