“Just Do What My Wife and I Did For Our THREE Kids”

Yep. That has to be one of my all-time favourite, solicited, advice. Yes- it was solicited. That there beauty of a sentence came from our publicly funded Gyno.

Awesome-sauce huh?

That very moment was when I realized there was no way in hell we were keeping him as our “ForeverGyno”. (What? You don’t have a FG? Missing out).

In case you’re just popping by- I’m Canadian and in Canada you may have heard that our healthcare is “free”. I put the word “free” in quotations cuz beyond the tax part (which I wholeheartedly support! Communism or bust!) there are LOTS of parts of healthcare that aren’t free. Like lots of cancer treatments and… infertility treatments. Anyhoo, that’s a whole other kettle of fish (ahem, blog post).

So yeah. Prior to going to the (in)fertility clinic we got to go through a bunch of FREE medical steps, including going to see the (in)fertility gyno at our local hospital. Which, generally I have only amazing things to say about the hospital and staff. But this guy… who is supposedly a fertility “expert” and who also works in the (in)fertility clinic, was flabbergastingly awful.

Sitch 1: 1st visit with Mr Gyno (henceforth known as “Dr FertileMyrtle” or DrFM). DrFM waltzes in the room, casually glances at our charts, cuts off all our sentences and proclaims that obvs the reason we’re not preggers is because I was taking a tincture recommended by my crazy doctor (sorry “Naturopath”) to help us GET pregnant. His advice- go off it immediately. Oh- and can you book yourself in for a scary Fallopian tube flushing appointment, bloodwork and semen analysis? Thanks.

Sitch 2: Went through very awful tube flushing procedure with minimal tears and panic attacks (thanks to half an Atavan), bloodwork and semen analysis (hilarious event btw) complete.

DrFM waltzes in, and asks why Hubby isn’t there…
Me: “Oh… he couldn’t get off work”
DrFM: “Oh he DEFINITELY wants to see these results. I mean, his sperm are really doing great.”
Me: “Oh?” awkward laugh “Well that’s good news, I’ll tell him… about my (scary awful fallopian tube procedure) and bloodwork…?”
DrFM: “Oh yeah” glances dismissively at the report “Yeah they were fine. So, you should take a picture of these sperm count numbers and text it to him”
Me: “Ummm, really? Uh, OK” takes picture, texts to husband. Feels pretty weird.
DrFM: “Ok, so everything looks fine, except you might have endometriosis.”
Me: “Uhhh. Really? But I don’t have any symptoms…”
DrFM: “Here’s a pamphlet on the procedure to determine whether you have endometriosis. Endo-me-tri-osis. It’s a disorder. Here, I’ll write it down so you can google it.” scribbles on the back of the pamphlet.
Me: “Yes I know what it is. I just don’t think I have that. I don’t have any symptoms.”
DrFM: “Well other than infertility. Just consider it. You know what you both should do? You should just do what my wife and I did for our three kids- around the time of your ovulation just have sex every day. Worked great for my wife and I.”
Me: “…..”
DrFM(L): “Anyway, just think about that (exploratory surgery for a disease for which I have no symptoms) and I’ll see you in three months.”
Walks out.

Sitch 3: Attended appointment WITH husband this time.

DrFM(L) waltzes in. Is obviously happy to see Husband.

DrFM(L): “So… still not pregnant eh?”
Us: Uncomfortable smiles “Nope” (Why the eff else would we be here d-bag??)
DrFM(L): “And you have sex every day while ovulating?”
Us: More uncomfortable by the minute “Yes”
DrFM(L): “Well. Huh… Ok then, here are the next steps available to you” Scribbles on a piece of paper while naming: “Keep trying naturally, exploratory endometriosis procedure, expensive fancy semen analysis, fertility drugs, IVF”
draws a line after “exploratory endometriosis procedure”
DrFM(L): “THIS is where provincial health stops covering, the rest is private and expensive.”
Me: “Yes, I discussed the (scary, for no reason) endometriosis procedure with my family doctor and I really don’t…”
DrFML: cuts me off “Well this procedure IS a common step in treating infertility, but of course it’s YOUR decision”
Us: firmly “We decided not right now”
DrFML: “Right. So here is some information about the (in)fertility clinic, you’re looking at about 10,000$ ball park. I work there so I could definitely put a rush on any semen analysis you want to get done…” continues to babble about inconsequential things while he walks us out the door.

Needless to say, we took a pass on his offer to follow us at the (in)fertility clinic. Thank fuck.

Back At ‘Er

So…. yeah. That was a bit of a gap eh?

Oops. Sorry dudes.

The past 8 months have been sorta a “head in the sand”, “idontwannaidontwanna” approach to planfully (that is a word, I say it is!) in the notsoplanful sense attack this whole conceiving thing.

Everything was getting overwhelming. So. We stopped everything except a few more Gyno appointments. Which were awful since the guy was a huge douche bag. No really. I plan on telling a few of those stories in posts to come.

And then, after a holiday season filled with stupid amounts of alcohol (because who’re we kidding, I was saying a huge fuck you to the preggers plan), we came out on the other side of 2015 with the agreement that we’d restart this whole ordeal.

Oh it’s not to say we weren’t TRYING these past months. We were. It’s just I stopped taking the Vitex, vitamins, seed smoothie regimen my Naturopath had put me on AND gave up on the temperature taking (it was just stressing me the fuck out with absofreakinglutely NO pattern whatsoever), stopped seeing the Naturopath altogether.

The only thing I kinda took sorta regularly: Folic Acid. Cuz no spina bifida for me.

The last week of December we made our appointment with the fertility clinic. An admission of failure. (at least, that’s what it felt like).

Had our appointment this morning.

3% chance of conceiving each month. 3-effing-percent. What.The.Fuck.

I barely heard the rest- which was basically a bunch of stuff about IVF. And needles. Drugs, injection classes, blood work and oh yeah- more needles. And “Good news, since we have no freakin’ clue WHY you’re not conceiving, you are GOOD candidates for IVF!”

All I am hearing right now is the massive procreation fail.

Oh and the 16,000$ price tag. This news a week after husband was laid off. Amazeballs.