One Step Closer to "Petri"

So this morning, Matt & I continued our journey towards becoming parents and the creation of "Petri" (Petri is the name we have coined our kid/embryo/mass of cells we hope to have implanted in the fall -- I have used the term so much that my pastor/boss is even calling "it" that and has sworn he will slip during his/her baby dedication and call him Petri for life!)

Anyways, this a.m. was the "Hysteroscopy" - basically where they pump you full of water and stick a camera where no camera belongs to look at your uterus and cervix and all that fun stuff to make sure you have a happy little place to plant Petri in. They also check out to make sure you don't have anything weirdo growing in there, like fibroids or polyps, etc.

It's as much fun as it sounds, folks.

Meaning not much fun at all.

They have to put you completely under (well, thank God for that b/c I sure want to be in "lala land" when cameras and water are involved in that area for sure) - but the whole thing only takes about 20-30 minutes, so by 11:00am we were thankfully heading home. (Heading home, minus one large polyp that was blocking my "sweet spot" and had to be cut out & one drained cyst - a little more action than I was expecting honestly -- I'll find out more details on Thurs but bottom-line from the doc was everything else looked great and hospitable and was all the right shape and even "pretty" - for a uterus. I think they send the polyp to pathology just in case, but it's highly improbable that it was anything more than extra endometrial tissue that had built up - who knew?!)

I really really really try not to complain about all this stuff we have to do to prepare for this invitro - I do realize how lucky & blessed we are to be able to consider this so I don't want to be ungrateful and whiny about the process. But.....that being said - I have 2, I believe, very complaint-worthy things:

1. I HATE when doctors and nurses become so accustomed to doing routine procedures that they just assume that everyone reacts the same as them & think it's no big deal. I love my doctor, but really, I was about to pop him one when he told me for the fourth time this morning, "Look, Meagan - this isn't a huge deal - it will be over before you know it & you'll be fine" Ok, so I appreciate his attempt to comfort but seriously. My daily activities don't generally include a camera waterboarding in my uterus. So don't tell me that it isn't a huge deal.

2. I had the worst, and I mean the worst, pre-surgical/intake nurse EVER!!!!! She had called yesterday to go over the procedure with me and I swear I had to prompt her on the questions for her to ask. Here's a brief rundown of our phone convo yesterday:

Eleanor: (in creeky old-woman voice): Is this Meagan?

Me: Yes, it is. Can I help you?

Ellie: Yes, I was calling to remind you of your procedure tomorrow at 9am.

Me: Umm, did you say 9am? It was supposed to be 8am so I could be the first one (yes, I'm a brat and I wanted the first appt)

Ellie: Well, we, you know, ummmmm, well we decided to change it. Ok, so 9am.

**Then I swear the woman was about to hang up like she was confirming my haircut and highlight with Miss Becky or something!!!

Me: Uh, don't you want to tell me a little bit about the pre-surgical instructions, that kind of thing?

Ellie: Oh yeah, don't eat or drink after midnight.

Silence.

Me: Is that it?

Ellie: Yes, pretty much.

Me: Well, would you care to know if I am allergic to any medicines or foods? Or what medications I take daily? Or if I have been sick in the last 2 weeks? Or if I have any physical restrictions?

(Ok, seriously - this isn't my first rodeo. I have been through this crap more times than I can count & I'm allergic to so many meds that I make Matt carry a medical bracelet with him with my allergies listed, just in case.)

Ellie: (stammering) well, yes, actually we would like to know all of that....

So anyways, we painfully make it through the rest of the conversation with me prompting and spelling medicines and respelling and respelling and respelling until I am sure Ellie has got it.

Matt calls after I get off the phone with her and I let loose on him about the obvious flunky receptionist they had call me for my pre-op stuff. Cause there's no way that lady was a nurse.

Fast forward 7:50am, Tuesday morning.

I barely have made it through the door and handed over my drivers license and insurance card to the receptionist when this woman with an eerily familiar screechy voice bangs through the waiting room (very very nice waiting room by the way - they must make lots and lots of babies). And she's looking for me. And she's in scrubs. With a stethoscope.

UH OH.

