Bag o' sperm

I told hubby what was going on with the clinic when he got home last night. He was much more understanding than I ever expected. Yes he thinks the clinic is made up of a bunch of fools. But at least he didn't say it in a way that implied a lack of confidence in my decision making abilities. In fact he sat down with me and went over the paper work with me, we got on the Internet and looked at the clinic's numbers compared to other clinics, and we had a good discussion on the ethics of infertility treatments. The situation with him was quite positive and relationship building.

I showed up at the fertility clinic this morning with a bag o' sperm even though I had no appointment to do so. The information from the phone call at 4:11 pm yesterday and the information provided by the paper work was just too confusing. Of course there were no orders for test for the sperm. I put the front desk in quite the tail spin. They said I had to wait for the IVF nurse and orders before they could accept the sperm. She (let's call her Nurse Competency in Question) was the same one that I spoke with on the phone yesterday and wouldn't be in until 8:30. So I asked to speak with the Practice Manager while I waited.

Finally practice manager Grandma Betty appeared and took me back to a conference room. Grandma Betty is retiring tomorrow, so I had lots of hope that my comments and concerns were not falling on deaf ears. YEAH RIGHT! But she was all I had, so I started to spill my story. IVF Nurse Competency in Question showed up in the middle of the conversation and we had quite the round table discussion. I showed them the paperwork that said 20% was considered positive for the ASAB test. Nurse CIQ (Competency in Question is just too long a name to keep typing over and over) made a comment along the lines of "I didn't know you were reading paperwork" to which I replied "what am I supposed to do with paperwork, if not read it?" She back peddled on where ever she was going with that. Apparently, bottom line, a ASAB positive of 10% is the cut off for a female and the 20% referred to in the paperwork is the cutoff for a ASAB positive for a male. Though no where in the paper work did it differentiate between male and female. Grandma Betty and Nurse CIQ both took my paperwork and declared it unclear and needed to be changed and that they could see where my confusion was coming from.

Nurse CIQ made very clear that 10% was the cut off for the female and that we were not just strongly encouraged but required to use ICSI. They both tried to talk me into freezing the sperm. Grandma Betty was quoting me a price of $250-$375 for that. But when I took out pen and paper and asked her to repeat the quote so I could write it down, Nurse CIQ stepped in and said that the cost was actually around $620. Grrrr. Elected to not freeze the sperm. Grandma Betty also made some kinda of comment along the lines of "your 14% ASAB is probably what is keeping you from getting pregnant." I agreed and added that also probably my two blocked Fallopian tubes also had something to do with it, too. She back off those patronizing comments after that.

I made very clear that the stupid mistakes that they were making were causing me to lose confidence in the clinic's abilities. I made very clear and practically begged them to make sure it was vi sable and obvious to everyone that opened our file that hubby was on the road with work and that scheduling is more than difficult for us. I made very clear that we were doing the IVF in June and could everyone please stop acting so surprised that we are actually showing up and moving ahead with that plan. All and all I think it was a very productive meeting. My hope is that it has cleared the way for better and more open communication for the future. Fingers crossed.