Monday, April 25, 2011

Diagnosis delivered

The diagnosis - idiopathic infertility, or unexplained infertility. Does it make me feel any better? No. However it also doesn't make me feel any worse. For the first time in some months I'm feeling quite excited about my infertility because we've been recommended to undergo in vitro fertilisation - IVF.

Initially I was a bit shocked when I attended my post-surgery follow up that my specialist recommended we move quickly into IVF. I'd geared myself for moving onto intra-uterine insemination (aka the medical turkey baster) for the next few months, before moving into IVF if that was unsuccessful. But then the doctor started showing me all the scary charts and percentages of conception and live birth at my age. 

I turn 36 in July. All things fertility have been declining since I was 25 and basically after 38 things start going rapidly downhill in fertility terms. So my specialist, who is clearly a pretty clever guy, is already thinking about my chances of having a second child if we keep taking the less invasive path. 

IVF involves stimulating the hormones that make women create an egg, while suppressing the hormone that makes the body actually ovulate the egg. This means a woman can mature a lot more eggs than in a natural cycle. These eggs are then harvested and fertilised in fancy little dishes. I will have my very own embryo technician who will monitor the embryo development and advise how many - if any - are looking good for transfer back into my uterus or to freeze for later use. 

It means a lot of cash out and a lot of drugs in. Yay! I get to inject them myself too. Double yay!

The treatment gets underway soon, starting with two weeks of nasal sprays to suppress the creation of the hormones that make the mature egg ovulate. If all goes to plan I expect we will be undergoing the egg harvest and embryo transplant in late May or early June. 

Once the embryo gets transferred back in there is two weeks to wait before we know if I am pregnant. Unfortunately given our history, there is then another 2-3 weeks to wait before we can have a scan to see if the baby is developing normally and in the right location. 

I'm excited about the possibility of it working. And I really hope it does.

As for my ectopic pregnancy, the lab tests of my fallopian tube confirmed I definitely had a pregnancy in  my fallopian tube. I also had a 2cm serous cystadenoma. A non-cancerous growth that really shouldn't be there. I'm not sure if the growth caused the tubal pregnancy or not, but either way that was the outcome. 

The ectopic pregnancy is behind me now. My eyes are firmly fixed on the next step.