Renewed Sense of Hope

Yesterday evening we had a consultation with a different clinic in our area. I'm so glad Michael pushed me into making and keeping the appointment. Although not as geographically convenient, Dr. D. and his nurse were light years ahead of the last clinic in terms of compassion, knowledge and personality.

Dr. D, who closely resembles Harold Ramis as Dr. Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters (yes, I had to Google that), actually has 10 month old twins born from IVF so clearly he understands the emotional roller coaster of infertility.

He reviewed our records and had the same major question we did, why didn't Dr. K increase my stims mid cycle? Dr. D was not only concerned about Mike's low motility, morph and testosterone, but also his volume is low so in turn his count is low too.

Dr. D also expressed some concern over my elevated FSH of 10.7 (follicle stimulation hormone). He really likes to see it at least below 9. He also said my AFC of 9 (antral follicle count) wasn't where it should be for my age which could be Decreased Ovarian Reserve. Thankfully, he did a dildo cam ultrasound and counted 13 antral follicles. He mentioned, it will likely be higher but since I've been on birth control for 2 weeks my ovaries are suppressed. Dr. D also mentioned my AMH (anti-mullerian hormone) number is normal.

I got a little worked up when he was talking about decreased ovarian reserve and Dr. D calmed my nerves saying all labs read things slightly different and the numbers they get could be different. I definitely felt much better after the ultrasound and hope when I go back for CD3 blood work my FSH will fall into the normal range too.

Overall, he said they would do the Microdose Lupron protocol and not have me on BCP for more than 10 days for risk of over-suppression. He said they will also be very aggressive with the stimulation. They would also do ICSI and he feels overall our embryos have a better chance in their lab as they are very 'type A' about every detail. Dr. D's words, not mine.

My next steps include stopping the BCP and waiting for my next period to go in for CD3 blood work and ultrasound and moving on from there.

I'm so glad we got a second opinion and Michael and I both have a new sense of hope. We can only pray this cycle works and brings us a little miracle.