I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, I'm hoping that next Christmas we have a 2 month old baby or two in our arms!! Here's an update from our appointment on the 19th...
My DH's numbers weren't quite what I thought after Dr. Jacob walked us through everything. The appointment was an hour and a half of planning, answering questions, and learning a lot! The count was good, but motility low, and post-thaw (they did a sample post-thaw to test it) was only 20% motility. The volume is also low so they want some more to add in. Dr is still optimistic, but wanted us to know that IVF may be in our future, but why not try IUI once or twice... great.
Also, my FSH was higher than a 28 year old's should be, more along the 38 year-old mark so he said time is not on our side and to prepare for failing first while we're figuring it out. My hope is that he is preparing us for the worst, but hoping for the best. He ordered prescriptions for January through some mail order company. I should start AF on the 3rd. I may have to go out of town on O-day though so I need to work that out before we start in case we have to postpone...again...till February.
Here's what her ordered...
Day 3-7: 100mg Clomid (5 pills)
Day 7: U/S, estradiol labs, and zithromax pill
Day 8-14: Antibiotics 2x/day (14 pills)
Day 10: U/S, estradiol and progesterone labs
Day 12: (Approx) Ovidrel & Vivelle Patch (every 3 days)
Day 13: (Approx) Prometrium 200mg every 8 hours
Day 14: (Approx) IUI
Day 28: (Approx) Beta #1
Day 30: (Approx) Beta #2
For someone who hasn't had many vaccinations and doesn't take medication for anything... this is a big deal, but will be sooo worth it! Anyone have an opinion about this regimen? We asked about the risk of multiples and both nearly panicked over the answer. He said that there is a risk- like John and Kate. He explained that in the last U/S it could look like 6 eggs and be 6 eggs, or 2 eggs and 4 cysts, or all cysts. If there are more than 4 potential eggs he will tell me to make a decision and ask me to promise to do selective reduction if we get pregnant with more than 3. It's my call if I want to stop an IUI cycle or take the risk, he can only encourage me to do selective reduction, but can't force me to. He said he'll tell me the risks, but it's my gamble to make.
My husband and I could not and will not do selective reduction so we will have to be very brave in the face of our dreams being in the balance. Ugh, not a feeling I want to be faced with!!! How are all of you dealing with this emotional/spiritual/hormonal conflict? I like my Dr a lot, his staff is incredible, they are warm and caring and flexible and my Dr. is award winning, but I don't think he's a Christian and I KNOW he's not a counselor. I like that he gives us the choice, tells us the risks, and walks us through the process, but I almost wish so much wasn't in our hands. We're just going to have to trust God, fully. Ahhhh!!
We had that very same discussion with my RE at the start of our last cycle, when I started taking injections after my pills. My RE was up front about the risk, but he prefaced it by saying that he had to have this talk with us. Because it is a potential consequence. Now, even one egg can still give you multiples (twins, triplets... there's even a set of identical QUINTS on the records) but superovulation certainly increases your risks. No doctor worth his or her degree wants to be responsible for the next Octomom.
ReplyDeleteMy RE even published a paper in 2000 which compared the outcomes of 127 triplet pregnancies, and his findings were that "multifetal pregnancy reduction does not have a significant impact on the probability of live birth or on gestational age at delivery for women with triplets conceived with assisted reproductive technology."
Really, all you can do is have faith.