Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Hey IVF girls...

(please forgive my insane amount of posts. I am in a tad of a lull at work while I wait for some things to happen.)

I was reading over my protocol and can't believe the number of labs and u/s I have to get. Virtually everyday! The week before possible egg retrieval ~is~ everyday. In a 12 day period, I have 9 scheduled lab draws and ultrasounds.

Again, I am in the very lucky position to live next door (3 minutes away) from my clinic. I have early morning appointments, usually around 715-730a, so it won't disrupt my day at all. I’ll have to get up early, yeah, but I’ll still be able to get to work on time.

The only thing I see in my way as of work is bed rest after retrieval and transfer. Just a few requested vacation days can take care of that. Plus, I can even work from home – just have my laptop on the bed next to me and voila! Work.

How do those of you who live far away from your clinic do it? How far are you from your clinic? If you are far, like hours away, do you just take a week off and stay in a hotel near your clinic? Are there local clinics/offices that can take blood and ultrasounds and send the results to your RE everyday? How does this work if you aren’t in close range of your clinic?

7 comments:

KatieM said...

I can't wait to see people's answer on this because, as you know, if we do need to do IVF the nearest clinic is 2 hours away....However, I fully believe Dr.Wonderful would offer to do some monitoring here, but still.

Chastity said...

I'm about twenty minutes from my clinic. It has never been too inconvenient.

At my clinic, while they might schedule you for an appointment every day before your retrieval, you might not actually go in every day. It just depends on how you're stimulating...they might skip a day here and there.

Anonymous said...

I am so glad that this is all moving forward for you.

My FS is in the same town as me but my IVF company is not. I spend a lot of time on the phone organising appointments and speaking with the nurses.

I start my injections tonight, had a blood test last week and two more next week (can have these done anywhere - I go on the way to work).

I have my one and only scan at my FS office (doesn't seem enough after hearing about you) on Friday 22nd.

If all is well (please, please, please)I will have EPU on 25th and ET on 28th, this is done at a local day surgery. I have arranged to take the week off work - I would be useless there anyway.

Hopefully I will be able to take it easy at home.

Phew.... long comment. Good luck to you Nancy.

Rita said...

I was up at dawn to hoof it into the clinic and then there was traffic, parking and the wait in the waiting room. If you live very close, I think that's 1/2 the battle - the stress of commuting put the whole experience in a negative spin.
~Rita

Anonymous said...

Our re was "local" (30 min) so everything except the actual er and et are done there. We travelled about 2 hours for er and et.

Anonymous said...

Hi Nancy!

It's Kylie. :) We're doing IVF soon too. I'm on my 2nd week of BCP now and I start Lupron on the 19th. We're looking at the retreival around March 4-7th. I'm an hour and 15 minutes from my RE but since I work from home, and mostly in the evenings, it won't be too bad other than the constant driving. So what were the real cost of the meds?

Anonymous said...

I don't have it too bad. I am monitored by a satellite clinic that is 30 minutes away from home, but about 5 minutes from work. My blood draws and u/s are also usually at 7 or 7:30 am. I go in for those right before work-no disruptions in my day. The hospital where I have retrieval and transfer is an hour away without traffic. It has taken up to 2hrs 45 min to get there with traffic and accidents. But, we're not down there every day.