Results

Today was my HSG.....not horrible news, but not great news either.

I get back in the exam room and was prepped for the procedure. Dr. N came in and started explaining what was happening as she did it. The x-ray machine was moved into place so we could see where the dye would go and Dr. N injects the dye. My uterus starts filling up promptly and my left tube slightly comes into view. It takes a several seconds to start moving down the tube, then we notice the right starts showing up. There was some 'spilling' of the right tube (yay!), but I could tell by Dr. N's commentary that she wasn't too happy about the left tube. She then had me rotate on my right side for a minute and continued taking x-ray pictures. After that, she told me to get dressed and we would discuss in more detail what she thinks. (The whole procedure lasted less than 5 minutes and other than some cramping, was pain free.)

I meet her in the conference room and she goes into more detail about the tubes. Good news, she thinks the right tube is perfectly fine. There is a little spot where she believes the anastomosis was, but nothing too concerning on that side. The left, however, has issues. It had a larger area of dye collection where the anastomosis was, plus there was a collection of dye toward the distal end of the tube, where the ovary meets. Its a very large 'fingerling' collection. Dr. N can't say for certain what it is/isn't, but she thinks its very possibly scar tissue that has accumulated in that area, preventing any eggs from traveling down that tube. Which makes sense since because I often feel a little tug/pinch on that side at times.

Her recommendation going forward: to do a laparoscopy and see exactly what's going on with that tube. She doesn't want to cut and do another anastomosis on that side (1. my tube is already short enough and cutting a bad section out won't help matters, because the shorter the tube, the worse it is to conceive. 2. more scar tissue can form in that same spot, increasing my chances for an ectopic, which are higher following a TR anyway). Dr. N wants to go in, take a look around, try to fix what she can without causing too much disruption in there, make sure the right tube is fine and to also take out a polyp that I have in my uterus (that was also discovered today). We can't be sure that this will be the complete fix all, but she believes this is the best course of action for my situation.

So, surgery is scheduled for Feb 13th at noon. I pray to God this was the only obstacle in my way. And I would be lying if I said I wasn't pissed at Dr. K for not doing an HSG instead of the CIS back in Oct '12. We could have found that then, taken care of it and could have had our baby by now! Grrrr!!!

*Another piece of good news: my AMH level came back today. Dr. N said last week that at my age, she wants to see at least a 1.73 (the higher the number the better).....mine was 2.8. So at least that relieves me of a little pressure thinking my eggs are dried up due to my age. My body looks old for 35 on the outside, but my eggs are a young 31 year old. LOL.

Cycle 23

AF arrived today, so I called the RE's office and scheduled my HSG for next Thursday. The office offers a free consultation with their in-house therapist, so I have an appointment with her on Thursday as well. I have also been thinking of trying some acupuncture this cycle, so I need to call the two I found and see if either of them can get me in soon.

Negative Beta

Dr. N just called and said my beta came back at <2. Not a big surprise, so now I'm just waiting for AF to start so I can schedule the HSG.

New RE Appointment

We just got back from my new RE's office and things went pretty well for the most part.

1. Meet with Dr. N.---I immediately liked her right off the bat. She's very Type A, lets get what we need to get and get it done. No dilly-dallying. I'm not sure if part of that is because I'm on cycle 22 and still not pregnant, or if she is just like that. I suspect its probably a bit of both. From the time I got called back until I was walking out the door was 30 minutes....and that was with several things being done, but not feeling rushed. My kind of office!!

