A comedy of errors

Oh! So, I talked to my IF about the blog a little, and he gave me permission to use his "real" info. His name is Jason, and he lives in New York City. A far cry and way more exciting than where we're from.... :)

All right, back to the story. My screening appt was set for 10am. I got out of the house a few minutes late, and was kind of rushing to get there. I had to wait a month for that appointment, and I didn't want to look bad by being late! I rushed into the office, and signed in right at 10. Whew! Even though there were only two of us in the waiting room, there were a lot of people breezing in and out of there. Busy office, but not surprising as it's the only fertility clinic in town.

I was hoping for a relatively quick, smooth appointment. Here's what I got:

Error #1: the clinic lost my orders. They tried (several times) to convince me that Jason's clinic had never even sent orders over. BS, as they wouldn't even schedule my appointment- a month ago!- without orders. By the time the order thing was figured out, 3/4 of my hour long appointment were gone. I was terrified that they were going to tell me we would have to reschedule. Thank goodness they didn't....

Error #2: the doctor proceeded to do an intake history on me. Even though Jason's clinic had already done one. And I had relayed that info to the nurse at the clinic....

Error #3: the doc couldn't seem to find the right catheter to deliver the dye into my uterus for the x-ray shots she needed.... It all kept leaking back out. Leading to...

Error #4: they ran out of dye they "prefer". Completely. In the whole clinic. I proceeded to hang out on the table, equipment all in place, while the doc and the MA scurried around trying to find out if the replacement dye they had in the cabinet was safe for intra-uterine use. At one point, the doc "apologized" by telling me that, "Well since we didn't have your orders, we had no idea we would be doing this today"...

Error #5: when I was positioned up on the table, it moved out of place a little bit. So, the xray camera wasn't lined up correctly. They were going to bring in some other people to help move the table back into the correct position with me still on it. I pointed out that it might just be easier for me to move myself. so, I ended up shimmying around the table until I made it into the correct position. Again, equipment all in place. Ladies, if you've had a pap, you know to which equipment I'm referring.....

Now, the x-ray test she was doing was the hysterosalpingoscope the clinic needed. Let's talk about that for a second. That ridiculously long word basically means "an xray shot of the inside of your uterus and fallopian tubes to make sure nothing is blocked". They accomplish this by injecting (I think about) 30 to 60cc of water-based dye into the uterus and taking the pics. The fluid expels from the uterus into the abdominal cavity, and is reabsorbed. Now, the doc warned me that there might be some cramping when she injected the dye. Nope, none at all. However, once the pics were taken and the dye was making its way into my abdominal cavity, well that was a different story. It cramped like mad!!! And I was already having a shitty time at the clinic, so the cramping annoyed me. The MA did give me a Motrin.... but still.

Error #6: My blood work. While the orders were getting straightened out, the nurse noticed the extremely looooong list of blood tests I needed. She said, "you're planning on having these drawn at the hospital, right?". I almost came unglued. I tried to explain to her slowly, and very calmly that no. When I talked with the scheduling gal, the plan was for the mock transfer, the HSG, and the lab work all to be done at THIS appointment. That way all the results would come from the same place at the same time. So by the time I actually had my blood drawn (7 vials later)I was ready to get the hell out of that place and never go back!!!

The one hour appointment ended up taking two. And now I lament that they are the only fertility clinic in town. If they could mess up that much in one visit......