I'm Afraid of Offending My Doctor by Asking for More Testing

Hey, if you caught my video on Monday, then you know that I was talking about, um, 5 tests that you need to make sure that you have done before your IVF procedure. So what if, what if you're afraid to speak to your doctor about those tests? It's really hard for some people to ask their doctor or question their doctor about anything. Let alone something that maybe they don't feel super confident or comfortable about. So that's what we're going to talk to today. No one wants to offend their doctor, and sometimes we don't speak up because of that, right? But there are ways that you can advocate for yourself, and there's ways that you can feel empowered, um, in your infertility journey to talk to your doctor and get answers and have a collaborative relationship, right? So I'm giving you permission right now. If this is you, I'm giving you permission. By the way, if this is you and you feel okay about it, go ahead and drop me a message below. But this is permission for you to stand up for yourself as a patient and advocate for your own best care. If you have a doctor who I don't let— I'm trying to— I'm struggling right now to think of the right word. But if you have a doctor that's really resistant to these kind of conversations, I would tell you to run, because these conversations that we're going to talk about today are normal and expected in the medical community. You should have a collaborative medical partnership. And honestly, like, it's your body. You know it better than anybody else in the whole world. So, um, they should expect you to have a say in it, right? Okay. So just to be clear, when you go and see your, um, reproductive endocrinologist, your fertility specialist, this is your opportunity to interview them, not the other way around. Sometimes people kind of get the idea that they have to be chosen or that they're going to possibly not get a spot at that clinic or whatever, but this is your opportunity to interview them, the first appointment, right? So we're gonna test the waters. This is tip number 1. We're gonna test the waters with some really benign questions that will give you a good read on whether or not that they're gonna be a good fit for you. So one of the questions is, about complementary, um, complementary therapies or complementary, uh, modalities in addition to IVF, some, or even IVF, IUI for that matter. So some clinics now are adding things like acupuncture and massage and those different kind of things to their lineup within the practice. So if that's important to you and they have those things there, that's clearly a good fit. But if they don't have them available right with the— I'm just gonna check my volume here. If they don't have them available right within the practice, how do they feel about you getting acupuncture? Are they dismissive of it, or is it something that they're like, Yeah, you know, we think that that's a good thing, then we think that's a good fit. Um, another question is that's just will give you a good indication of whether it's a good fit for you is whether or not, um, at what point they switch protocols. So they have a standard protocol, and at what point do they deviate from that protocol? If they say never, you might consider getting a second opinion, because if it's never then they don't care about your pers— a personal fit for you. They're gonna do what's in the box for them day after day, day in and day out, regardless of how your body's responding to it. That's what they're telling you. If they have no deviation or no plan to deviate from a protocol that's established within the practice, then that might not be a good fit for you. Okay, so remember when you're talking to them, if you forget everything else, remember this, and this is super easy for you to remember. Okay, so in addition to those first 2 questions that are kind of testing the water questions, remember your who, what, where, why, and how questions, and try to fill in questions associated with those 5 things, right? The who, what, when, where, and why. So who they are, what the theory of the practice is, why they do what they do, how they do it. If you can zero in on that, you'll probably get a pretty good sense of who you're dealing with as a doctor, right? So if you're nervous, just tell them, right? These are people that are going to be walking through the hardest journey of your life, and you want to see how they're going to respond to you. Are they going to respond to you in a compassionate way? Are they looking at their watch? Are they hurried? Are they dismissive of your questions? Are they irritated? Because if they're irritated when you're sitting there in your street clothes, how are you gonna feel when you're sitting on the table and you're like, whoa, wait a minute, I have a question and they're being dismissive or they're being short with you or abrupt or whatever. So those are things to definitely consider. So my last two points that you can ask them is, how will X, Y, and Z change my outcome? So how will doing X, Y, and Z change my outcome? Like, We know that the goal is pregnancy, but if they're asking to add an additional medication to the protocol, or if they're putting you on, you know, if you've been on Ovidrel and they want you to be on letrozole or something like that, how will that change the outcome? What is the goal in making this change in my, in my care? And are there other options? So are there other options to achieve the same desired outcome, right? So those are super easy questions to ask that can advocate for yourself. If you don't feel like you're being heard, or if you feel like you're being gaslighted— I'm not, I'm not sure if you're familiar with that term, but if it's kind of the conversations being turned back on you where you feel are made to feel small or unimportant, insignificant, or that your questions are stupid, um, you have the choice of boundaries for yourself, uh, whether it's in this relationship or any relationship, but especially in a situation where the doctor works for you and you are paying the doctor to do a job for you, right? You're paying for their services, and so you have the option of going someplace else. And I would encourage you to look around outside of your area because the bottom line is all this treatment is expensive. You have to be able to gel with the provider practitioner that you're working with. So if that means that you have to drive 45 minutes, an hour versus the clinic that's right up the road, you might consider that that is a better choice for you than dealing with the local clinic that is a bad fit for you and causes you anxiety and you don't feel heard and they're just kind of in the box, right? So we want you to take back your power. I want you to take back your power and not feel dismissed. I want you to feel connected and that this is a collaborative relationship. So I created a list um, based on this framework where it's 10 questions to ask at your first REI appointment. So it's going to make it really easy for you. You can print it out, you can have it on your phone. Um, but in case that you want that as a little bit of a safety net for yourself, I created that for you. I'm going to drop the link in the comments. And hey, I would love to hear your stories if you have an experience where you asked a question and you felt really heard, or you ask a question and you felt really dismissed. I would love to hear it in the comments. Go ahead and share that with me. I will see you next time, Monday, Wednesday, Friday at noon Eastern Standard Time. Health and blessings to you. Bye-bye.