Back in the game! ... of Treatments dun dun dun!

If you have been there you know exactly what I am talking about. Mike and I decided to start the first cycle after the boys with a LESS aggressive fertility treatment. By less aggressive I mean less needles, bloat, and pain. However, you still deal with the hormones which I am sure my wonderful husband can tell you all about. Always crying, bitching, complaining and did I mention crying?  So day 1 is the first day of your cycle (period) and within the first couple days you are prescribed an oral medication (letrozole or Clomid) to take twice a day for five days. On day 10 of my cycle the endless pokes and prods of the treatment begin. I will go in every other day (and for anyone familiar with the Verrazano Bridge, it's a huge toll of 15.00) for about a week to get blood and have a transvaginal ultrasound to track the size and number of follicles that the medicine produced. For all those who are new, a follicle is what releases the egg :). After that week I had one big follicle about 20mm. I was told to take the trigger shot 36 hours before my IUI. The trigger shot will force the follicle to release my pretty little egg and send it on its long journey down my fallopian tube to hopefully meet with one, just one sperm who is fighting his way through the crowd. I always envision the opening credits to the movie "Look Who's Talking," lol.

The IUI process is not too bad. If you can survive a papsmear you are fine. Your husband goes in an hour or so before the procedure to make his "deposit." After that, it is put through a machine that washes the sperm and removes all of the ejaculate so you are left with a very pure and concentrated "deposit." The funniest part to me is when we go in for the IUI and the doctor puts it on a slide and informs us if they are swimming or dead.  I am sure every man, including my husband holds their breath until the doctor congratulates them with the response of, "well, they are not dead". But, you also don't want to hear that you have some that are swimming in circles either ;) So, after the swimmers pass the microscope test I am set up as if you are getting your yearly exam and instead of being swabbed you have a very long catheter that is put all the way into your uterus. If all goes well this only last about 15 seconds and then told to lay there for 15 min. After that I went home and put my feet up. Not that that is even necessary, but believe me if I have to go home and put my legs up in the hope I am giving those little suckers and advantage I will.

As much as I loathe treatments, I am so excited for them. It is definitely a love/hate relationship. I hate the fact that I even have to do treatments, but I love the day we complete them because that means the next two weeks I rub my belly and pray with everything I have that something is growing in there. Of course the thought of getting that phone call two weeks later that the blood test came back negative is the most painful feeling ever. A whole month of needles, trans-vaginal ultrasounds, bloat, ovary pain, night sweats, crying, bitching, complaining all for a negative. But, we aren't going to focus on the negative, are we? 

So, for the next two weeks I will dwell on every poke and twinge I feel in my belly and compare it to www.twoweekwait.com lol. Maybe I will even do a blog and you all can tell me what your immediate symptoms were when you found out you were pregnant!

Thank you again for accompanying me in this chaotic journey!

Possibly some answers!!

Tonight I met with Dr. Kofinas my new High Risk doctor. This doctor could be my ticket to bringing a healthy full term baby into this world. He is known for studying the placenta and deals greatly with situations such as ours on a daily basis. Here is his website: http://www.kofinasperinatal.org/about-us-/doctors

At our appointment we had a thorough exam and was told everything looks great which was even greater for me since we are going in for our IUI tomorrow evening. My uterine lining was thick and our one follicle was 20mm which is perfect. Now we just need sperm to meet egg...but lets save that for another blog :)

Dr. Kofina's started out needing to know the details of our previous pregnancy. We informed him that we had what we thought was a pretty normal pregnancy with little bumps along the way. He looked at our paperwork from our other doctors and noticed that our last ultrasound before labor with the other high risk doctor showed we had a cervix length over 4 and the following week, two days prior to delivery it was 3.14. This right off the bat alarmed him and said that was our first indication something was not right. This should have been a red flag to our doctor after the nurse called it in, but why would our doctor look at our chart when the hospital calls them..hmmm...sounds shady to me. Then the doctor looked over the placenta pathology report from after our delivery and said that the boys combined placenta weight was less than what one of their placentas should have been. This seems to be what went wrong. He discussed that when something is wrong with the placenta your cervix becomes inflamed and brings on contractions resulting in labor. He said that if he were our doctor from the beginning all of our blood work would have been completed that we had done after the boys and the placenta would have been accurately measured and treated accordingly. Basically, this could have totally been prevented. The blood work from the beginning would have revealed that I have Thrombophila and needed to be on Lovenox and baby aspirin. He said unfortunately this happens all to often because doctors don't check the blood work until a person has had a few losses which is a few too late in his eyes.

We made sure to ask if this was destined to happen again and he said not with the right treatment. These are the situations he sees daily. He mentioned one lady who was there while we were there who was 35 weeks with twins and had come to him at 20 weeks when she was going into pre term labor. He was able to take care of her and get her to this point. We asked if twins would be an option and he responded again, "with the right monitoring and treatment of course." This is what he does. Mike and I are completely relieved. I have faith again. I go back in tomorrow (bc their blood lady was out) for another blood test to test our Natural Killer cells and if we conceive this month I will go back right after to start the lovenox shots. I try to think God has put us in NY for a reason and this may be it. He knew there would be a reason I needed this doctor. I feel so blessed. My heart still aches to think that what happened to my boys could have been prevented. I would have been 34 weeks right now and it hurts so bad. However, I can't bring them back but I know that we are so much closer to bringing a baby home after meeting with Dr. Kofinas. My little angels will help us along the way too. Now just to have good luck with our IUI tomorrow!!

Look for my blog on this IUI cycle either tomorrow or later this week :)