Our journey continued as we are finally referred to another hospital for further investigation. First though, we have to make a choice of where we want to go out of 5 local hospitals that have a gynaecology department. "How do we choose?" "Is one better than the others?" We have absolutely nothing to go by! We look for support so we can make an informed choice, sadly no one can help or maybe doesn't want to say. We end up just choosing one, based on the fact that Andrea was born there and they were brilliant with my brother when he had a brain tumour. Good reasons I guess but not really based on what we needed or anyone's experience of infertility. Did we choose wisely, I will let you as the reader draw your own conclusions.
Our initial appointment with the gynaecologist went well. They were very helpful and explained to us the reason why we were struggling to start a family. "Finally an explanation that made sense" We have a reason, that's not uncommon, the solution therefore must be straightforward? Maybe that was me just being naive, ignorant or probably just wishful thinking! Anyway tablets were prescribed,appointments made, finally we were making progress. As we progressed there was one vital test which for some reason was proving very difficult to book. I remember taking one phone call from Andrea who was in tears as she was told that the hospital were unaware of her needing a test. I knew I needed to try and calm her down, as I was getting angry myself and that wasn't going to help us. "Why are people making this so difficult?, or we want to do is start a family, everyone around us seem to be able to do it easily, we need support and now we are having barriers thrown in front of us!" Right now it feels like 2 steps forward and 3 back. Eventually Andrea gets her appointment for the important test that is a huge part of the process. Unbelievably she pretty much had to stage a sit in and refuse to move until she got what was needed. Stress that we could both do without. That same day an appointment was made for 2 days after Christmas.
Fast forward to the date of the procedure. We always spend Christmas with family and this year was no different. We were 40 miles away from the chosen hospital so left early to make sure we made good time. If I wasn't previously aware of who makes the sacrifice, today made it totally clear. Andrea was taken to a room at the end of a very long corridor for the procedure, 5 minutes later I could hear her screaming in pain, "I wish I could've been with her, but I wasn't allowed" This was still pre-covid so this theme would be repeated throughout my story. When Andrea appeared she was glad it was all done, she was great and deserved more than the coffee and cake i got for us on the way home.
All of this happened in December 2018, we were happy with the progress, little did we know that this was the start of a very long journey.
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