Drugs Ordered but I Have Embryologist Issues

I start my injectibles on the 20th which, according to my calendar, is coming up fast. But just today I decided to get off of my ass, which is still clad in pajamas at this late hour of the day, and order my meds from The Apothecary Shoppe in Arizona. I have to acknowledge the pajamas-at-nearly-5:00PM-thing though: J is home sick with a bad chest cold and we hung out on the couch all day drinking tea and watching movies. It's been lovely but now that he's moved on to channel surfing I think that is my calling to get dressed and head out to Ikea to return *stuff*. But, wasn't that a huge digression.....?

So I am not entirely certain why I waited until the last moment to order everything. Part of my procrastination is just my normal routine with unpleasantries: put everything off until a crisis is near to impending. Or maybe it's partly because I wasn't 100% sure if we were going to go through with this cycle or not. Or, on the other hand, it could also be that I'm feeling less panicked than my last cycle where I slipped into control freak mentality over every aspect of my cycle. On some level I realize that there is a chance that my stress levels might indeed be lower this time only because I know the routine. I know how many needle sticks this will entail, how many dildo cam violations I must endure, and that I will be freaking out on lupron in 10 days time. There is definitely some bit of comfort in knowing all of these things that are to come...and pass.

One part of this that feels worse this time is the increased fear of the cycle not working. In my last cycle I was more optimistic, but just a bit. I think Julianna made mention of this in a post, that every woman thinks she'll get pregnant the first time. I wasn't one of them...I wasn't overly optimistic, but I was actually a bit scared that it wouldn't work. My friends all told me to "just believe" and it will happen. The trouble is that I couldn't get myself to believe that. I knew the odds going into that first cycle. And they weren't on my side.

I still can't quite get myself to "just believe" that a cycle will or will not work. Why can't I simply visualize this? I realize that each cycle is essentially a statistically independent mathematical event. Like flipping a coin, this cycle does not depend on the success or failure of the previous cycle. My angst about this cycle not working is a bit more panicked (or is that realism I speak of?) because of this. Nothing that is humanly changeable has been changed. My protocol is the same: microdose flare protocol. My meds are the same (450iu FSH/day). So nothing on the science front has changed. This isn't to say that things haven't changed. It's Spring and the weather is warming and I'm happier by far when I'm warm and cozy. Dr. Z's office will be slower now than he was in January (his busiest month). And there is one other thing, on the downside, however: I am 3 months older. My eggs are that much older, too. One more step towards oblivion.

My rose colored glasses about the infallibility of Dr. Z's office is a bit less pink today. I worry quite a bit, too much (?), about his young embryologist and her credentials. Just how long has she been there? Does she blast huge holes in my embryos with her laser when she does AH? Is she diligent about putting my embies back into their incubators as soon as possible? Or does she sit there gagging while they assume room temperature? There are a few main players in my treatment: Dr. Z, the embryologist, and me. I trust that I'll do the best I can to do my part: eat healthy, try to destress, take my vitamins and drugs on time. I can even trust Dr. Z to remove my eggs and put the embies back in. But my major concern is with the embryologist. I really honestly feel that her role is the most crucial, and she is the one I feel the queasiest about. Part of this is because I don't really know her ("The Devil you know is better than the Devil you don't know"). I am going to address this at my baseline U/S next week and see if I can get a moment to meet her and gauge what my intuition tells me. I have spent many years working on a lab bench and I hope that my gut instinct is still good about these sorts of things.