Rule Follower

September 1st was day one of menses. Which meant that I needed to call and schedule an appointment on September 14 and that on September 4th would be the first day of Femara. I called in for the followup appointment, on Monday the 4th, because they were not open on Friday, the 1st, when I started. It was also the same day I started Femara.

My side effects of Metformin were a little more severe this time. I was still sprinting to the bathroom every 10 seconds, but I was feeling nauseous along with it. If I had to choose one of the side effects over the other, I would have chosen the diarrhea, ten fold. I was required to eat with my meds, but how do you eat something if you feel like upchucking?! I'll even take this to the next level... How am I supposed to have sexy time with my husband?!?!?!?! I expected Femara to have the same side effects as Clomid. I was pretty spot on with my assumptions. I still had the hot flashes with Femara that I did with Clomid. There has to be someone out there that is smarter than me that can adjust these meds to make them not so... stupid (there I go with my kindergartener vocabulary again).

We made it through the month on the meds with all the rules followed to a "T". I made sure to buy the dreaded ovulation tests again. I kept them on the counter, like I did with the rounds of Clomid. Before I knew it, it was September 14th. Of course, Jeremy wasn't able to come to this appointment, either. One of the downfalls to Jeremy's job is that he can't just take any day off for any reason. It must be requested 3 months in advance. Go ahead and roll your eyes with me! So, I went to the appointment alone, again. This appointment was a little different than any of the other appointments I went to. I sat in the waiting room for an hour before I was called back. When I was walked back to my room, I had a nurse that was just hired 4 days prior. I always know that I'm going to be asked about my current meds at my appointments. This new nurse, lets call her Susie, opened up my file. I was able to see it from the table. She asked me if I was still taking all of the meds listed. One of them had D/C next to it. I had to inform her that D/C meant discontinued, so that she didn't have to ask me again the next time I came in. Oy Vey. She was in my room for quite a while. She had to take my blood pressure twice because she didn't get it right the first time. Then, she asked me if her second reading sounded right. She asked me if I wanted a flu shot. I told her I wanted one. After answering all 5 million questions, she left the room. I ended up sitting in that room, waiting for the ultrasound room for AN HOUR AND A HALFFFFFFFFFF. I was so irritated at this point. About 30 minutes into the wait, a different nurse came in to administer my flu shot. At least I felt like my time was being well spent. Want to know what I do when I'm stuck in a room waiting for forever? I go through all the drawers. Does anyone else do that? No? Just me? I ended up opening every drawer and cabinet door in that room. Can we all pause for a second and talk about the pads they offer you. It would be just as effective to give us an adult diaper, because they are so big and bulky! After I had dramatically sighed to myself a zillion times and the hour and a half passed, it was my turn to move to the ultrasound room.

I was able to see Dr. McFadden this time. The cyst/tumor was, in fact, the main follicle developing for that month. He turned the screen towards me, just like Dr. Thatcher did and showed me everything. He showed me a line in my uterus and said that it was exactly what he wanted it to see. He called it an endometrial stripe. This line represented that estrogen caused the lining to grow and thicken to prepare the uterus for pregnancy. He stated everything was looking perfect.

So, what now? He told me that he wanted me to give Femara 5 months to do its job. He wanted me to come back in February, if I wasn't pregnant. Since this was day 14 of the month, I still had 26 days until the first pregnancy test. All month I have felt anxious, but hopeful. We were back into the waiting game, again.