A stressful start to the cycle

Well we are officially stimming however our doctor nearly delayed the cycle another month. I started spotting earlier in the week and was supposed to ring the clinic on cycle day 1 (i.e. when my period started). Now anyone else who spots before their cycle would know that it's not always easy to tell when your first day is and so I called my clinic on Thursday when I thought my spotting was getting heavier. They instructed me to start clexane that night and start my Gonal-f and Menopur the next day. My husband was also supposed to start his antibiotic the Friday morning. This was all well and good until Friday when my spotting basically stopped altogether rather than getting heavier. I was checking every half hour or so to see if I had started bleeding and even tried running on the treadmill in an effort to get things moving- so to speak. It is so ridiculous to want your period to start when you're trying to conceive...it seems a cruel irony. Anyway I rang the clinic and was told the doctor would call me back. I waited very impatiently all afternoon and received a phone call finally around 6:30pm. Dr L was as quick as always on the phone and after telling him about my spotting he said quickly "well we'll just put you on the pill for 21 days and then start stimming afterwards". WTF! I was nearly in tears as I had specifically asked about BCP for this cycle as I've taken them for every other cycle and he said this cycle was different. I even reminded him about my spotting and he didn't seem phased. Aaaagh. It is so hard when doctors make decisions so quickly without understanding how crushing it is. The doctor explained that if they started stimming me when I was spotting then I may not recruit enough eggs. I asked if I could see if I started full flow in the next 24 hours and he agreed to this and the phone call was over. I was so upset afterwards and angry with my body for not doing what it was supposed to do. I was also angry that I wasn't put on the pill in the first place. Seriously for the money we pay for IVF you just wanted to feel like everything has been thought through properly. So anyway I went to bed that night hoping that my period would start and luckily around 11:45pm I woke to cramping and full flow. I was so stressed about whether the cycle would still go ahead that I didn't get back to sleep until close to 4am! It was a terrible night of tossing, turning and catastrophising that I woke exhausted around 7am when my cat considerately decided it was time for me to get her some breakfast. I paged the doctor around 8:30am and he rang me back about an hour later. I explained that I had definitely started full flow and he said matter-of-factly that I could start stims that night and to count it as cycle day 2. I was too happy to ask any more questions and he obviously wasn't up for a chat so that was that. So simple but so enormous. It's not that a delay of one month is a long time for a normal person but the emotional investment you make to prepare for a cycle in addition to all the scheduling changes you make means that the thought of moving that forward another few weeks feels like such a mammoth effort and disappointment. So all was well that we were going ahead until that night when I had to start all my stim meds. I was confident with the gonal-f as I had used it before but I thought the Menopur would in a similar pre-filled pen and got quite stressed when I opened the packed at saw a vial with a powder cake that obviously required some sort of mixing. I also noticed that the Omnitrope/SciTropin (human growth hormone) didn't have a dosage amount written on it and didn't say whether it was a sub-cutanous or intramuscular injection. Aaagh!! Luckily I was able to speak with the pharmacist who instructed me how to inject the HGH and even though she said she couldn't tell me the dosage initially I was sure that I had just enough for 8 injections out of the 2 vials (10mg each) and she eventually found some information that confirmed that it should be 2.5mg per injection. Phew! So after much reading, instructional DVD watching and nervous double-checking I injected my 112.5 units of gonal-f, 75 units of Menopur, 2.5mg of HGH and 40mg of clexane all sub-cutaneously in my abdomen. I know I should have looked over my med plan earlier but I was so focused on the spotting that I didn't take the extra time to see if I had all the information for my meds. So today I was feeling less stressed until I started reading about my Pregynl injections and realised I would be taking it alongside the progesterone in oil (PIO) injections I had requested as well as the crinone suppositories and I started to become concerned I had asked for too much progesterone not realising that the Pregynl injections also had a similar effect. I'm sure I've lost all readers by now with all the med talk so congrats if you're still with me ;) So now I'm waiting until after the long weekend and will contact the clinic again (I'm sure they'll be delighted) and query the need for the PIO, crinone and Pregnyl after egg collection. I would love to trust that it is all ok but the has seriously been so many times that I have identified an error with my cycle details that I feel the need to double-check everything. So now I'm going to try and relax as best as I can and enjoy what's left of the long weekend :)