You don't have an "oh shit" plan?

Yes, I swore ... that is how pissed off I am.

(But before I get onto the rant of the day, can I just ask ... did you not like my last post because I was being much more playful than I have been in the past few months and you weren't used to it ... or are you all really thin and it's just easier to say nothing than ... geez, too bad I can't relate! Really, it doesn't matter this latest cycle incident has got me moved on to bigger and better!)

Back to my foul language ... I had to swear ... what kind of monkey shop are they running? I am referring to my Sacramento clinic. This morning Berilac and I got up at 5:15AM to head up to Sacramento at 5:30AM. We got into town at 8AM and had plenty of time for breakfast before our 9AM ultrasound/bloodwork appointment.

Everything was going just swimmingly - the phlebotomist only had to take one puncture to find and retrieve the blood specimen (most labs take 2 if not 3 pokes before the well gushes) then we headed into our ultrasound to learn that my endometrium needs to be at least 8mm to proceed, and mine was a beautiful 10mm with that sought after triple stripe - yay!

We had an opportunity to meet with the doctor to discuss the advantages/disadvantages of day 3 vs. day 5 transfer because although we were originally leaning toward doing a day 5 transfer ... we've since read an article by Dr. Sher that indicated that perhaps day 3 was better (not to worry, I sent my doctor Dr. Sher's article as I was telling him that we were now leaning toward a day 3 transfer vs. a day 5 transfer). When the doctor sat us down he told me that he never actually read the article I forwarded him and he presented me with other documents by Dr. Sher and Dr. Keskintepe (which is fine) but he explained why he thought we should do a day 5 transfer over a day 3 transfer (embryos survive better in lab culture than a uterus when they are day 3 because the natural environment for them is not the uterus but the fallopian tubes, as well, the natural killer cells [they sound dangerous] will have less of chance to develop if you wait to transfer, blah-blah-blah) ... ultimately he told us we could do a day 3 transfer if we insist, but that he recommends a day 5 transfer.

Well thank you doctor for your wisdom, I'll log that away.

They were ready to escort us out when I requested a "further instructions" meeting with my nurse coordinator - you see my calendar ends today, with my ultrasound and bloodwork and in the little box marked January 5th it says "expect further instructions" ... so I wasn't about to leave without the promise of those much needed instructions.

We weren't surprised when (even after waiting 15 minutes) when we sat down at our nurse coordinators desk and she turned the screen around to show us our updated calendar - it had NO NEW data on it at all ... so we sat there with the nurse while she typed in each line of change. But before she could complete our calendar she needed to know if we were planning on a day 3 transfer or a day 5 transfer? We, of course, having only received information from our doctor minutes earlier, hadn't yet decided if we wanted a day 3 or day 5 transfer. So she told us that she couldn't provide us with medication dosing/instruction until we picked a day. So of course I got frustrated and confrontational asking her if she thought **I** was supposed to plan the cycle or if we would allow the development of the embryos to dictate the plans (as that seems like a better idea, don't you think?)

The nurse had no idea what I was talking about.

I tried explaining it to her a few times asking her if we could hope for the best (day 5 transfer) and plan for the worst (day 3 transfer) ... ultimately she needed to check with someone else via phone and their collective response back was "no" ... we need to decide if we're doing day 3 or day 5.

So I had her call her accomplice into the room, so that I could speak (condescend) to both of them at the same time. And I did it ... I dropped the S-bomb ... me. I said to her: you see we'd like to plan for a day 5 transfer and if on day 3 we learn that we only have 1 surviving embryo, then it's time for the "oh shit" plan ... meaning "oh shit, what do we do? we only have 1 embryo??!?" ... well, in that case (and many, MANY women have been in this situation and have opted for the day 3 transfer when the day 5 transfer just wasn't attainable) my clinic says .... we can't do that.

So basically - they have no "Oh shit" plan ... again I ask ... what kind of monkey shop are you running here?

Berilac and I spent 2 hours driving home and talking about "all we had learned" (read: listened to more inconsistent infertility B.S. from doctor who wants to do things his way, so ultimately we gathered no real data) at our appointment and how we can't believe that before move forward with fertilizing eggs - we have to decide which day we will be transferring.

We have NEVER fertilized an egg in vitro ... how the HELL am I supposed to know what the quality will be?

How am I supposed to know that if I transfer on day 3 I won't be:
-putting us at risk for high order multiples?
-risking the embryos as they really should be in the fallopian tubes and not in my uterus so the dish was a better environment?

Or if I elect to transfer on day 5, how do I know that I won't be:
-killing our embryos because they were too fragile for life in the petrie dish, but not the womb?

Why do I have to make this decision? Other women don't seem to have to???

If you couldn't tell, I'm sufficiently pissed and ready to get some real help from a real clinic ... does anyone wonder why CCRM will be our next stop?

Thanks for any words of wisdom.