Progress

There has finally been some progress! A week before last I was finally able to secure my referral to a specialist. I was given two choices, a place in Woodbury, or St.Paul. My first thought was the place in Woodbury, so I called there and left a message about my referral and wanting to come in. Then later that day I was looking up both places, and the place in St.Paul sounded better. The doctor there, Dr.John Malo - had many glowing reviews and has been noted as a top fertility specialist/ doc in the Twin Cities by Minnesota Monthly, and Minneapolis/St.Paul Magazine. So I decided that I would want to call them as well. I left a message with their new patient coordinator, and we ended up playing phone tag for several days, until finally we were able to connect via e-mail. After reading more about the clinic that he is at, The Center for Reproductive Medicine, I decided that I really wanted to go there. A lot of the options that they had there, seemed to be what I would be interested in, so I was happy with my choice. I got my initial consul set up, and to my surprise it was going to be in a little over a week, not the 2 months that my original Drs office said it might be. Another reason that I was happy with my choice was that I never did hear back from the office in Woodbury until a day or two before my appointment with Dr. Malo.

I just had my first appointment yesterday. I was really nervous, not only because I didn't know what to expect, but I was nervous that my charts and information of everything that I have been through before coming there wasn't going to get sent over in time. I had called my Drs office to see about getting everything over, and had one hell of a time dealing with the lady that takes care of it all. Not only because I was trying to figure out  if my information was getting there, but I also wanted to make sure that the results from the only test that Micah had to do, a semen analysis (SA), also got sent over. So I had faxed over the release forms, and I called the lady to see if I had sent the forms to the right place for Micah. I wanted to know if my OB had the results or if I needed to send the info to someone at United Hospital because that was where the test was performed. Well the lady kept saying "I don't know." Which made me all pissed, how could you not know, can you check? Well come to find out after arguing and getting all mad, that because of HIPAA she COULDN'T tell me. Well WTF why couldn't you have told me that from the start, that you couldn't tell me?? It would have saved me a huge work-up that ended up with me crying. Stupid jerk. 

Anyways, back to the appointment. They had sent me a bunch of paperwork before hand which I had filled out to give the Dr a little bit of a background, and there was a bit more to fill out when we got there. We first met with a nurse and we just went over my history and she wanted to know kind of the timeline thus far as far as when I started trying to conceive and when I first went on the medications that I have tried thus far. Which were provera - to give me a regular period, clomid - to stimulate ovulation, estrogen - which helps the uterine lining prepare for fertilization, and progesterone - which helps support early pregnancy, and I think helps with the luteal phase of a cycle. After that she asked about what tests I had performed and when. As well as any other things that would be helpful for the Dr. Then we waited in the waiting room until he was done with another couple. We got called, and the Dr wanted to do an ultrasound to start, to get a look at what was going on and check out my ovaries and such. So we went into the ultrasound room and the Dr came in and introduced himself and then did a vaginal ultrasound. He took several pictures and looked at both ovaries, the right one had one very good looking follicle and a few smaller. The left one had nothing. He had me get dressed and then we went to his office. He said that from what he saw of my charts I had been getting good care, and the Dr I had been seeing had been doing all the right tests and procedures so far. All my tests had come back fine, which was good. And Micah's SA had come back with good results as well. He talked about the meds that I had been on and said that its good what they had prescribed to me, and called them 'the  cheap and easy' drugs they are always the first tried because they are just that, cheap and easy to take. He went on to talk about my options now, the next step is to take inject-ables. Which are shots that are given at certain times in your cycle to trigger ovulation. Then after ovulation you go in and get intrauterine insemination or IUI. You go in a specific time after a trigger shot, and then they take all the good swimmers and concentrate them and insert them up into the site of fertilization, increasing the chances that the sperm and egg will mix well. They generally try the shot triggers and IUI about 3-4 times or cycles, and then its time to look at other options such as moving into IVF. So needless to say I really, really, really hope it works and we don't have to think about IVF. I don't know that I want to go there. So here's hoping!!!