A typical clinic visit.. well, typical for China!

So, CD8 and I need to pop to the clinic for an ultrasound scan... I leave it until the afternoon because all the IVF girls are there in the morning for bloods and injections so it's always busy. Hoping I can be in and out in 45 mins or so.

2pm: I go up to the clinic on the 17th floor, register then check in with the nurses. I wait to see the Dr... quite a short wait and I'm in within 30 minutes :)  And surprise, there's a follicle at 18mm already!  IUI scheduled for tomorrow.  Now the trek begins...

Get my HCG trigger shot, estrogen and progesterone prescriptions from the Dr, go down to the 2nd floor to queue and pay at the cashier.

Then have to go home to get our passports and marriage certificate because each cycle we have to 'write the file', which seems to involve a nurse sat at a special desk filling in the same forms as last time, taking more photocopies of our passports and having us sign. My bloke will have to sign tomorrow which they don't like, but they've got used to me saying that he can't get off work for the sake of 10 minutes watching someone complete a form on his behalf. Luckily I live nearby so I'm back by..

3.45pm: Back to the 2nd floor to pick up Estrogen prescription. Then back up to the 17th floor to write the file and have the HCG trigger shot... except there's a problem. I get sent back to the Dr who tells me the nurse has noticed some of my tests are over 1 year old and now out of date. I start to panic - are they going to cancel the cycle?  No problem.. I just need to have the tests now. Except it's coming to the end of the hospital's working day and I'm starting to panic again...

So back into the stirrups for a Pap smear.. The Dr gives me the long cotton bud and a slide which presumably has my cells on it. Now down to the 2nd floor again to pay, then up to the 6th floor to hand in the samples (yes, I am wandering round the hospital with a cotton bud and a glass slide looking confused and struggling to find the 3 different counters I need!). 

Now you need to know that the lifts don't stop at all floors.. so, whereas you can go from the 2nd to 17th floor, you can't get from the 6th to the 17th. I take the stairs from 2 to 6... then 6 to 11 before I admit defeat and wait for a lift to take me the last 6 floors.

I'm sweating and out of breath by the time I reach the 17th floor again. I strip off layers so I can have blood taken, which then takes a while to stop bleeding, maybe because my heart is still pumping full speed?! The nurse gives me the HSG shot in my bum and I'm done.. phew!

Home by 4.45pm... not too bad.

Will be back again at 9.30am tomorrow to start all over again.