Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…

Ok, no it’s not JAWS, but it’s another episode of “the hits just keep on coming”.

As you know by now, our FET in December was unsuccessful and we’ve got nothing left ‘on ice’, so it’s back to the drawing board.

I had a follow-up appointment with my RE on the 10th to discuss next steps and we basically decided to go forward with one more kick at the IVF can in my February cycle. No worries. She drew up a plan of action for the meds and everything (since she was going on mat leave starting on the 15th). Then she dropped the bombshell:

She and two of her colleagues were setting up on their own… starting 4 days after that appointment. Their new clinic was going to be less convenient (MUCH!), but I was told that they had 4 or 5 u/s techs so thing would move quicker. And there’s on-site parking. And at least the other two docs were the same two who would have been covering for her while she was on mat leave anyway, so I’d have been seeing them, regardless.

Well… not so fast.

I was chatting with another gal who was in the same boat as me… seeing one of the docs who’d left… and SHE was told by the new clinic that they have 3 u/s techs and 3 u/s rooms (so more techs, but less rooms), and that procedures would be done at yet another clinic (let’s call it LQ) which is back down where the original clinic is, essentially.

Hmm.

So I called the new clinic manager to see about having a tour of the new place. 6 hours later, my doc’s receptionist (yup… DragonLady) called me back. Odd. She said there’d be no problem setting up a tour… I could come in on Saturday… come after clinic hours for a more comprehensive tour because there wouldn’t be any patients to worry about. So we set up a tour for Saturday morning at about 11-ish. Or so I thought.

I showed up on Saturday morning at 10:45 for my tour… and let me just start the story by saying… thank gawd I didn’t have to pay for parking (it’s free on weekends). The new clinic is a lobby unit… glass wall on the lobby side. There are, perhaps, 15 chairs in the waiting area… which is shared with a medical imaging centre… who are the folks who’d actually be doing the u/s work. There was one receptionist there, who had no idea what I was talking about when I said I had set up a tour. I was there for about 5 minutes and in that time she took 2 phone calls. There are 3 docs at the new clinic, but only room for 2 receptionists at the clinic desk… so the 3rd sits at the medical imaging reception desk. From the ‘stand-and-point’ tour I got, the nurses’ station is essentially a wider hallway, and that’s where blood work is done. There are 3 blood techs, but procedures (IVF) would either be done at the old clinic or at LQ “depending”. Depending on what was not made clear. I asked about pricing, and I was told it should be ‘essentially the same… maybe $5 difference”... but again, it wasn’t clear if she was talking about the meds or the procedures.

So I thought I’d just stay with the old clinic (since I was already a patient, there shouldn’t be any delay in starting, and we want to get the next cycle rolling in Feb… otherwise we’re looking at waiting until June, and I’d really rather not put it off that long). Well… was chatting with my other friend again, and it seems the reason she decided to move to the new clinic in the end was because the doc she switched to at the old clinic (the same one I’d see) wanted to put her on a 3 month long ramp-up to IVF. I can’t afford that kind of time.

And… I don’t have time or privacy this week to either call or visit the clinic to talk to someone about the whole fiasco.

GAH!!!! I think I might cry.

Wish us luck.