Anyway...

Oh, dear.

I wrote a wonderful blog a few days ago, about the past month & I forgot to save it. 

So...that sucks. I’ll try to remember what I said 🤷🏻‍♀️

So we did the IUI. I only had to do 3 nights of injections, which is MUCH better than last time. Apparently Andrew has what the Dr. called “Michael Phelps sperm.” We went to St. Augustine to celebrate our 9th wedding anniversary, I was sick. We tried not to think about our “two week wait,” I tried to breathe through my nose. Both were difficult. 

And then we found out that the IUI didn’t work. I suspected that it didn’t so it wasn’t a shock, just disappointing. Even with 2 chemical pregnancies, I had symptoms pretty early. There was nothing this time. Not a sore boob or funny smell in sight.

Of course, then easiest way to be sure a fertility procedure didn’t work is to start your period. Add in the extra hormones, and it adds particular insult to injury. Plus, I gained about 10 lbs between the hormones & stress eating. That hasn’t gone away.

Yay. 

So, last week we had a consultation with one of the partners in this new office. One who specializes in an experimental procedure called IVM. (Its worth mentioning that IVM is only experimental in the US.)

It’s apparently great for patients with PCOS. It’s similar to IVF in that both involve the in vitro part of the process. 

M stands for maturation. For an IVF patient, they use medicine to mature the eggs while they’re still in the ovaries. Then they retrieve them to fertilize them & make embryos before transferring them back to the uterus where they hope for implantation. 

For IVM they retrieve the eggs before they’re mature & mature them in a Petri dish (in vitro,) fertilize them, make the embryos & transfer back to the uterus. 

Since PCOS patients have tons of these immature follicles (called granulosas) IVM works well for them without the risks IVF has. 

Still with me? 

So the consultation went well. Apparently it involves a(nother) transvaginal ultrasound. I’m just glad I took a shower & shaved my legs beforehand. I forgot my standard vaginal exam socks though. Because (I know this from experience. I mean...remember my job) stinky feet are the WORST. Ah well, c’est la vie.

He told me that my ovaries were perfect. It’s the first time anyone has ever said anything good about my ovaries, ever. (Including myself. I think they’re just lazy bags of lazy freeloading on my uterus. Taking up my blood supply.)

I had around 66 granulosas between the 2 ovaries. I think that’s a lot. 

This practice is a higher success rating than most of the country & out of the 5 cases they’ve done, 4 have resulted in a pregnancy.

They take one patient a month.

We got February. 

So...that’s the plan for now.