I had a big blue bag of meds worth about $4000 sitting on my kitchen table. I was emotionally battered and bruised from the circus that was The Fancy Clinic. My defenses were up as I parked at The Good Clinic (my very creative name for the next fertility clinic.)
I walked into The Good Clinic and saw that though the waiting room was very small, they offered water from a cooler and herbal tea (The Fancy Clinic did not have such offerings.)
I gave my name at the front desk and just assumed the chaos would follow; I assumed everyone there was going to make mistakes, not know what they were doing and make this harder than it had to be. I was already pissed at them.
I filled out some paper work and soon was shown into an office . The entire clinic was about the size of The Fancy Clinic’s lobby. I was judging it and assumuing I would hate it here. I was prepared to tell the doctor that I was meeting a few other doctors and needed some time to recover from my mini trauma.
Dr. Right walked in. He was calm, mellow, present and warm. He shook my hand and greeted me with kindness and eye contact. I think he had a halo. Could that be possible? Yeah, I’m pretty sure he had a halo.
I gave him a brief over view of what I had been through and to my surprise, I didn’t cry. Dr. Right listened and nodded and didn’t interrupt or rush me. He didn’t act as though what I had to say was less important than what he had to say.
When I was finished, he said, “We do things differently here. There are only two doctors in the practice, myself and my partner. We do all our own ultra sounds and we are present for every test and procedure.
I felt some tension melt away. This is what I had expected in the first place.
After Dr. Right read my charts he said, “I don’t think you need to do IVF, I recommend injectables.”
I thought about what Linda had said about Octomom. “I thought that injectables would give me multiples,” I said, not really even understanding what I was saying.
“Well, we control the dosage, to get only one or even two extra follicles. Let me explain,” Dr. Right said.
He pulled out a jar of Starburst candies.
Only yellows and pinks. “Let’s say the yellow ones are the non viable eggs and the pink ones are the viable ones.” He counted out twelve candies and put them on the desk. “You have six eggs on each side, as we can see from your ultra sound,” he said. We factor in your age and the fact that you had five or six unsuccessful inseminations…” he switched out a few candies until he has 9 yellows and three pinks. “So, if you are getting one egg a month, what are the odds of you getting a pink?”
He put all the candies in his hands and covered them up. He let me pick one, blindly. I picked yellow.
“So, we are just going to improve your chances of getting a pink one,” he said. “Now pick two candies.”
It took a few tries, picking two, but I finally got one pink.
Now I felt like crying; from relief. He explained it so simply. He was so warm and kind and I wanted to hug him and sob on his shoulder as I moaned thank you thank you. But I didn’t. I smiled and nodded.
He didn’t talk about statistics at all. I was so grateful.
“Here’s my email and personal number,” Dr. Right said. “Call if you have any questions.”
Was this a joke? Was he just doing this because somehow he had heard the Dr. X wouldn’t give out his email or number? I stared at Dr. Right. He looked sincere. Could a doctor really be this wonderful? Was he too good to be true? Was his halo just smoke and mirrors?
I didn’t trust myself; I was the same person who sayed in the abusive Fancy Clinic relationship.I still had one more doctor to meet but I didn’t really even want to meet her. I loved Dr. Right.
I did meet the other doctor, because I thought I should. She was very nice, but I went back to Dr. Right. It’s really true that when you find the one, you just know.
Every appointment at The Good Clinic was actually pleasant – no enjoyable! I guess being in such a terrible place just made me appreciate little things like: No one ever asked what tests I needed when I arrived at the office – they always knew. Dr. Right explained what I was looking at during my ultra sounds, without my having to ask. Dr. Right would ask me questions about my life and then remember the details the other times I came in. The doctors and nurses all carried around lap top computers (pretty common now adays, though this was the first I had seen it) and my file was always open and available when I arrived.
There was never any confusion. NEVER!
Dr. Right was encouraging, kind and trust worthy. He was also always there. The staff there all knew me by name. AND each test and procedure cost about 2/3rds less than the other place!!
They even gave me pens and mugs with their logo.
I was doing injectables; injecting a controlled, small amount of Follistum each day. I already had this med in my big blue bag.
I watched in my ultra sound as two follicles grew and even though this try didn’t take, I wasn’t crushed. I liked it here. I was healing here.
My baby was concieved in a few short months.
photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/sundazed/1451250808/”>sun dazed</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/”>cc</a>
