Preparing to "Graduate"

Friday will be my third obstetric ultrasound, and my final appointment with the fertility clinic, before we "graduate" and are released back to Dr. B, my regular obstetrician (and a perinatologist to be named later - more on that in a moment).

I received my medication weaning instructions in the mail today, along with some records to give to Dr B, and some "how to be pregnant" information, and a form to report back to the fertility clinic when Peeper is born!

They are listing my due date, officially, as November 25. I've been saying the 26th, so I guess I'm a day further along than I thought! :-)

This is funny, though - it's referred to on the form as "estimated date of confinement."

Confinement?

Who am I, Queen-fucking-Victoria?

It is rather odd to read about "confinement" and "IVF with known donor" on the same piece of paper.

So here's the medication plan:

I keep doing the Del Estrogen shots every 3 days through May 18. (May 17 actually, as 5/18 is an "off" day.)

I will keep doing the nightly progesterone in oil shots through May 4 (19 more shots!) then switch to prometrium vaginal suppositories 3x daily for one week (thru 5/11) and then 2x daily for another week (thru 5/18).

To summarize:
Final Progesterone shot: 5/4
Final Estrogen shot: 5/17
Final Prometrium: 5/18

At that point, I'll be 12w4d (or 12w5d?) which will actually be a few days into my 2nd trimester.

Woo Hoo!

Now, about the perinatologist . . . .

At my last appointment with Dr E, she said that "because it's a PGD baby" (not sure what's up with that; I need to ask) and because of my age (well, Shrike's age) - and, also there's my history of kidney issues and the gastric bypass - that I should be followed by a perinatologist (high-risk obstetrician) as well as Dr B, although Dr B will handle the bulk of my care, and will deliver Peeper, assuming all is going well.

She said that there's one in OldWorkTown, "right down the road," where they lik to refer patients.

I suspect that it may be the one who is literally next door (in the same building) to the OldWorkTown Learning Center.

But, she suggested that I give Dr B's office a call and ask who she refers to locally, so that I don't have to keep driving down there for appointments.

So, I called last Friday afternoon to find out about that, and to make an appointment with her.

I left a message for the nurse, explaining the whole situation, and telling her what I needed.

When she called back, she said that "Dr B wants to see you around week 10 or 11." (We made an apppointment for May 8 - 11w1d.)

When I asked about the perinatologist, she said, "Oh, you can talk to her about that at your appointment; he won't want to see you until about week 20."

What the fuck?!?

I said, "Well, Dr E told me that I should see the perinatologist during weeks 11 - 13, for the nuchal translucency ultrasound. Or is that something that Dr B will do herself?"

"You'll have to talk to her about that at the appointment, too, because I don't know if she'll want to get into all that."

What the fuck, some more?!?

Don't they recommend that for all pregnancies now? Especially if you're forty fucking years old?

I thought about calling back and asking them to have Dr B call me herself, but I'm just going to wait and discuss it with Dr E on Friday, and see what she has to say about it all.

I certainly don't want to wait until I'm past 11 weeks, when I've only got two more weeks in which to do the NT, to even start trying to make an appointment for with the perinatologist. That's nuts.

So, on Friday we'll take another peek at Peeper, and we'll discuss the perinatologist issue, and then we'll hug everyone goodbye and move on to the next phase.

That's very exciting, of course, but it's also going to be a little sad to leave the fertility clinic.

We've really liked (almost) everybody that we've worked with there, and we're going to miss them.