We have a plan!

I had my follow up appointment with the FC today. It was at noon, H. met me at the office and he was on time for once. I was very appreciative! Dr. Handsome came out and got us then brought us back to his office. He didn't look like he had very good news to give us so I was quite nervous. H & I sat down in the big plush black leather chairs that he has in his office. They are so soft that you sink right into them. Anyway, Dr. Handsome informed me that I have low ovarian reserve, or in other words I'm running out of eggs. He said our chances of getting pregnant naturally are about 10%. H's SA, while stellar the last time, was ridiculously low from a volume stand point. He took his Sudafed an hour prior to giving his most recent sample and the volume went up from 0.5ml to a respectable 2.7ml. So, indeed it was his sphincter.

The long and short of it is this. I'm going to be taking DHEA, Co-enzyme Q10 and R-alpha-lipoic acid every day until we are ready to start our IUI. That's right no IVF for us at this point - which I'm more than fine with. The supplements are supposed to help strengthen my remaining eggs. Apparently there hasn't been a lot of research about it and there aren't any adverse side effects so we're going with the "it can't hurt" school of thought. Who knows, I may end up being a patient in a research paper.

When we're ready to start I call them on CD 1, then I go in for CD3 bloodwork and ultrasound, then I start Letrozole, on CD 7 I shoot up with Puregon for around a week, then they trigger, H. goes in to drop off his sample and I go in a few hours later for the turkey baster.

We have about a 25% chance of the IUI working. So, we'll likely have to go back for a couple of these. And, if I'm a really good responder to the drugs, it may be turned into an IVF cycle which would give us a 60% chance of getting preggers.

We are both completely on board with this. We know we want kids, we know we want to pursue every means possible... BUT... the cost is pretty large. H. is not working right now, and we're already in debt up to our eyeballs. We have to find a way to make it work.

The costs breakdown like this:

IUI - $300, if they have to do two IUI's on one cycle it's $500
Letrozole - $50
Puregon - approx $700
Supplements - $100

One IUI can cost up to $1350. Dr. Handsome said it would probably take 4 to get pregnant - $5400

An IVF cycle without the drugs costs $7000.

None of this is covered by insurance. We don't know where we're going to get the money from. I spoke with my Mom today and she offered to loan us the money. She's awesome! But, we want to do this ourselves.

H and I talked a little bit about what our plan is going to be. Dr. Handsome said that the DHEA doesn't really take effect until after it's been taken for 2 months. So, maybe we'll stretch that to 3 months and start then. It will give us some time to save money and get ourselves ready.

Who knows. I'm really just excited that we have a plan.