So she barely gives me enough time to get my cards back in my wallet before she is literally dragging me back to the pre-op area, throwing forms at me the whole way and gets impatient that I actually want to read them. Ummm, excuse me, but if there is a chance that something goes wrong and I have to have a hysterectomy or something, I want to make sure that I have crossed all my t's and dotted all my i's.
Call me crazy.

She just keeps trying to get me to initial boxes and sign here- all the while shoving a themometer down my throat, while simultaneously taking my blood pressure.

I'm all about efficiency but this was ridiculous. She kept saying I could finish the forms later (when the heck is later?? When I am drugged out of my mind??) but that I needed to get changed so she could start the IV. She basically shoved me in the bathroom, no joke. and then she couldn't understand why my blood pressure was so high so she kept tightening and re-tightening the cuff until my arm was bright purple and every vein was standing out and I had the resemblance of a body builder's arm that has shot up the 'roids one too many times.

So after shooting death looks at Matt (do something, say something for crying out loud!) - she tries to get the iv started. Tries being the operative word. Look, I have great veins. Perfect for IVs. Trust me, I know.

Ellie couldn't get it until the 3rd attempt.

Matt made some comment about last time he got his blood drawn he could barely feel it.

I then of course had to shoot Matt another death look - because we all know that those baby needles they take just a little blood from is NOTHING compared to the monster that is an IV needle.

So none of this is leading to anything fantastic and the whole time I am just praying that she never steps foot in any of the operating rooms. Or worse yet, never steps anywhere close to where they will be harvesting my eggs and future children.

So Ellie starts asking me my history and hands me a bracelet to snap on. Which of course is missing "Ceclor". A major antibiotic that I am HIGHLY allergic to. So I point it out. And she has the gaul to tell me, "You're not allergic to that. You didn't tell me that yesterday." The heck I didn't. I can recite my allergies frontward/backward/sideways/standing on my head.

So we actually argue back and forth about me being allergic to it and she concedes and adds it to my bracelet. Then I notice that she is has misspelled another antibiotic on my bracelet, Biaxin. She has spelled it "Vioxin". Now, I don't know what that is but I know what Biaxin is and I know what Biaxin does to me. It's not pretty. I don't care to recreate the experience anytime soon.

So again, I have to point that out. And she accused ME of not telling her how to spell it, even though I repeated it at least 4 times yesterday, even using "B" as in BOY.

I wasn't saying "VOY". C'mon, Ellie!!!

So while the Ellster is in the midst of changing/modifying and hopefully fixing the rest of the mistakes on my charts, she casually says something about the antibiotics that are currently dripping into my IV. (I had stupidly assumed it was saline which is what they usually start with)

Heart.

Stop.

If Ellie didn't "remember" that I was allergic to Ceclor and didn't spell Biaxin correctly, what the heck is going into my arm?????

I start freaking out - I'm like, "what is the drug going into me right now? What is the name of it? Tell me. Tell me right now"

Ellie couldn't answer the question.

She literally couldn't remember.

She had to look through the trash to find the remnant of the package.

Are you freaking serious????

I thought Matt was going to jump out of his chair - finally the boy had a visceral reaction (for those of you who don't know, I have the least confrontational husband on the entire planet).

After a major freak-out moment, they finally got it straightened out and brought the "head nurse" in to verify the meds and that I wasn't allergic to it.

It obviously freaked the Ellster out too b/c she grabbed my bag full of clothes, shoveled the rest of her paperwork in her arms and hi-tailed it out of my room.

At least it kept me distracted for the next 20 minutes while I waited for my "la la" land drugs b/c all I could do was say over and over again "If she even gets next to me, talks to me, comes close to my uterus/cervix/ovaries/eggs, I will go postal".

Needless to say, I have a very important phone call to make tomorrow morning to the head of nursing at the Houston Fertility Institute. Poor Ellster needs to start peering at the "want ads", I'm afraid.

In all fairness, the rest of the nurses, anesthiologist (sp?), my doctors and the rest of the staff could not have been more professional and wonderful. The facilities are top-notch and state-of-the-art. I would not even consider them if I didn't truly believe they were the best in Houston, with the best labs, research, results and people. These are my future offspring we are talking about.

I'm just trying to figure out how the Ellster slipped past them.