The Stresses of Infertility

First off, I kind of want to apologize for my last post on infertility. Obviously I was a little emotional when I wrote it – otherwise I would have never accused people of “not understanding”. Lots of people have expressed sympathy and kindness. Thank you.

Also, I can’t believe how many people have contacted me about their infertility issues or the infertility of family members since I last posted about infertility. And, really, if you have a sister or a cousin or a close friend with infertility, you really are almost as heart broken as they are. And it is much, much more common than one might realize.

Anyway, today I’m going to talk about how stressful infertility can be. This weekend was one of the most stressful EVER!

Why can’t life just be easy?  Why must there always be another challenge?  It doesn’t seem fair. I mean, I get past one problem just to run into another one. Why?!?!

Can you tell that I am frustrated? But I should probably start with some back ground information.  I am seeing the doctors at the Idaho Center for Reproductive Medicine in Boise, but because of the distance and time involved in getting to Boise I have my appointments here in Twin Falls. The technicians here e-mail the test results etc. to Boise and then we consult over the phone. Supposedly it is “easier”. Also, the very, very expensive medication that I have been taking is “time-sensitive”. I’ll explain as I go along.

On Friday I had an appointment in Twin Falls at 12:30.  When I called Boise at 3:30 to consult with them I ended up in a several hour game of phone tag full of miscommunications and anxiety.

• I called the Boise clinic and they prescribed more medicine,
• then I had to call a pharmacy on the east coast to ask them to overnight it and they said that they would once the doctor sent in the prescription,
• then the clinic in Boise called me to confirm that they had sent in my prescription and to remind me to double-check with the pharmacy,
• and then I had to call the pharmacy back to make sure they received it but then they told me that it was too late to be overnighted and I wouldn’t get it until at least Monday (even though it had only been about 20 minutes between conversations the e-mail from my doctor had arrived just after the deadline for overnight shipping – I was sooo mad!),
• and then I had to call my nurse in Boise back and she was super annoyed at the pharmacy. I was out of luck and out of medications which basically meant that the last few weeks of pills, self-injections, and hundreds of dollars were wasted because I can’t go three days without medications.  It just won’t work and we would have to try again next month. (This is where I became really emotional).

Luckily the nurse in Boise found an emergency supply of medication, but the catch was that I had to drive up and get it.  Their office is only open from 8:00 a.m to 10:00 a.m. on Saturdays. So instead of sleeping in Saturday morning (I know, I’m such a whiner) I got up at six-thirty, met my wonderful mom at a gas station in Twin Falls, and we made the two hour drive together. 

Once we got there everything was fine. I picked up the prescription, we went and did some shopping at Tai Pan Trading, went to the Olive Garden for lunch, had a fun drive home  and we were home by 5:00.  The day wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t what I wanted to spend my weekend doing.  All of my other plans went out the window because I had to have that medication and I had to have it immediately.

The stressing isn’t over.  I am supposed to have another appointment in Twin Falls on Monday, but the Boise clinic didn’t tell me that until the Twin Falls office was already closed.  I am hoping that I can call in early tomorrow morning and squeeze in somewhere. If I can’t, well, then it is possible that all of the stress, money, and emergency drive were still all a waste of time. If I do manage to somehow get pregnant this month it will be a complete miracle because as far as I can tell the universe is conspiring against me. 

But writing out my frustrations makes me feel better.  It makes me step out of my problems and look at them more objectively. I am feeling a little bit better already.