Natural cycle: continued

When I got the results from monitoring last Monday, things were going slower than anticipated. That continued to be true all week. Day 18 was Friday and I was called back for monitoring. It was swamped. There was only half the staff because of the holiday weekend but just as many people in the waiting room. The doctor who did the ultrasound measured the lead follicle at 17 and said "We'll likely see you tomorrow" but wanted to wait for labs to come back to make sure.

Coming in on a Saturday is tricky for me. Some people avoid it all together but I'll use whatever religious loopholes are available in order to keep the cycle on track and still keep Halacha. Just because I choose not to drive on Saturday doesn't mean I can't arrange for someone else to drive me. Because they were so swamped on Friday, I expected to wait longer to hear results, but after noon passed I was starting to get nervous. If I need to make arrangements then I need to know soon, especially since a lot of people were out of town and my default go-to person wasn't available. At 1 pm I called the nurse's line and left a message. At 2 pm I paged the nurse on call. All the while worrying about the what-ifs and different scenarios.

Worst case scenario, I do need to come in this Saturday and I don't have a ride in place. Best case they would tell me to come back Sunday for more monitoring. All the while keeping in mind that whatever happens this weekend, 6-7 days later is next weekend where not only do we again have a Saturday issue, but we also have plans to be OUT OF TOWN. Never did I imagine that the cycle would be this long or I would never have made plans to fly somewhere else.

Finally at 2:30 someone returned my calls. They were waiting for my doctor to weigh in because even though she was out for the holiday she still wanted to be informed on everything and decide the next step (isn't that amazing?). My doctor made the call that based on my blood work results, I should take the ovidrel on Friday and come in 7 days later, the following Friday, for the uterine biopsy. It took me by surprise because I thought the lead follicle needed to be at 20 for something to happen but I guess it didn't. Luckily I had ovidrel from my Aug IVF cycle that was still in my fridge. I took it at 3 pm and made sure to note the time in case it becomes relevant in the FET cycle.

So one stress averted - don't have to go in on either Saturday. The next stress is scheduling the actual biopsy. I was advised by the nurse to call the scheduler on Monday to make sure to get on the schedule for Friday. I've been calling all morning and left two messages so far and no one is responding. I'm assuming they're catching up from the weekend, but c'mon. You're a medical office and someone should be picking up the phone. I'll keep calling but it's frustrating. We're trying to see if they'll take us early enough that we can still make the getaway over the weekend. It's a slim chance but I don't want to cancel before I know for sure.

I know they likely won't have appointments before 9 am because of monitoring. The flight is less than 2 hrs but it's a short Friday. With unpredictable delays and getting through an unknown airport, even without checked luggage, I don't want to risk getting too close to Shabbat. I'm comfortable flying before noon, but there are no flights before 1:30 pm on the airline we're already booked on and switching to another airline will cost about $720 for one way. While I'm fairly certain we're canceling the trip I'm having a hard time doing that and letting everyone know before booking the actual appointment.