Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Scheduled

After getting some positive feed back from the andrologist we decided to make an appointment for a second opinion.  So I finally made the call and it's set for June 13th, the day after our 7th anniversary.  Nothing more romantic than having a complete stranger check out your who-ha right after celebrating the day of your wedding.  Seriously though, this was the only date that worked out with Hammer's travel.  Plus it's a good excuse at work to take a day off without raising too much suspicion.  We're keeping this one very quiet since nothing may come of it depending on what we hear. 

When I called I had to give our history to the nurse and I totally started crying when I had to discuss our last miscarriage.  She was very sweet on the phone and ended up changing the RE she was going to schedule us with saying that the new RE would be better with 'unique' stimulation cycles and has a background in early miscarriage.  I also mentioned that we were working with an andrologist and when I mentioned his name she had nothing but the nicest things to say.  She also said that she would give me a form to send to them so that they would request our records from the RE so that we would not have to interact with them.  So far things have been positive, let's cross our fingers that this continues.

One set back though is that Hammer had a very high fever on Mother's Day, like 102+ temperature.  That means if we do anything it cannot be until the end of July or early August as we are out a whole sperm cycle.  It's a bummer but I'm not going to worry about it because I can't.  We might not even end up doing anything regardless so worrying is just not worth it. 

Monday, May 2, 2011

Moving Forward

We finally heard back on the results of our repeat DNA test. It has been great working with this doctor as he took so much time with us even on the phone. In his opinion he feels that we have moved into the normal range. Normal for people who do not need IUI’s or take up to a year to get pregnant are <20%. Since we now sit at below 30% we’re in the +1 year TTC, IUI and possibly IVF range so this is an improvement. He gave us some tips for TTC naturally but did recommend that we should still look for assistance only because it’s been such a long time. After some discussion between Hammer and I, we decided that we would at least get the second opinion. Dr. R gave us some suggestions for the RE’s in his area which he works with often and they were the same names that were recommended to us by others. So today I put in a call for an appointment with one of them. We’ll have to see when we can coordinate a trip to the clinic (~2 hours away) with our crazy schedules so I’ll post more when I know. Thank goodness I have family down there which would make any treatment we might do so much easier and a bit more affordable.


As far as naturally trying, Hammer and I have been doing the ‘Hopeful Protocol,’ as I like to call it, along with our TTC modifications for Hammer. I got this from the Happy Hopeful’s who are to welcome their first baby after TTC for several years and ended up getting prego this way. It involves taking the supplements evening primrose and flax seed oil during a cycle. It also has you take high amounts of soy isoflavones on the same days when you would have taken clomid which supposedly help make a healthier egg so it’s almost like poor man’s clomid. I can tell you that I definitely ovulate very ‘strong’ when I take this. This past month my temps started to go triphasic and I was late which I never have been before on the last three months taking these supplements (or ever for that matter). I even went out and bought some HPTs because I was two days late. I got a box of FRER and an EPT. The EPT was the only one where both Hammer and I swore there was a very, very faint start of a ‘+’ but that was all we got. So we think we might have had a ‘blip’ but there is no real way to confirm it. I am concerned that maybe the soy is messing up my lining similar to clomid so I’m taking a month or two off to see if it helps at all and made an appointment with my regular Gyn to see if she has any thoughts as well. We’ll still be doing the ‘prepping’ before TTC with some modifications as suggested by Dr. R on our phone conference. I now feel that I have the hang of the Ovacue and I love that it confirms ovulation (I got the extra attachment) which makes me feel more confident in our TTC efforts BUT we still have to use OPK’s to help us with timing things. So it’s not the money saver I was hoping for but when your DH has to do his thing for practically 2 weeks straight it is nice to tell him with confidence that he can take some time off. I’m actually feeling bad for him. I know it’s not like taking shots but seriously, if you were told you had to have a “big O” every day for two weeks imagine the pressure that would put on you. It’s not like with woman where getting prego doesn't depends on us having an “O” or not but it does require our DH’s to do so. And while it’s fun, I would l think 2 weeks straight of fun would really start to get old. He’s been a real trooper and I have to give him some credit. Thanks honey :)