Here is how we got to ivf, medically anyway. Emotionally would be another few pages I think. The first year was pretty standard, I dropped birth control and after about 5 months. I started temping and using opks just to see if I was ovulating. They showed that I was, I got positive opks and temperature shifts. After a year of trying we went to our local doctor as a couple, she recommended a local reproductive doctor who may was going to be more in line with treatment plans.
This doctor did an hsg and put me on femara for five months. Most people find the hsg somewhat painful, this procedure puts dye through your tubes to check for blockages. I had no problems and even went out for ice cream later. My husband had a sa (semen analysis) during this time as well. This was in March of 2014. The hsg came out clear and I got to see it right away. It was pretty neat to get same day results. His results were also positive. They did a draw and found my progesterone reading before drugs were lower than they liked, in the 8s. My femara experience started at 2.5 mg. My progesterone reading after was still lower then they wanted 10.6, so they upped it. On the 5 mg program it jumped to the 30s. Femara is for the treatment of breast cancer which is interesting. I suffered headaches while on femara but nothing unmanageable. I took it for 5 days a cycle usually 4-8 I think. These cycles had no monitoring. After the months of trying with femara and no results we moved on. In Wisconsin all testing and treatment for infertility is out of pocket, so we decided to see a specialist.
In finding a fertility clinic I recommend doing your research. We talked to people online and in real life, read plenty of reviews and made an informed decision. It took us about a month to get in, we met with the specialist in October 2014, we moved immediately to iui (interuterine insemination), we had all of the pre testing done for this. I cannot say enough positive things about our specialist.
On paper our iuis were perfect, 2/3 eggs and the sa were fantastic. Our iui protocol went like this, I took 7.5 mg of femara, days 3-7. I had an ultrasound on cycle day 12, this checked lining and egg numbers. Then scheduled iui either when I got a positive opk or triggered with an ovidrel shot. But unfortunately none of these ended in pregnancy. After spending most of the fall/winter holidays in the clinic we took a month off to regroup.
Then we met with the specialist again to discuss ivf. The meeting went really well, she agreed with our decision to pursue it. They hold the possibility to do ivf in the palm of their hand. They want to make sure you’re physically and mentally able to handle it. She asked me to start a high fat diet to try to gain 5 pounds and to limit my exercise. She also ordered a slew of blood tests, mostly to check for diseases, blood typing and rubella resistance. I am b-. As it turns out my mmr vaccine was no longer working, so I had to redo it. With the mmr vaccine you have to take a month off from trying to conceive and this is where we are currently. We are looking at ivf starting in the early fall. We have to have another meeting with the doctor, around July. So we can order medicines, file paperwork and have injection classes. So that will be our next big step.
Thanks for reading!
on the edge of grace 