what a relief!

No, I did not get my period. Stupid AF is like clockwork for over half of my life and now she decides to give me the longest cycle of my life. Awesome. I'm over it, though, because I got a chance to speak with our clinic about everything. Yesterday I went in for an ultrasound and bloodwork. Because I am cycling in Chicago, but monitoring where we live, I have to go to a new doctor for all of my blood tests and ultrasounds. I was prepared for some negative comments from him since we chose going out of state over his clinic, but he was far more unpleasant than I could have predicted. He kept saying that shared risk programs are just a way for the doctor to get rich and he is far more "maternal" in his practice. Well, he has a 24% live birth rate per transfer and his cycles cost $8,000. My clinic has a 58% live birth rate per transfer and their shared risk program is $16,000. If I went to him (which I did not do for my first IVF), it would likely take me more than one cycle to get pregnant considering his abysmal odds, which would then cost the $16,000 we are spending at a clinic that will likely get us pregnant (and if they don't get us pregnant, they will give us an 80% refund). Basically I just smiled and nodded at his comments. He also told me that I shouldn't let my clinic put me on lupron until 5-12 days after AF has started "because it's been shown that doing that gets the best results." Obviously given his success rate, it is clear that he is likely not up on the "latest" in the infertility world. They also told me that they would not do a height/weight/BP check because "we just don't do that for monitoring." Okay, fine. I told MBL that I didn't want to be weighed anyways. The whole appointment took 45 minutes...for just a blood draw and ultrasound!! Ridonk. Oh, and when I went to check out I found out MBL's insurance changed so that we now have a deductible to meet. I was preparing for a $25 copay instead I got a $192 bill!! GRAH.

Okay, on to the good part of this story. My clinic called me later that afternoon to let me know that I am indeed still in my luteal phase. I ovulated from my left side, my lining is nice and thick, and my progesterone is 5. She said there is no way to tell if my progesterone is going up or coming down. My guess? It's coming down. If that's the case, I will get my period by Monday. If not, I shouldn't expect it for another 6-9 days. Apparently I got a false positive LH surge and must have ovulated a lot later. Let's hope it was earlier last week due to some unprotected "relations" in the latter part of last week. The best part of the conversation was that everything stays the same! I just stay on lup.ron until AF arrives, then I will go in for my real baseline ultrasound and blood test and a day later I will start the stims. As long as AF gets here by August 24th, I still have a chance at having a due date in May. It may seem silly that I am stuck on a certain month for a DD after 20 months of TTC, but this year there were two painful to hear about pregnancies due in June, so I just kind of have a bad taste in my mouth. (and, yes, I realize that even a DD in May does not guarantee I will actually give birth in that month). I have felt so much better since that conversation. The nurse was SOOO nice and as long as she didn't say the word "cancelled", I'm happy. And, truthfully, I'm thinking it must have been the chemical pregnancy at the beginning of July that messed up this cycle...because even my longest cycle ended before now. Oh well! Murphy's Law it is!