A Pediatrician rant and getting back on the TTC horse...

Yesterday was one of THOSE days....and I ended up having to take a Xanex last night before bed because the pressure began to be too much to sleep off. Feel like a crumb for having to have taken it - I hadn't taken a Xanex in 2 weeks. I probably could have gone without it if I had really tried, but to be on the safe side and NOT feel worse, I took it.

Which leaves me the problem of how the hell am I going to be able to TTC in June/July (or TTC at all) if I still need to take Xanex here and there?

This sucks.

Anyways, on to the many reasons WHY of why I took the Xanex last night...

We had Chris' three-year check-up yesterday morning. Chris, being 98% daddy and 2% me, has a huge FEAR of the pediatrician (better yet, ANY PERSON involved in the medical profession: Nurses, lab techs, receptionists...anyone in scrubs!). Also being 98% daddy and 2% me, he KNOWS the pediatrician's building and starts crying the second he sees it from the car (light, a light away).

...Guess you can see where this is going, right?

Every trip is an adventure in anxiety and panic - for him and us.

MIL rode over with me because I wasn't sure if DH would make it (and we need 2 people in the room to calm him down and hold him down for vaccinations). After getting stuck in traffic, making us 10 minutes late for his appointment, we approached the intersection where the office building is. Chris was fine the entire time, throught the traffic - until he saw the building. Of course, the crying and breathing hard started from the back seat - mind you, this is not a temper tantrum, but a true fear of the office (which has since translated into fear of elevators and any building that may look like the pediatrician's building). We parked and got him out of the car - as we started to walk towards the building, Chris started crying harder and saying "No!!!" over and over again as he dragged his feet.

People must have been talking about us as they passed in their cars...

Poor thing - I feel like I am sentancing him to the electric chair every time we go there.

He cried all the way into the building, up the stairs, through the hallway and into the waiting room. After I signed in, Chris calmed down a little bit -- after I dragged out his toy school bus and some cars. Daddy then showed up - making us look like a fleet of worry-warts to the others in the waiting room. He was able to get Chris even more calmed down, to the point of laughing a bit.

...Then the nurse called his name, and the water-works began yet again.

We got in the room, and the nurse does the usual intake questions: Any concerns we have, vaccines he will be getting, height and weight. The nurse was very nice - and new! So, she actually attempted to calm him down - which she did long enough to get his height and weight done (40 inches tall and 47 lbs!! It's no wonder I can't lift him anymore!). After that was done, we waited for the doctor. Normally, we are asked if we have a preference of doctor: Dr. M (the older, male doctor Hubby had as a teenager) or Dr. A (younger female doctor). We usually like Dr. M because of experience and history of knowing the family. But, Dr. A was the only one there yesteday morning.

When the doctor (Dr. A) came in, Chris started up again. Immediately, she seemed annoyed. She started out explaining which vaccines he was getting and ask us what questions we had - MISTAKE #1. She should have gone over questions AFTER the actual exam so MIL could have shuttled Chris out the door. I went through my list: Potty training (not much info given so not much help there), speech (yet again, not much info give, and was told to wait about seeking an evan for another month or so) and allergies (just given a script for Clarinex - based on our story of allergies. WTF is that supposed to mean?). I pushed a little bit more on the speech issue - so, she gave me a phone number for a pediatric neurologist. More on that later.

After my questions were "answered," she did her exam - at which point Chris really started screaming and crying. Amidst the crying, she makes a comment "Does he always give you temper tantrums like this at home?" MISTAKE #2.

I told her he DOES NOT give us temper tantrums at all - that his is a FEAR of the doc's office! WTF? It is quite clear he is scared to death of coming here - wouldn't you if you were little and having to get shots?

After she was done with the exam, she was very rushed with us, trying to get to the next patient. We put Chris' shoes back on and as we were leaving, she made a comment that only my MIL heard and told me later on last night, "Now, that was over the top!" MISTAKE #3.

Over the top? My child is deathly afraid of you, and you think he is having a temper tantrum? How about you STOP explaining that this is his check-up and make an attempt at engaging him a little bit? If we had Dr. M in there, he would have been playing with the balloons my MIL was blowing up behind the doc's back to try to make him laugh. I guess we were just the circus in town trying to get Chris to calm down.

Someone told me once that smart kids cry when they go to the doctor - Chris better win a Nobel Prize when he gets older!

So, I called the pediatric neurologist - not waiting the month she suggested because Chris ends nursery school for the summer in June and I would like to see improvement vs. waiting for improvement in his speech in the fall when nursery school starts again - and the receptionist told me that I was calling the wrong place. If it was only speech we were concerned with, then we just needed speech pathology.

Sooooo, Hubby was calling Dr. M's office back this morning to talk directly to him about Chris' speech AND how we were treated yesterday. I know Chris is hard to handle with his fears - but at least make an attempt!

After the appointment was over, I drove Chris and my MIL home and left for work. When I got to work, it was downhill from there: Slammed with more travel reservations for a workshop we are running in South Africa in June (did I mention we have added Travel Agent to my job duties???), an ornery participant who didn't want to shell out the price for airfare and wanted us to make the reservations yet was not happy with the reservations he was getting, and trying to get other work done before my boss gets back tomorrow from his trip. Amongst that, Dr. D's office calls and says (in response to a message Hubby left for them last week about questions with TTC - isn't Hubby a dear for calling with his own concerns!) that he will not consider doing anything with TTC until I am done with Dr. S and the Thyroid appears to be under control.

Not what I needed yesterday.

Luckily, I am posting this today - I probably would have been waaaay more bitchy about Dr. D's call yesterday.

I was very disappointed with that call yesterday... It seems every time I MIGHT be getting closer to the horse, he bucks away. But, I am feeling more logical about it today - and am trying to really use my anxiety methods I have learned from Dr. P to NOT overblow the situation. I know that I cannot TTC until my TSH is below 2.0 - I have the retest around May 23rd (two months after starting Levoxyl). Dr. P answered all of my questions I had (and, yes, the 18 day cycle was probably triggered by the Levoxyl!) and is confident that my TSH will be down from the 3.3-ish it was in mid-March. So, once I get the b/w back, THEN I will know if I can put the saddle back on the horse and contact Dr. D.

Not necessarily a road-block - yet.

So, now I just need to decide the HOW I want to go about TTC again: Clomid or injectables. If you are on Fertility Friend, I posted a poll in the TTC over 12 months board:

What meds should I use in TTC again?

So far, 61% say I should move to injectables...which would mean the IF clinic at the hospital instead of Dr. D doing the cycle. I am still not sure what to do - trust that my body can figure itself out on Clomid now that 1) I weight a hell of a lot less than I did starting out TTC #2 in 7/05 and 2) the Hashi's is being treated and my body is already responding? Or, just push to the next level and ensure a GOOD ovulation from the start? Any ideas to help ease my mind? The cycle is totally up to me - I want to try to trust my body, yet I don't want to waste more time...