Friday, January 31, 2014

Hysteroscopy

I have been nervous about this procedure all week.  If things looked bad our IVF would be cancelled and I'd have another endometrial biopsy.  My appointment was set for 4pm so we left work a little after 3.  I took some extra strength tylenol and tried to stay calm.  

A hysteroscopy involves placing a speculum in the vagina, cleaning the cervix with iodine, and then inserting a thin fiber optic camera through the cervix with some saline to expand the uterus.

Like so
The speculum hurt a lot as usual and the cervix cleaning part felt very strange.  Dr. S got the hysteroscope in quickly with minimal pain.  Everything was hooked up to a full color monitor and I actually got to see the inside of my uterus.  It's shaped like a very wide banana and we could see the small opening for my fallopian tube at the top.  Dr. S was very happy to see no lesions, polyps, or fibroids.  It seems my lining issues have been resolved by consistent ovulation.

Dr. S has not decided on a protocol for our IVF cycle yet.  He is leaning away from using Clomid at this point due to the bad side effects that can occur.  We will likely be going with a low dose injectable cycle.  Once he decides and we get the pre-certification back from the insurance company we can go ahead and make all the needed appointments.

I spent the night in a bit of pain, mostly bad cramps, but luckily had no bleeding.  The antibiotics make me feel very ill and I ended up working from home today.  Hopefully next week will bring more good news and we'll be bale to start cycling soon.




Tuesday, January 28, 2014

IVF #1 is a go

My period showed up first thing Friday morning.  Left a message at the RE's office letting them know.  I was hopeful that this would bring an end to the radio silence I'd been receiving all week.  No call back on Friday.  By Saturday evening I was pissed off and left a not so nice message on the after hours line.  Sunday morning I got a call from my favorite nurse, E.  She was very apologetic, saying she had not received word about my call from Friday, and quickly set up baseline testing for Monday morning.  E also set up an appointment on Thursday for a hysteroscopy.

The hysteroscopy involves inserting a small fiber optic camera into the uterus to get a look at the lining.  If things look bad then Dr. S will do another endo biopsy right then.  Considering how much trouble lining has caused us over the past year, I'm very nervous about it.

There were very few people in the waiting room the following morning and I was called back almost immediately for the u/s.  It was Poker Face tech and she couldn't find my chart anywhere.  We had a financial meeting set up that afternoon in the satellite office and it seemed like the financial lady, R, had taken my chart.  Luckily it wasn't a big deal and the u/s was done quickly.  PF indicated that everything looked good.

Dave and I headed to the satellite office in the afternoon to meet with R.  I was surprised how in depth she went during the meeting, explaining every step of IVF.  She mentioned that our insurance had not sent in the pre-certification yet, but she figured it would come in any day now.  Worst case scenario would be they deny the pre-cert due to my lack of IUIs and Dr. S would write an appeal.  That would delay us about two weeks or so.  R reassured us that our insurance was generally easy to work with and was unlikely to deny our IVF request.

R was worried when I mentioned what cycle day I was on.  She said we would probably be delayed until March and I nearly freaked out.  She then asked about my monitoring appointment that morning and if I was willing to go on birth control immediately.  We made it clear that we would do anything needed to avoid delays in starting the cycle.  R was happy to hear that and figured we may only be delayed a week or two.

Around 4 I got a call from Nurse E.  Everything looked good from the morning's u/s and b/w so I was good to start birth control that night.  Dr. S has not settled on a protocol yet, but once he does we can set up the IVF class and the meeting with the embryologist.  I think things are going to come together very quickly and the next two weeks will be a whirlwind of appointments.  It's crazy to think that we could be doing a FET as early as March.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

One year later

This will be a quick post as I don't have much to update on.

Today marks exactly one year since our first appointment with Dr. S.  Never did I imagine we would be at this point one year later.  2013 was supposed to be filled with hope, now I look back on it as a year filled with pain and the failures of my body.  I can't even look at 2014 with any hope yet as we sit in limbo.  Dr. S has not returned my calls for an update on IVF.  I fear things are not moving so quickly with the insurance company, but I hope I'm wrong.

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Kitchen reveal


The past week was a complete whirlwind.  Tuesday and Wednesday I was down for the count with the flu.  Dave and I took Thursday off since the granite was being delivered and the backsplash installed.  All that was left to do was grout the backsplash on Monday.  We headed up to Boston after they finished on Thursday to go see my brother compete at the figure skating nationals.  He and his partner did very well and we had a great time seeing lots of family and friends.

The boss man wanted Dave in the office yesterday since they had some printing issues on Friday.  I swear the office folks turn off their brains when we're not there and forget how to problem solve.  Dave nearly missed my brother's short dance because the office and our tech company kept calling him over this printer issue.  Anyway, that left me to work from home as the guys finished up the grout.  Fun fact:  The head kitchen guy and his wife went to the same RE practice we go to.  They tried for 18 years, but his wife sadly miscarried five pregnancies.  In the end they chose adoption and have two beautiful children.

Everything was finished right before lunch and I instantly went into OCD cleaning mode.  Cleaned the counter tops, swept the floor, ran the dishwasher, and wiped down the cabinets.  So without further delay here is a look at our brand new kitchen!

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Closer look at the backsplash

There are a few things left to do before we can truly call the kitchen complete.  The biggest project will be painting the walls.  We'll be attacking the stubborn wallpaper header with the steam function on the iron, spackling nail holes, and sanding down some cracked paint spots.  The ceiling will probably need another coat of paint as well.  Also want to install some under cabinet lighting and have to do some research on that front.  Then it is just slowly moving things back into the kitchen and finding new happy homes for them.     

Dave and I are so happy with how the kitchen came out.  This is a project we've been wanting to do since we moved in.  While making dinner last night we didn't have to fight over counter space.  I diced vegetables on the buffet while Dave prepared the meat and cooked.  It was amazing.  With last year being full of disappointment it is nice to start the year off with a big check mark in the Pro column of 2014. 

Monday, January 6, 2014

2014, a year of possibilities

Happy New Year!  Things have been quite busy for the Wolf clan as our kitchen renovation is moving ahead at full steam.  All we are waiting on now is the granite, which they made the templates for today, and the backsplash.  We're stalled until the granite comes in so we are looking at a completion date of early next week.

There has been a lot happening in fertility news.  My u/s on Saturday showed three follies on the right at 19,18, and 12 and two follies on the left at 12 and 10.  Wanting to give lefty a chance to catch up Dr. S had me come in this morning for another round of monitoring.  We already had our consult scheduled for this afternoon so we'd talk over the results then.  Dave was home with the kitchen guys so he met me at the office.

Unsurprisingly the lefties did not catch up and our IUI is cancelled.  When discussing our options moving forward Dr. S felt that IVF would be our best hope.  He actually said that he was thinking about me today during an ER (egg retrieval for IVF).  On 25mg Clomid I made more follicles than half of the women he was seeing that morning for ER.  At this point I mentioned Mini IVF and he had been thinking the same thing.  They don't usually do it in this center, but most women aren't like me.  He was going to go over it with his colleagues and bring our case to the table during their IVF meeting on Friday.

One big hurdle is going to be getting approval from the insurance company.  They require three IUIs to be completed and the use of super ovulation medications, like injects, to be completed before moving to IVF.  Hopefully the combination of my half uterus, cancelled IUIs, and crazy response to Clomid will be sufficient to bypass the requirements.  

Dr. S will call sometime next week to talk about the meeting and we'll go forward from there.