Medical History, Part 2

I allowed myself 4 months to heal from my hydrocele surgery before starting ttc. I was worried at this point, even though my annual visit to the OB/Gyn showed that everything was fine. My doctor told me to get in the back seat of the car with H and I would get pregnant. A year later, I made the appointment to say nothing was happening despite our best efforts. My cycle is very regular and our activity was very dedicated, so I never did charts or anything. I thought maybe the job stress was causing the hold up, since so many people were telling me how bad stress could be. And my stress was bad. I told the doctor this and he responded that no amount of stress would prevent me from getting pregnant, end of story. I was surprised because he was a little cold about it, and I was still hopeful at this point, but now I’m glad he sent me for tests right away. He ordered the blood tests for me and the SA for H. My blood work came back fine, but H’s SA showed abnormal morphology (only 7% instead of 14% or better), low concentration, low motility, and normal count. We were then referred to the RE, and got our first lucky break when they were able to fit us in the next week, when there is normally a 2 month waiting period. If they hadn’t had a cancellation, I would still be waiting for my initial consultation today.

When I went to the center and met Dr. Optimism, I found out my OB/Gyn had done my blood work on the wrong day of my cycle and the results were useless. I would have to do it again. Dr. Optimism said H’s SA results really weren’t that bad and ordered the second analysis to be sure. I was surprised by this, because the nurse had been so solemn when she told me “how bad” H’s results were. I felt like Dr. Optimism suspected I was the main problem, especially when he suggested he do an ultrasound right then and there to check out my insides. I think he was prepared to see lots of endometriosis evidence. H had his first experience watching me get wanded, and all I can say is that it wasn’t nearly as bad as when I was 17 and scared. In fact, I didn’t feel it at all. Guess I finally came of age.

Dr. Optimism was pleasantly surprised at how nice my insides looked and said there were no signs of endometriosis. I’d still have to do an HSG to be sure everything was okay, but once I did we could proceed. He suggested that we would probably just have to do a few IUIs. He said he expected us to be pregnant in no time. This was a huge relief to H, who at the time was adamantly against IVF and didn’t even know what ICSI was (nor did I, for that matter.) We left the appointment feeling 100 times better, especially when my day 3 blood work came out fine. To be continued in Part 3…