Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Joe and I both started taking meds for our first IVF cycle yesterday. Coincidentally, we had our first face-to-face meeting with our RE today. This meeting was scheduled in July and really had nothing to do with our treatment cycle, but was just an opportunity to meet the RE and have him review our file and tests with us and lend us his perspective.

So what did we learn? Well for starters, Joe's blood work came back indicating low testosterone. They had started him on Clomid. However, today the RE asks us what time he did his blood work and he tells them around 4:30 p.m. and apparently this is like THE worst time a guy can test, because their testosterone will be the lowest of the day around that time. So they're going to have him retest, but we've decided to just have him stay on the Clomid for now until I get pregnant and then reevaluate from there.

As for me, I have a very minor case of ovulatory dysfunction. My FSH is averaging around a 6 which is good for my age. My antral follicle count on the right is oddly better than my left. The right ovary is producing 11 or more follicles which are right where they should be, however my left ovary is only producing 6 follicles which is bordering on diminished ovarian reserve. However with my left functioning normally and my hormone levels being mostly okay DOR is ruled out. My e2 level out of the starting gate is ridiculously high (at 68) so any treatment (after this cycle) will start on day 3 instead of day 5, because by day 5 my estrogen is so high that a dominant follicle has already been selected.

Oh and OPKs don’t work for me but my body does seem to ovulate on its own. However my progesterone and LH are all over the place. They’re high when they’re supposed to be low, low when they’re supposed to be high.

Blah.

They’re diagnosing us as having ovulatory dysfunction for the sake of classifying us, which we found out today, is mostly done for insurance purposes.

And then the unthinkable happened. The doctor said we could move forward with IVF, but that he really didn’t recommend doing so. Huh? What? Why didn’t you meet with us a month ago?! Two months ago even?!

We’ve been trying to conceive for 15 months (which on the spectrum of TTC is not very long), we’re young (early 30’s), and we’re mostly healthy. Neither of our “conditions” are indicative of preventing pregnancy.

And with that, my IVF was squashed and we converted back to a Letrozole/hCG/IUI cycle. It looks like each of these IUI cycles will only charge $650 against our insurance benefit, so it makes sense to start here.

My head is kind of still spinning. There’s nothing I hate more than having a plan and then switching plans, and then not knowing what’s next.

But I know Joe is more comfortable being conservative, and while I’m not hopeful that this will work for us, he is and I have to honor that.

So the new plan which replaces the old plan is that we’re going to do an IUI cycle this month, in November and in December. We made another appointment to meet with the RE face-to-face in January to decide next steps if we’re still not pregnant.

I’m exhausted and ready to get off the roller coaster.