Awk-ward...

Well, I am on a bit of a daily roll here. You can tell that either a) infertility is disrupting my daily life more than usual or b) I am a big fat procrastinator. Probably both.

So, today I received a call from Dr. Fabulous (still not liking the code name) and I have a protocol for prep before the e-tegrity test! I am on estrace several times a day gradually building up to when I take crinone 2x a day for about 8 days before the biopsy. And... how exciting... the estrace can be taken ORALLY!!! No disturbing blue pills up the yin-yang that have the oh-so-disturbing side effects when they inevitably reappear! No more trying to pop a tiny item into my lady cave! I am so psyched. I might have to do the last few days vaginally for just one of the three doses per day, but I also might not. I can hope.

The call came in the last 5 minutes of my lunch, and I took it since I didn't have kids yet. Of course, then I had kids coming into my room as we were finishing up and I felt HORRIBLY UNPROFESSIONAL as I was on my cell phone and students are entering. I apologized profusely and said a prayer to the APPR god that I wouldn't have a pop-in observation today to witness this highly unusual behavior on my part, and it was all good. I was done before passing time was up, but still. Man, I hate how infertility makes it impossible to do anything "normally."

Later in the day I checked my phone again and there was another message, this time from our previous fertility clinic. I may have not yet sent the letter I spoke about in my post about saying goodbye to the clinic. I am horrible at confrontational situations, even if it's not angry confrontational but just emotional or awkward. I knew I had to do it, but today ended up being the day. Because our previous RE left me a voicemail about how he has "new ideas" and has found a protocol for thin endometrial linings, which he thinks is our "rate-limiting factor." Not the sperm, not the obvious difficulty creating good-quality embryos and having implantation, but thin lining. Which has happened EXACTLY ONCE, and it was 7.2, which by most clinics' standards is on the low end of ACCEPTABLE. Not "ohmygod you can't make a lining to save your life," but within a normal range. Sigh. He just sounded so excited to have new information and wanted to email it to me, but didn't have my email address. Which is funny because we emailed back and forth all summer, so he had it at one time, but whatever. I felt awful and my stomach was churny, because I hate disappointing people. Even if it is TOTALLY THE RIGHT THING TO DO. I did not at all have second thoughts, but I just dreaded the conversation.

So I sent the email. See, we had sent a New Year's card in January to his home thanks to the stalking abilities of the internet, and it said "Thanks for everything you have done for us." I guess that wasn't sufficient. I know it wasn't sufficient, but I was still hoping I could just kind of slink away. So I sent the email. The email that says Thank you for everything you've done, but after 8 transfer cycles it's time to move on for our last try at this. We need to try a different center. We did all the second opinions and they all pretty much agreed on a similar course of action (or at least that my eggs are not the issue), and it's time to switch things up. It was full of gratitude and acknowledgement that whatever success we find will be in part due to them and we are so appreciative of the compassion and dedication. It was not angry or disappointed (even as I felt bad that he was so excited on the phone, I was still frustrated that the new information is not exactly relevant to my history or our true issue). I did not say who our new center is, although I am starting the transfer process to get those 2PNs to the new clinic. What's awkward is that while the center is new, our RE that we have chosen used to be at our old clinic. He was our doctor for a couple of cycles and so he is not exactly a new variable, just a well-respected and well-loved variable. He is amazing. And add to that a center that does vitrification and is fully capable of thawing and refreezing embryos and ONLY does Day 5 transfers and is willing and able to do pretty much 95% of what CCRM can do... it's kind of a no-brainer. But he did leave that other clinic. So that's kind of awkward.

But, it's sent. And while I was at it I sent one to the counselor who sends me support group emails all the time letting her know we're leaving and could she please take me off the list. That was actually very freeing. Once our materials are out of the clinic and everything is taken care of, it will be incredibly freeing and we will be 100% on our new track, hopefully on the road to success. I just can't get over the awkward feeling for today and I just feel a little guilty. It will pass, though. Somehow I have to figure out how to say goodbye to the nurses. They were just the best.

Who knew that breaking up with a clinic would be so heartwrenching? Maybe I should listen to The Cure on loop, drink some wine, eat some chocolate, watch a bad romantic comedy or a tear-jerking tragedy, and then I'll feel better tomorrow. Isn't that a breakup cure?