Vaccines?

Dr. Wonderful just called. Pre-cycle blood test results for me 100% in. All good except... (drum roll, please)...

I have no immunity to German Measles and Chicken Pox.

I never got Chicken Pox as a kid. When my best friend Y and her brother had it I went over to their house, but never got it. Dr. Wonderful said that if I got it an adult, the symptoms would be much worse.

German Measles is a whole other story. If I got it while preggers it could cause deafness or retardation in the baby. Gulp.

I could take a vaccine, but then I would have to wait 3 months to start my IVF. Dr. Wonderful said that would be fine if I was 25 (I'm not. I'm 39!!).

I said I didn't want the vaccine. He then recommended I stay away from groups of children. I work in corporate America at a Fortune 500 (but a much smaller number) company. Some of the employees may act like children sometimes, but that doesn't count. I should be just fine.

Have any of you out in the interweb faced this decision?

Jem

"Gourmet Classics"

Just back from seeing my RE, Dr. W. I'll call him "Dr. Wonderful" from now on, especially after the wonderful news from today's visit.

What's on the menu for today's visit?

As an appetizer, the chef recommends an ultrasound. Main course? Saline ultrasound with a "mock transfer" for dessert, of course. It's the house specialty.

So, I'm waiting for Dr. Wonderful to arrive. I'm naked from the waste down, flimsy paper thing gripped at my waist, sitting on the crinkly paper at the bottom of the examination table, and what do I see? This:


Yes, folks. Those are pot holders over the stirrups. "Gourmet Classics," indeed! I can hear the ad now... "We cook up nothing but the best here at the clinic." I could go on to make omelet jokes, but I'll leave that up to the more humorous blogs (shout out to 999 Reasons to Laugh at Infertility).

So, the wonderful news it that my uterus looks great. No cysts. My ovaries are producing eggs as we speak. The mock transfer was easy and painless. Actually, I barely felt anything!

Dr. Wonderful said he's going to change my Rx to lower doses of meds because things look even better than he had suspected.

Mr Jem and I brought over our test results to the acupuncture clinic associated with the the IF clinic. "Dr. Needle" looked at all the results and gave Mr. Jem vitamins and herbs to take to make his sperm better, swim better. We were both a bit skeptical as we're doing IVF with ICSI, but Dr. Needle reassured us that it should help. Hmmm...

All the same, it's nice to walk out of the clinic smiling.

Jem

Results are in!

Pre-IVF testing results are in:

FSH level = 5.3 and Estrogen = 50

Perfectly normal!

Yippee!

Talkin' 'bout a revolution... whoa oh!

AF came Friday morning. Uhhhggg. Had hoped for a miracle. Instead, made appointment for my Day 3 FSH and other pre-cycle testing for today, Sunday. They drew blood for Husband D, as well.

Highlight of the visit was that I met Ivonne, My IVF Coordinator. She'll let me know the results of my tests tomorrow.

Jem

Maiden Voyage

"... One giant step for
(wo)mankind!"

Call me Jem.

I'm a married woman, age 39. My husband D and I have been TTC since January 2007. Nada.

We finally went for fertility testing May 2008. Me? All good to go (FHS levels at 6.6). Him? Not so good. Very, very low sperm count. 100,000! Dr. L, my OB/GYN, even asked, "Did your husband ever have chemo?" Nope. His family does have a history of low sperm count. It took his parents years to conceive.

A year went by, life went by. D was finally ready to face fatherhood again and did sperm analysis again in May 2009. Good news, sperm count up! Bad news, not up enough (600K is still low, when "normal" >5 million!)

I immediately scheduled an appointment at a Fertility Clinic with Dr. W, recommended by Dr. L.

Only option open to us if we want a baby with both our DNA? Invitro Fertilitization.

We'll start our IVF first cycle mid-September 2009.

This blog is to catalog my journey towards conception.

"What's this 'ambivalent womb' thing?" you ask. It's about the mixed feelings (ranging from total excitement to abject terror) I have about motherhood, the ups and downs about being "fertility challenged."

I am happy to know that there's a whole community of women (and men?) out there in the interweb to share with.

Jem

P.S. Wow, this is blogging? Really? What took me so long? It's so much easier than I ever imagined.