IVF Update #10

Can you believe it is July already? This summer is flying by!

We are back doing ultrasounds and blood work again. We were supposed to do one on July 2^nd, but that was the Saturday before the 4^th of July so there wasn’t going to be anywhere open that I could get work done. Our nurse told me to keep taking my medicine for two extra days and we’d have to push back our ultrasound to July 5^th.

To add to the stress of having to postpone our ultrasound, the clinic we normally go to was already doubled booked. So I tried another clinic I’ve been to before and they weren’t even open on the 5^th, so I had to schedule it at a new place. I know this probably wouldn’t be stressful to other people, but for me it is! For one I’m just really good at stressing (I get it from my mother), and two, I’ve got a really crazy body (tilted uterus, cysts on my ovaries, my right ovary likes to hide behind my left…) and it is hard for people to get good pictures and measurements.

The appointment went pretty good. I also had to get blood drawn to test hormone levels. Then we are supposed to wait until the nurse called with the results before we start our new medication. She called that evening and said that she was unsure of what to do with us because we don’t fit into “normal.” The doctors want your ovaries cyst free. Well, if I accomplished that it’d be a miracle because it’d mean I was cured of PCOS (which has no cure). The nurse said that for us they’d be okay with very small cysts and the fewer the better. My right ovary has the small cysts, but still a lot. Then my left ovary has some huge cysts. I have several measuring between 2 and 5 CENTIMETERS! That is like the size of a golf ball! Normally cysts (or follicles) are measured in millimeters, not centimeters. 2-5 cm is the size of an ovary, and I have cysts on my ovary that big.

But the good news was that my hormone levels came back good. My estrogen needed to be below 70, and mine is at 34 (which probably explains my mood swings lately, yikes!).

So our nurse didn’t know what to do because normally if females have cysts that big then there is concern of them ovulating. But I don’t ovulate and my estrogen is so low there is definitely no concern of ovulating on my own. So she didn’t think that they were hormone driven, but wanted to wait until the doctor had a chance to review it.

However, our doctor is in Finland, which is a 9 hour time difference so we would have to wait until Wednesday to see what he said. Our nurse said she’d know very first thing in the morning so we could get started on the new medication. 1:00 pm rolls around and she finally calls us. Never mind that now I’ve had all night and morning to think of the worst case scenarios – having to have surgery to remove the giant cysts, or not being able to transplant this month because we’d need to wait for the cysts to go down in size – like I said, I’m good at stressing.

Turns out the doctor said it should be fine since the cysts aren’t hormone driven. They will just keep doing blood work to check my hormone levels are staying consistent.  So we are still on schedule to transplant on July 25^th in Utah (unfortunately we’ll have to go to Utah because the clinic in Idaho Falls is only open when the doctor comes up once a quarter).

I know that the 25^th will be here sooner than expected. July is going to be a full month with our birthdays, family reunions, friends and family visiting, getting ready for church girl’s camp, getting ready for our new teaching jobs, studying for tests and trying to go camping, boating, or 4 wheeling as much as possible. Being busy hopefully will help me not stress so much about doctor stuff.