First Appointment with the RE

When you go to any doctor you have to fill out a bunch of new patient forms right? Well take those, multiply them by 100. When the receptionist told me she would email me the forms before my appointment because they take a little while to fill out, I did not think she meant TWO HOURS! A lot of it was medical history on me and my dear husband (DH) and I flew through the family medical history because I only had to do mine (DH is adopted). Then it got to questions about treatment. They asked, what type of treatment option are you looking for? and I put: MAKE ME NORMAL. I want the same chance to make a baby as a normal person. (When the RE went through the forms with me, he laughed when he came to that answer. Thinking back, I am not sure if he laughed at the simplicity of my answer or the naivete of my answer.)

I made the mistake of going to this appointment alone because I thought it would be like any normal trip to the gyno's office. It. Was. Not. First I met with the RE in his office and we went over my book of new patient forms and talked for an hour. He talked about himself and then talked about what they do at the clinic. He went through all of the treatment types and costs and then explained to me what my appointment would be like that day and what the next three steps would be. My head was spinning and I was overwhelmed. This talk in his office for an hour wasn't my appointment? And apparently I was going to have a transvaginal ultrasound? What the?

I was pleased that he was thorough but I was overwhelmed and told him so. I really thought I was going to just get some medicine that would fix me and that was it. He didn't even flinch, he nodded and smiled and said, we want to "make you normal" but we have to confirm what the problems are and we have to monitor your treatments to preserve the fertility you do have. He said we would do the TV u/s, then I would need blood work and a saline u/s. And the DH would need blood work and a seman analysis (and this went on in my head: WAIT, they want to analyze his semen? WTH for?).

Then we went into this tiny room where I had to drop my pants and spread 'em. The TV u/s was pretty cool, I watched as my RE pointed out my uterus and ovaries (cysts and scar tissue and all) and when it was over, my RE told the nurse they would just fast track me to an IUI. And I thought, a what? The doctor confirmed my PCOS diagnosis (based on blood work already done by my GP and the presence of cysts and other fabulous symptoms) and said he felt that my best chance would be to start with a medication to help me ovulate, a trigger shot to make sure ovulation happened and artificial insemination. My head was spinning. I nodded and said, sounds good, in my smallest voice because I didn't know what the hell he was talking about!

Many women research like crazy before going to the infertility clinic. I just read their website. I was still naively convinced that I could just be fixed and would be able to just make a tiny human the normal way.