First Cycle with Specialist has passed...

Today is day 1 of my next cycle. It was very disappointing to wake up this morning and find that I have started my period. I so wanted to complete all the tests and things that were planned by my Dr. for the first cycle, but with my period starting early I was not able to take the endometrial biopsy test.

I will backtrack now... Just before starting my cycle last month I went for my first appointment with my Reproductive Endocrinologist, Dr. McRae, to get some direction on where to go from here. Bryan and I had been trying for just over 2 years to conceive and it just wasn't happening, even after having surgery to remove the septum that was found in my uterus.

The first visit was so informational and I left ready to go with a plan. The first visit was around 2.5 hours long. It started with a 45 minute conference with Dr. McRae personally in her office going over my medical history and what we had tried to date, which wasn't much more than lots of sex, documenting on fertilityfriend.com, and occasional temperature graphs and ovulation test kits. In my past I have had many ovarian cysts rupture and at one point I was dx with a dermoid cyst. For many years I was uninformed that I had a bicornuate uterus, which as mentioned above ended up being a septum that nearly divided my uterus in two halves.

After the conference she decided to do an exam which included her personally performing the ultrasound to go over everything inside to see that it all looked ok. I was finally informed that the septum was gone and everything looked normal. Once the exam was complete we met in another conference type room to go over the plan for my next cycle. The plan was to start tracking my BBT (Basal Body Temperature) starting on day 1 of my period and to start the ovulation tests on day 12 of my cycle and once I had a positive result I had to have sex that morning and call to schedule an ultrasound to see if my follicles were functioning correctly and ig an egg had yet been released. Just a couple days from the appt. I had bloodwork done to check for things ranging from being a carrier of the cystic fibrosis gene, thyroid problems, cholesterol, metabolic syndrome, and other such tests. Bryan and I also went down a week later for him to give a semen sample and for the two of us to have blood drawn for an Anti-Sperm Antibody test, which we received results as negative. So we were able to rule that out.

I was found to have an underproductive thyroid, so I was put on thyroid medication. When I got my LH Surge/Ovulation Test we did as told and called the Dr. to get in for an appt. When I went down they did the ultrasound and found that I hadn't released an egg yet, so I was given an HCG injection which would prompt the release of the egg. From there it was a waiting game... I was hopeful and looking forward to getting the results, as I was very tired and run down this past weekend. I've heard numerous times that when you become pregnant you are very tired for no reason. But, alas that did not happen.

The plan moving forward is for me to start Clomid on day 5 of this next cycle, Monday, keep taking my temperature and charting, and use ovulation tests. If I do not get a surge by day 15 I need to call and follow up with them. This cycle we are going to try IUI (intra uterine insemination)/AI (artificial insemination). It's certainly not how I would like to conceive, but if this isn't working and Bryan's results not being the best, this is likely the best chance we have, as I am not yet comfortable enough to consider IVF.

Today was day one of my cycle and I had to leave work due to the strong and painful cramps I was having. I talked to the nurse and she advised that it wasn't due to the injection, but the thickness of my lining. She stated that a normal lining of the uterus is .80 mm and mine was 1.27 mm, so because of that the the contractions and such that it takes to shed it are greater.

So we'll see where it goes from here....