Step One

I'm not sure I even know where to start right now. It's been a very rough couple of weeks. The trip to New York was so stressful and took ages to recover from. Then, over Mother's Day I got sick, which passed to Bug (his first time really being sick, and it made us all miserable), which then passed onto Boy, who was sick for ages. Nobody was getting enough sleep and we were trying to take care of each other - it was a horrible week. I felt like I was never going to get my energy back and be in a decent mood again.
Finally, I began to regain some balance (it really is amazing what just weeding a patch of land can do),

what happens when you do yard work barefoot

and I had to begin to prepare for my appointment with Dr. O - the OB/GYN my family doctor had given me a referral to. When? Oh, back in January. Yes, he had a four month waiting list. So maybe I should have been prepared earlier, but really, I just prefer not to deal with stressful things until I have to. Plus, there have been so many other things going on, that I just felt like I couldn't deal with this yet.
So, at the end of last week, I sat down and wrote out my whole story, and I mean the whole thing. From the beginning of always having very crappy periods, to my first miscarriage, my endometriosis diagnosis, my healthy pregnancy, my easy periods after pregnancy, my next four losses, my trial with progesterone cream, my ovulation pain, and finally, my increasingly worse periods, again. I marked down all the important dates, listed specific questions I wanted to know about any test we might do, tried to gather info on what tests might be good to start with or might have not have heard of yet, and did my best to not be anxious about the meeting. It was just to talk after all.
Bah. So how many of you are thinking, "Well, that was a waste of your time?" Cause you'd be right. Any of you who aren't thinking that, can I have your doctor, please? I really wanted a chance just to tell my whole story, because I know it's all connected. I wanted a doctor who I knew was really listening to me and taking into consideration all I have experienced and learned. I'm not entirely sure such a doctor exists.
It went sort of how I actually expected it to. He asked a handful of questions - how many times have I been pregnant, how far along were the miscarriages, when did they happen, and oh - did I have any proof? Because apparently, if I don't have medical records to back up my statements, they might not actually be valid. My four pregnancies that are based only on HPTs might have been false positives. (What?! Am I just that clueless? Cause really I thought it was incredibly difficult to get a false positive. Like, you had to be intentionally adding certain hormones to your body...?) He was calm and professional throughout and not quite as horrible as he sounds, but it's not possible to nicely say, "Your babies, whom you deeply grieved, might have been imaginary." He then tried to explain that it was possible that despite my monthly ovulation pain and bleeding every twenty-eight days, that I might not be ovulating and having regular cycles. So, he wants to monitor my cycle for a month (or three to six) - do blood work and ultrasounds through my cycle to see what my ovaries and hormones are doing. Hopefully, one month will tell him what I already know, cause there is no way I'm waiting several months to even talk testing. Especially since he tells us that having five miscarriages would put me in a "high risk" group that would likely need to do chromosome testing - something that takes three to four months to get the results. Ugh. I knew this was going to be hard, but this is even more than I was expecting.
Somewhere in there, his words made me begin to wonder if he was going to have me try to get pregnant so that he could see what happens. I'm really hoping that was just my perception, because I really can't handle that. I can't do this again without a plan, without an idea of why my babies are not staying alive. Even if he doesn't think I've had five miscarriages, my heart knows, and it can't handle another attempt without hope for a different outcome.
Before we left the office, we sent up contact info and blood work dates with his administrator. She was happy to inform me that doing the ultrasounds would let me know the best time for "trying." Um, honey, I know when to try. Trying isn't the problem. Getting pregnant isn't the problem, staying pregnant is. "We won't be trying these months."
"How come?"
"From my perspective (notice that I, at least vocally, give allowance that they could be right), I've had five miscarriages, and I just can't do that right now."
"You might not have."
Slam, bam, thank you mam. I think I'll just go home and cry now.

(Giant SIGH) At home, totally drained, I try to work some of this out, sharing it with a few who care about me. Out of their love and caring, three separate people let me know I need to find a new doctor PRONTO. I get this. I would likely give the same advice to anyone in this experience, who also had a different medical system. I don't feel like I have many options. In order to see a new doctor, I would have to go back to my family doctor and get another referral, which would most likely take another three to six month wait for an actual appointment, and no guarantee that they wouldn't say the same things. While writing this post, I actually looked up fertility clinics in Ontario (the closest of which is about an hour and a half away). I would still need a doctors referral, but they say they try to see clients within two weeks of that, which would be great, but - their initial task is to do a month or more of... monitoring! So I wouldn't be in a much different position. Plus, their site makes it sound like all blood work, ultrasounds and other procedures have to be done in their clinic, requiring several trips a month to the city (with a three year old - or at least almost three!). So, I'm sticking with this and hoping I'm not making the wrong decision. I do feel a little bit better knowing that the top docs will do the same monitoring. I feel less disregarded knowing that.
I have been praying about this, and will continue to do so, trying to trust that God leads our path even now. Hoping that he will make sure we are with the right doctor and will receive the right tests and treatments. God, give me wisdom to make the right decisions, to take care of myself and my health, and grant me trust in your provision.