FET#1: Cancelled

Oh yes, that word that is heard far too often in the Land of IF: "Cancelled".

Our poor little 6-celled embryo did not survive the thaw.

When the clinic rang this morning, I could tell by the tone of her voice that it wasn't good news. Then she confirmed this by saying "I am afraid that I don't have good news". I knew that we had a 40% chance of cancellation, as we only had one embryo to defrost. So this was not entirely unexpected.

But then she surprised me. She said that I had to have a meeting with The Professor before we started our next fresh cycle. I told her that, no, we just had a meeting with The Professor, and we had agreed on a new protocol for the fresh cycle. She told me, no, my file said that I had to have another meeting first. I told her that wasn't necessary. She told me it was. Fine, I said, and asked her when the next appointment was available.

December 23
That's seven weeks from now. I have to wait seven weeks to have a 10 minute conversation in which The Professor tells us what we already know. Look, I enjoy talking with The Professor as he is quite knowledgeable and can answer some of our questions. But I am not willing to wait seven weeks for the privilege. Last time we had the appointment, he had already reviewed our chart and determined a protocol. Nothing that we said changed this protocol. It was a reassuring meeting, but hardly medically necessary.

I am thinking of sending the clinic an email like this:

On September 23 we met with [The Professor] to discuss our treatment options. He told us that there was a 40% chance that our upcoming FET cycle would be cancelled due to the embryo failing to survive the thaw. We discussed our treatment options for the next fresh cycle if the FET cycle was unsuccessful. [The Professor] recommended an injectable GnRH-agonist instead of nasal buserelin, and the use of recombinant Gonal-F instead of urine-derived Menopur.

Today we learned that our FET cycle was cancelled because the embryo did not survive the thaw. However, I was told that we were required to wait another seven weeks for another meeting with [The Professor] before we can begin our next fresh cycle.

I understand that [Fertility Clinic] is a large and busy practise that deals with hundreds of patients every month. [The Professor] works many hours as an academic, a researcher, and a clinician. We appreciate the fact that he is very willing to take the time to meet with all of his patients one-on-one, and we understand that he meets with a large number of patients.

However, we do not feel that this appointment is strictly necessary, and we would love to be able to begin another fresh cycle as soon as possible. Is there any way that we could commence the next cycle earlier without having this appointment first? Or if a consultation appointment is essential, could we meet with another doctor in the clinic if they have an earlier slot available? We are also open to consultations via email or telephone.

What do you think? Am I over-reacting to a seven week wait? And how do I tell them that I don't want to wait for a consultation appointment, but I do want to ask them to add estrogen and sildenafil to my next cycle?