We went over my history and she is concerned a little bit about my hypothyroidism and family history of certain auto-immune diseases. She said that may be playing a factor in why I can't get pregnant now, but the fact that I have had two successful pregnancies is very promising that its not a huge factor. We also talked about testing (or lack of testing) that Dr. K. did. She was not happy that he had me do a CIS instead of a HSG. (last year, Dr. K. said the CIS was very similar to the HSG and that he orders those in most cases since insurance covers more and its more comfortable on the patient.) Dr. N. said no, they are not similar enough when talking about tubal issues. The way the CIS works, you will see the free fluid in the uterus, but you will have no idea where its coming from (meaning you won't know if the tubes are blocked or not). CIS can be ok in some cases, but since I had a TL/TR, its VERY important the we know EXACTLY where/if my tubes are open or not. She was also not happy that he didn't do an AMH level (checks ovarian reserve), but more on that in a bit. And of course, she didn't have my chart from Dr. K's office either, which I promptly called and chewed them out for because they charged me $25 3 days prior to get them faxed over and they weren't even faxed!

2. Sonogram---After the consultation, she did a u/s on me. She was looking for any abnormal structures and wanted to get some measurements of my uterus and ovaries. At this point, she said she now knows why Dr. K. didn't do an AMH on me. They want to see at least 5-6 Antral follicles in each ovary for a woman my age. I had 15 on one side and 18 on the other. This tells her that I have good ovarian reserves, but she still wants to do the blood work just to make sure there are no surprises. She also said that with me being 11 DPO, that my uterine lining is VERY nice and thick, ruling out possible progesterone issues. All of these results were the same at Dr. K's office 2 years ago, so no surprises there.

3. Financial---They had me talk to a financial officer to go over cost associated with any testing, what insurance will/won't cover etc. Turns out, I didn't even have to pay anything today because my insurance has some sort of code on it! So they will bill me any difference insurance doesn't pay for. (They gave me a estimate on what I will probably owe.) This is very nice for budgeting purposes since I had to pay everything upfront at Dr. K's office (insurance covered some things, but not many there).

4. Blood work---I then went for some blood work. I asked if she would add a beta to it, since I'm 11 DPO, and she said no problem. I LOVE that this office does most everything (u/s, HSG, blood work, etc) in house. The AMH is a send out and takes 8-9 days to get the results back, but I will know the beta value sometime today.

So, the game plan is:
--If I'm not pregnant this cycle, once my AF starts, I will call the office to schedule my HSG to be done between CD6-10.
--Once they get my records rom Dr. K., they will review DH's SA (since he has fathered 3 children and his last SA came back fine, it more than likely won't need to be repeated).
--Review my records from Dr. K. and see if anything comes back that needs more testing, etc.
--See how my blood work comes back.

8 dpo

Today, I am 8 dpo of cycle #22. I've been having some light nausea on and off, hot flashes and I've gone to bed early the last two nights because I've been so exhausted. I'm trying not to get my hopes up too high because it makes it harder when AF shows, but I can't help but be a little excited about this cycle. Hope this is finally it.

Update

On my last post (which has been almost a year ago), Dr K didn't think just any more meds would be beneficial to us and suggest we try for IUI or IVF. Since that wasn't an option (and still isn't), DH and I had to talk about how we wanted to proceed. We weren't quite ready to give up completely, (well me anyways) but thought stress was a big hindrance, so we took a step back from the obsessive BBT/OPK/CM path. I still charted some, but not to the degree that I had been.

Fast forward to Nov 2013. It had been getting harder and harder to not 'do anything' so I talked to DH about getting a second opinion from another RE. He wasn't quite on board at first (because even though we have records from the previous RE, there would still be new patient costs for the new RE). Ultimately, he finally agreed to give it a shot. This way, if it is still bad news, having a second opinion hopefully will give me the closure I need to move on.

So we have an appointment for Jan 16, 2014 with the new RE. This is the RE that I initially contacted to have the TR done with, but the patient coordinator would never return my calls or emails. The front office couldn't do anything about it, since all new patients had to go through her. Long story short, there is a new patient coordinator and this one has been on the ball about getting everything done in a timely manner!

Now we just sit and wait until next week to see what kind of news we get. Pray that its good and that we have a very good reason to celebrate in 2014. (Coincidentally, I am 3 DPO today of cycle 22 and AF should arrive around the time of my appointment. How amazing it would be if I could get a BFP a few days before our appointment?? FX!!)