Review Appointment Wrap Up

Had my review appointment with my RE today. Well at least I thought it was supposed to be with my RE – Dr. B. When I got there promptly at 12:10 for my 12:30 appointment I was informed that I wasn’t meeting with Dr. B, I was meeting with new Dr. C. Hmph. I wasn’t too happy about that. I mean Dr. B is the guy who’s going to be doing my IVF/IUI he’s the person I want to talk to because I want to get his feeling on dealing with someone with high FSH.

Got into the appointment and ask Dr. C. what was going on. Turns out that although I’ve seen Dr. B each time I’ve been to the clinic it was just a coincidence. At my clinic no one is assigned a specific dr.; there are 3 doctors and 2 fellows that are dedicated to all of the clients… yada yada yada. The good thing was that Dr. C had read my file and was familiar with what was going on with me. I didn’t have to fill him in on everything that had gone on with me which was great.

We had a very frank discussion about my FSH, my odds of getting pregnant naturally (less than 5%), with IUI (8 to 10%) and with IVF (not much better than IUI). We discussed the vitamins that I’m taking as well as the Chinese herbs. Dr. C, while Chinese, is not a big fan of Chinese medicine; he told me not to take them anymore. I don’t know if that’s something I’m willing to do. I’ll have to give it a lot of thought.

ETA: He likened your eggs in your 20s to be white shiny glowing eggs, apparentlymy eggs now are brown and cracked with possibly some hidden gems.

I asked if my weight was a factor in my FSH – he said that it is, but only marginally. Obviously, pregnancy will be much easier at a lower weight, but my FSH will come down only slightly (maybe not even noticeably). Even if it means that I just put myself in a better place, I’m going to do it. Well, since the beginning of December I’m down 8.5lbs… just got to keep it going.

So what, I bet you’re wondering if you’re still reading, is the plan of attack. Well, I am going to go in on my next day 3 and get blood work and ultrasound done. They’ll check my FSH and resting follies and we’ll go from there. If it’s under 15 (the FSH that is) I will be on the road to my first IVF. This may be downgraded to an IUI if I don’t respond as desired.

Dr. C brought up the dreaded stress as a reason that FSH can be elevated… he stopped well short of telling me to relax (lucky for him). He also told me a story about a woman with an FSH of 40 who had been told by her clinic not to come back. She went on vacation and got pregnant. Yes, the Dr. basically told me to relax and maybe a vacation would work. I chose to ignore this line of thinking.

My husband on the other hand, gave this some thought. He decided he wants to help with my stress. He said that #1 on my list is probably our fights and the way he yells. He’s not abusive physically nor verbally, but he’s loud and expressive. I’m not. I retreat. I find it very difficult to deal with. So, he’s going to try and change that. Hallelujah! That is a big cause of my stress. He also said that when my benefits for acupuncture/naturopath run out that he’s going to help me out more. Yay!

Some really good things came out of this meeting today. The best part was when the Dr. told us that we should be positive, that we have a real chance of getting pregnant. I was so afraid that they were going to tell us to prepare for the worst.

I did get an abbreviated donor eggs talk though. But, it was when I brought up the question of what if the IUI/IVF this year works and we want to get pregnant later how long do I have from a fertility stand point. That’s when I got the donor egg talk. I still don’t know how I feel about that, but will cross that bridge if we come to it.

I know this is turning into a book, but I just want to share the sweetest offer H. made today. After we left the Dr.’s office H. asked me if I wanted him to freeze his sperm. I said I didn’t think it was necessary- there’s no reason to think that his sperm is going to deteriorate. Well, he then went on to say that if he froze his sperm and something happened to him, then I could still have a baby. His baby. I thought that was incredibly sweet.