New hospital, new Dr., new plan

We have a new plan, and I kinda like it. =)

Our appointment yesterday, which turned into a FOUR hour appointment, was good, bad, and great.

I’ll start with the good. We have a new plan for this cycle. It will look very similar to some of our previous cycles. I’ll have a baseline ultrasound, then start taking Femara, start Follistim injections, have a follicle tracking ultrasound, have an IUI, and then start prometrium progesterone tablets the day after the IUI. I’m excited for this plan. I’m excited to get going on it and see how I respond to the new type of injections. Which leads to the bad…

The first bad part of our new adventure is that Matt informed me last night the he will be in Michigan for 3 days in November. And the way my luck goes, those 3 days fall during our “hopeful IUI” time frame. So after a heated discussion ( =) love you Matthew!) it looks like we will have to push back this cycle by a week. Which of course seems like nothing, but to me it’s just 7 more days of not being able to try, which kills me. We are now officially at our one year mark of trying, which stings a little bit just to even type.

Another bad/sad part of yesterday’s appointment was when we were talking about all of the medicines that I’ve taken in the past. I told him that we had done Repronex and had gotten pregnant with that. He seemed a bit shocked that I was given that injection to take because people with PCOS have very high levels of LH (luteinizing hormone) and the Repronex shot has both FSH (follicle-stimulating hormone) and LH hormones. Therefore having a shot that had more LH in it was not helping me, because I already have crazy high levels of that hormone in my body. So the new injections will be pure FSH and will not have any LH in them.

Another thing that came from yesterday’s appointment that I’m not too excited about is that Dr. Davis wants me to have a Hysterosalpingogram (HSG). This is a pretty common infertility procedure, but I thought I had escaped it. During an HSG dye is inserted into the uterus and then pushed down through your fallopian tubes while being x-rayed to see if the fallopian tubes are completely open, all while fully awake. Sounds exiting doesn’t it?! =) I’ve heard it’s incredibly painful so I’m not looking forward to it. Dr. Davis is concerned that when we miscarried it was because the fetus was actually stuck, and growing in the fallopian tube. So he wants the HSG done to make sure that everything is clear. He is a worried that when I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease and had a surgery to drain an abscess that that may have created scar tissue that eventually caused a blockage in my fallopian tubes. So I will get this procedure done in a few weeks. Luckily Dr. Davis said that we could do the HSG in the same cycle that we start our treatments, so that’s exciting. Another startling bit of information that we learned yesterday is that we are pretty darn close to In Vitro Fertilization. We didn’t really think that we were very close, but this is really our last step. We have 3 tries with what Dr. Davis talked to us about yesterday, and then our next step is IVF. A bit scary to think about.

Now for the great parts of yesterday… we absolutely love Dr. Davis! He is super kind, funny, and caring. In fact, he is so humorous and relaxed, that as he was leaving this conversation went down:

Dr. Davis: “Just so you know, we don’t schedule ultrasounds for Thanksgiving day, so if you happen to need one that day we will just push it back to Friday.” (He then proceeded to leave the room).

A few seconds later…

Dr. Davis pops his head back into our room.

Dr. Davis: “We DO however, use the turkey baster that day!” (for you non infertility people- that is what a lot of people call an IUI, because of the similar apparatus that is used).

Matt and I died laughing! I think that’s the moment that we completely felt at home.

He is SO knowledgeable and just overall was a perfect fit for Matt and me. He is very hopeful that we will be able to get pregnant with these new steps. He said I’m 12 years younger than the clinic’s average patient so my age will be a huge help, also the fact that my body has previously responded to injections, and we were able to get pregnant before, even though it was only for a short time, is a positive for us. We will be able to try these shots 3 times, with a “rest month” in between each cycle. So we really have 6 total months to try with Dr. Davis.

I’m a little nervous about all of the appointments, getting off work, and traveling to Iowa City for everything, but I truly feel that we are where we are supposed to be. Thank you again for all of the prayers, we SO appreciate it!