It's no surprise but I did NOT get pregnant from my crazy last minute trip to San Francisco. It was worth a try to be able to save money on IVF. Oh well, IVF here we come.

Speaking of IVF, I was about to begin when they found yet ANOTHER cyst. The doctor put me on birth control pills for 10 days since they normally go away on their own. At the same time, my acupuncturist put me back on heavy duty doses of her "magic" chinese herbs and restricted my diet considerably (no sweets, no dairy - yikes!). I did as I was told, and dutifully took all my meds and herbs for 10 days, went in for 2 acupuncture sessions, drank only green tea, and cooked all my own (healthy) meals.

Guess what? My body decided to say "EFF YOU" to me, the acupuncture, the herbs and birth control pills. Not only did it continue to grow my cyst, but it went ahead and created a new one as well.

Long story short, my doctor is going to surgically aspirate the cysts in a couple of days, at which time I will begin the IVF cycle.

I was so bummed when I found this out this morning that I started crying at my doctor's office. I'm not worried about the procedure - it is minor -- but it is going to cost me an additional $2000. I am moving heaven and earth to try to make this happen but at the same time my debt is mounting up and my body just won't give me a freaking break.

Speaking of money, I went to this company that my doctor told me to call, called MedLoan Finance, for a loan. Their website is pretty darned vague about how the process works, what their fees are etc., so I called them for clarification and they were like "It's easy! you fill out an application and we make a decision within 24 hours, then you have 60 days to accept." LIES. I filled out the application, and the next day found out that I had been tentatively approved for 2 credit cards, which were being sent to me in the mail, and that I owed them a ton of money for providing me this "service". What a scam. I looked at the fine print on the signature page of my application, and it does say (among a litany of other things) that I authorize them to send my information to credit card companies - but it doesn't say that anywhere on their website and they didn't mention it to me on the phone. They started calling me every day to collect their fee and I told them I wasn't ready to accept...but they said the cards had already been mailed to me. Wow, that is so shady. I mean, if I knew they were going to just apply for credit cards, I COULD HAVE DONE THAT MYSELF FOR NO FEE!!!! I really thought they were a legitimate loan company who finances loans for people who have medical bills. When I spoke to the credit card companies, they had all my info wrong and had never even heard of this other company.

By the way, they went ahead and took the fee without me authorizing it!!! I feel like I have been majorly scammed and I plan to let my doctor's office know about it!

This whole process is just fraught with pitfalls at every step. And now the fun really begins.

All I want is a little bambino or bambina to love and raise and take care of. Why does it have to be so hard???

Huh

OK, I SWORE that I was not going to become one of these people who become obsessed with her medical stats and speaks in sentences like "During my ttc I was hoping for a BFP but when AF arrived my HPT was BFN". Like, HUH?! What the hell.

But I unfortunately know way too much about all these acronyms now.

As I mentioned in my last post, my pregnancy test was negative (BFN in fertility speak). So today I went in for my baseline bloodwork and ultrasound in order to start the process over again. But a strange thing resulted:

My ultrasound showed found 5 cysts. And my estrogen level is off the charts high (it is over 1400, normal is less than 60!). This is highly unusual.

First my dr. said that there was a possibility I could actually be pregnant. That would be amazing! What a great story to tell -- "2 negative pregnancy tests plus I had my period, but it turns out I was pregnant the whole time!". I immediately went to the nearest drugstore and took a pregnancy test (HPT in fertility speak) and the result was (as I should have predicted) negative. So that's 3 negative pregnancy tests, plus an active period (AF, for Aunt Flow, which is an expression I despise) = no way am I pregnant.

So what do these 5 follicles/cysts mean? It's unclear. Either (a) I have 5 follicles that are just about ready for insemination or (b) they are left over cysts from the last cycle and I will have to take birth control pills for a month (bc - yuck, these acronyms are making me sick) in order to get them to disappear, then try again the following month. Obviously I hope it's the first option. But it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I asked the dr. and his nurse but the answer was unclear. All I got out of it was that it could have something to do with the clomid I took last month.

So, hm. Not sure what any of this means. And does my doctor remember that he had me on super high doses of estrogen up until a few days ago? That could explain the estrogen surge. And google isn't helping much!

So now I have to start taking daily ovulation predictor kit tests (OPKs - ack!) to see if I am ready to ovulate. I dunno what to think. It could be a really good thing, or it could be a really bad thing. Dr. doesn't know what's going on. I don't know what's going on. Nobody knows squat.

Nothing like medical experts to clarify everything for you!