Paging Dr “Duh”!

This evening I had an appointment with the “fertility specialist” at my GP surgery. You’ll see the reason for the quote marks around fertility specialist as the post goes on…

You may remember that after we lost Squishy in July I was told “come back in three months and I will prescribe clomid”. At the three month mark, the doctor was helpfully out of the country and no one else at the surgery can prescribe clomid, so I waited. As soon as he returned on December 1st, I booked an appointment. That appointment was today.

I had a few questions I wanted to ask and that I did get answers to, but we’ll go there later. Let’s start with the next riveting instalment of “The Clomid Chronicles”.

As you can probably guess, I was excited to finally get my hands in clomid, having seen lots of success with it amongst my buddies online. The Dr asked me “have you had bloods to see if you’re ovulating?” I said “not since 2012…” Bearing in mind this Dr is the only one I have seen about fertility. If he wanted bloods, he should have ordered them. So, he printed out a form and asked me “do you know about cycle day twenty one bloods?” I said “yeah. Bloods at seven days post ovulation to test progesterone” and he shook his head. “No. Bloods on cycle day twenty one to test for ovulation”. I told him I don’t normally ovulate until after that and he told me it absolutely MUST be cycle day twenty one, “fertility specialist” indeed.

I’ve decided with regards to the bloods I am going to totally disregard his advice. I looked up the guidelines and found the following.

Arrange serum mid-luteal progesterone for 2 cycles (ask the woman to document the date when the next menstrual period following the blood test starts, so that the test result can be interpreted properly).
Mid-luteal progesterone is performed 7 days prior to the next menstrual period. Therefore, for a woman having regular 28 day cycles it is done on D21. But for a woman having regular 21 days cycle it is done on D14 and for 35 days cycle it is done on D28.

http://www.gp-training.net/protocol/gynaecology/infertility/ncumbria.htm

I also intend to pick up a copy of the NHS guidelines from the fertility clinic at the hospital that I work at. We all know that cycle day 21 bloods are really seven days post ovulation bloods, designed to measure the peak in progesterone at seven days post ovulation. Consequently, I will be having the bloods as close to 7dpo as I can manage.

Last time I saw this Doctor, he told me that next time I get a positive pregnancy test, he wants me on progesterone, so I asked today if it was possible to get the script printed so that I could take it to the pharmacy as required. He said no. To his credit, he did out it on my file exactly what I needed and the dosage so that all I will need to do is call and it can be printed as soon as I get a BFP. Hopefully it works out as easy as that…

I also asked him about baby asprin, having heard that sometimes it can help with keeping babies snug once a positive pregnancy test is achieved. He told me not to take it, but if I have another loss they will test me for clotting disorders and then see about things like baby asprin. I’m happy to follow that advice as I have no reason to believe that I have a clotting disorder.

So, basically the appoint,net was a bit of a waste of time and I didn’t get my clomid. I’m going to get the bloods done on Wednesday, which will be 6dpo. I won’t be able to get them done on 7dpo as it’s Christmas Day, but I will go as close as possible.

So, there’s my rage for the night, I’m considering getting referred to the hospital where I can have appointments with fertility drs, not general practitioners who have an interest in fertility. Hopefully I won’t need to as this month will be our month…