distracted

Yesterday was a historic day, a fantastic day that may bring about a shift in the entire world. I’m so grateful that yesterday happened in my lifetime, and so hopeful that the change yesterday represents, to so many in America and around the world, will actually come to fruition and make the world a better place for everyone.

So I’m happy, really I am.

But yesterday was also a spectacularly shit day. My spotting turned to bleeding, which has continued to get heavier into today, crushing all hope that this was late implantation. I have a brutal headache that won’t go away. And yesterday morning, after getting to work late because we had a morning meeting with our mortgage specialist, I picked up the phone to call my clinic to report CD 1, and was told unceremoniously that Dr. Rational has suspended fertility treatments at this time because the ultrasound tech is very ill and in hospital, and their backup for u/s can’t accomodate everyone and of course pregnant women get priority over those trying to get pregnant. And that while the u/s tech is likely to be off for 6 weeks or so, that brings us into Christmas when the clinic “slows down” so basically no treatment until after Christmas.

After I bleated out a stunned protest that it might have been good if someone had thought to give me a call so I didn’t have to hear this way, which was met with what sounded to me to be a mild rebuke that “it’s been hard on everyone”, I hung up the phone. And then I laid my head on my desk and sobbed. I sobbed until the anger returned and made me pull it together. Then I realized that not only would I not be at the telling stage by Christmas, there was basically no way that I would be pregnant by Christmas. Then I sobbed some more.

My boss, bless him, asked no questions, just hugged me, told me it would be ok, and sent me home.

Where I stewed about how shitty my clinic is, how little they actually care about what I or any other patient there is going through, how reliant the system is a single individual, how those of us who are struggling to get pregnant are treated so poorly in the system, how we are always last in line, how we are reminded, by the head nurse in my clinic during a follow up call, that fertility treatment is elective and therefore we don’t rate highly enough to tax the system even more than it already is right now. And I stewed also about the fact that my clinic didn’t see fit to make phone calls to people in the middle of a cycle (although they must have phoned people with u/s appointments booked) but instead sent a letter out that I should be getting sometime, and when I challenged them about this they said there were too many patients to call.

Right. Cause leaving a voicemail for the people who are in the middle of treatment right now is too much for the full-time social worker, the 2 receptionists, the head nurse, and the half-dozen or so other people that work in the office there. Not even counting the doctors. Or the entire health region administration, for that matter.

I know it would have been above and beyond, I know everyone would have had to pitch in. But seriously? They couldn’t each have spared a half hour to let people know?

If I can’t get compassion from my clinic, can’t I at least get a phone call so I don’t have to hear that I won’t get another try until the new year on the day that I am calling to report that this cycle is another negative?

Fuckers.

So I’m sad, I’m mad, I’m overwhelmed. I’m glad the world I woke up in this morning is a different place than it was yesterday, but at the moment, my attention is elsewhere. Back in my solipsistic IF hell.

yeah, thanks

*This post contains filthy, filthy, angry language. If you are at work or would for any reason seek to shield yourself from what follows, best to skip the whole thing.

The title of this post contains my last words as I left the ultrasound tech still talking at me this morning. I had to go to a private radiology clinic cause my sonographer in my clinic is away for a few days. So she does the scan, then leaves me sitting in the darkened room with no tissues to wipe the lube from my freshly probed snatch, so I used the paper sheet on the bed. I hope she put her hand in it when she cleaned up. 

She came back in, handed me a sheet with the measurements of my follicles and my lining on it, leaving me to decipher it myself in the murky light. I squint, read once, read twice, get confused. They’ve shrunk. My lining and my 16.2mm follicle on the left side seem to have decidedly shrunk. She’s just standing there, saying nothing, or fiddling with my befouled sheet. I ask the first question that pops into my head, “How much difference is there between different machines?”

“Oh, no, ” replies the cunt whore bitch fuckface buttstink slappy trollop. “It’s not the machines, if it were the machines it would be a millimeter at most.” And then, “They’re regressing.” She must have seen my face fall and my being deflate slightly at that, so she adds, “Unfortunately.”

She kept talking, but my self-preservation skills kicked in, and I picked up my stuff, and walked out. “Yeah, thanks.”

I’m trying to cheer myself up with what Manny tells me, which is that I don’t play by their rules, and rules are for fools, and I’m too cool for school. This did happen once before, and they grew again, and I had a 21×21 follicle that cycle. But is a little human kindness too much to ask?

I’ve just spoken to a wonderful person at my clinic, who was appropriately sympathetic and practical and kind. When I’ve calmed down a bit more, I will be phoning the private radiology lab to let them know that infertility is hard, and we need people to be gentle with us, and having “unfortunately” added as an afterthought just doesn’t cut it. And that maybe they should point this out to their crotch-sweat, ass-wipe, bum-zit, day-old-pantyliner, fart-cloud, fuckwit, dumb slut staff.