On being my own advocate

Last month, I expressed my frustration over the lack of guidance, (or lack of good judgment) of the nurse at the fertility doc's office. (You can see that post here if you're interested.) I stated that I have discovered that I need to insist (in a nice way) that I talk to the people I need to talk to and see the people I need to see.

Today was my test case.

I called Dr. N's office to ask for the results of my anticardio.lipin retest. They had Nurse nice-but-useless call me back. After going back and forth about the fact that the high risk doc ordered the blood test so I should call the high risk doc's office, oh yes, she did have the results after all.

This time the numbers she tols me sounded totally normal. Of course, when I said, "so that's normal, right?" she said, "I can't interpret the results for you." Previously, this would have been a conversation ender, with me meekly saying, okay, no problem, but this time with my "advocate" hat on, I said, "Dr. N told me that I should talk with him to review the results of the test."

Nurse nice-but-useless: He did?

Me: Yes. And by the way, I was supposed to get my period either yesterday or today and I've had no spotting, yada, yada, strange for me, yada, yada, three negative HPTs, yada, yada. Should I come in for a blood test?

Nurse nbu: (very nicely) If you haven't gotten your period by day 40, call us.

Me: Really? Well, the thing is that Dr. N wants me to start on the Progest.erone as soon as I find out I'm pregnant, and my last loss was at six weeks. (40 days would be like five and a half weeks...) So anyway, how does it work? Is it possible for him to call me?

Nurse nbu: (cheerily) Okay then, so I'll have him call you!

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Insert time lapse
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Dr. N. calls.

He starts to go over things we've already talked about and I kind of interrupt him to say that I really was calling about the test results. He confirms that they are totally normal. High risk doc had said that the levels can fluctuate, so (in my opinion) there's no way of knowing if the high numbers are right, or the normal ones. Anyway... He starts talking about the Clo.mid for next cycle. I interrupt him again and tell him that it might not be necessary. I tell him I'm planning on taking another HPT on Friday. He says to go in to the lab Friday morning to get blood drawn if I still haven't gotten my period. He'll put a rush on it.

Here's the kicker.

If the blood test is positive, he wants me to start taking the Progest.erone immediately. Nurse nbu was content to have me wait until I was teetering on the brink of when I had my last loss, and Dr. N. wants me to take Progest.erone a.s.a.p.

Last time I was content to think that I just need to be more assertive, and so I was. This time I'm thinking, how many other people out there are getting the wrong advice from her?

Why is this nurse allowed to give out ANY medical advice????

Quite honestly, I'm not that thrilled with Dr. N at this point either. If I get pregnant, I'm looking forward to the day when I get passed back to the "normal" OB from the specialist.