Grasping At Straws

Ugh, what a day, in the baby-plans department.

This morning, I popped over to Dr. B's office to sign the release for them to fax my records to the RE. Uh, no. Not so much with the faxing of the records anymore.

But, I'm welcome to pick them up. In seven to ten days.

You know, right about the time that I'm ovulating.

I calmly explained as much. Ahem.

So, they agreed to have them ready by 2 pm Friday for Shrike to pick up. Whew.

Then, to the vets office, where we found out that MamaCat has dropped a couple of pounds in the past eighteen months and is actually a teeny bit below her ideal weight. BoyCat has stayed the same, and is still fat.

GirlCat, alas, has gained another two or three pounds, and is now rockin' the big 2-5.

Much discussion of kitty diets, and how we're just going to have to suck it up and feed them separately. Ugh.

Then, off to work - but first, a stop at the RE's office.

Well, first a stop at the RE's former office, to find out that they've moved, then to her actual office. Which turns out to be on the way to work, not just past work. Even better.

I told my sad story to the girl there, and gave her a copy of my lab work from last month, as well as a couple of forms that I'd downloaded from their website.

The doctor was busy at the moment, but she said she'd check with her and give me a call back.

Yeah, no dice. She's happy to see me on Monday for an initial consultation, to work toward inseminating in July, but she's not willing to take me on mid-cycle.

So, to summarize:

If I ovulate on Day 14, as I've done for most of the past six months, Dr. B will be in town and can inseminate me.

If I ovulate on Day 18 or later, as I did last month, she'll be around to do it.

If I ovulate on Day 15, 16 or 17, she'll be away and I'm SOL.

So, here's our thought at the moment.

If Dr. B can't inseminate me, we're thinking of giving it a try (not IUI) at home.

That's actually something we'd discussed in the past, but thought it best to go straight to the IUI, given my age. But, if that's not a possibility, we might as well try it the other way.

Tomorrow, I'll try to find out whether Dr. B's office is allowed to let the sperm come and go (so to speak) from their possession, so we wouldn't have to commit to which route we're going.

Also, whether we could have it delivered to our house, and whether we could do an at-home vaginal (not IUI) insemination using sperm that's been washed for IUI (my research says yes) or whether Dr. B's office could wash the sample right before we need it, if we ordered it unwashed, then ended up able to do an IUI.

Further complicating matters is the fact that different donors have IUI (washed) and ICI (not washed) samples available.

For IUI, as I've mentioned before, BowTie and NewGuy are "maybes" and Popeye is a "yes." For ICI, NewGuy is the only yes, plus Doc is a "maybe."

For some reason that I cannot possibly explain, I'm suddenly not so okay with NewGuy. There's no logic to it, it's just a gut reaction. When I saw that he was the only "yes" for the ICI, I just really started feeling like I don't want to use him.

What the hell???

So, I'm hoping that we can either use the IUI (and preferably actually do an IUI with it) or we can get Doc for the ICI.

But it may still turn out that we can't do anything this month at all.

In which case: AAARRRGGGHHH!!!