Clearing the path?

When we talked about doing the hair analysis and changing clinics, we expected the clinic to have a really long waiting list. I expected to have to wait at least eight weeks for our first appointment, and was amazed when we were actually seen within three weeks of sending them our forms. Then I expected to have to wait for treatment, and was surprised that we would be able to start our monitoring cycle straight away and then go into a treatment cycle as soon as my FSH was right.

That means that when I started the ball rolling with XXXX clinic, I expected to be finishing the four month supplement programme from the hair analysis people before we went any further with our IVF treatment. I also expected that our treatment would be in the summer, which is a relatively quiet period for me at work.

I was a little bit thrown by the suggestion that the timing of our treatment should be determined solely by the result of a blood test. Mr Greek God specifically said that if we got a result below 10, we should go for it regardless of what else we had planned in life, and that work and other things would just have to fit in around it.

He pointed out that it might be our only chance, and that if that was the case, we would always regret having thrown away that one chance to put work first. He also pointed out that because the clinic is so close to where I work (about ten minutes' stroll, or five minutes' speed-walking), I could have my blood tests and scans first thing in the morning and it needn't affect work too much.

That means that if all went well with my monitoring cycle and the hysteroscopy and my FSH level was OK, I could be starting treatment around Easter time. That, in turn, would mean that if things go as quickly as they did on my last two treatment cycles, egg collection could be in the week commencing 12 April. And I had been booked to speak at an external conference during that week. Flyers had already been printed, I was being paid a freelance speaker's fee for it, and there was no way I could back out at the last minute.

So you can imagine how thrilled I was on Friday to receive a very apologetic e-mail from the conference organisers telling me that the conference had been cancelled. And since that was the only thing really standing in the way of an April treatment cycle, could this be another message from the universe...?