Be Your Own Advocate

I hope you all know how grateful I am for this community.  When I set out to see what the infertility blog world was all about my sole reasoning was to have someone to talk to who truly understood what we were going through.  But the more women I met, the more involved I got, I began to realize there's so many benefits that I didn't expect.  Most recently this community has given me the confidence to be my own advocate.  When I got my diagnosis I immediately began researching, which is what actually led me to the blog world.  While I recognized I would never be an expert I wanted to at least understand what all of these tests and procedures were about, what the drugs I was injecting into myself did, and what the potential risks and outcomes were.  I quickly got up to speed on my diagnosis, my options, and the procedures and drugs.  However even equipped with all of this knowledge I still lacked the confidence to even ask some of my questions to my doctor.  There's been times throughout this journey that I questioned a choice he made or wondered if another option might be better.  But for the most part I just conceded to the fact that he was the one with the initials after his name, the years of experience, and the expertise.  But thanks to you guys for the first time I felt strong enough to speak my mind.

The re-test of my TSH level came back at 2.9.  My doctor was comfortable with that level and opted not to treat me.  However, after researching and some great advice from many of you, I got the courage to challenge her about this decision.  A lot of the studies I have been reading suggest the optimal TSH level for a woman trying to get and stay pregnant is between 1 and 2.  At 2.9 I was BARELY under what my Dr. was comfortable with.  I couldn't find any information that discussed your level could be too low.  But what I did find was a lot of studies that linked chemical pregnancies and early miscarriages to elevated TSH levels.  Now, while mine is clearly not "elevated", it is above what they were calling the optimal range.  So after stewing on it for the weekend I composed an email this morning to my doctor.  I included some of the more powerful articles I had read, and reminded her of both my early miscarriage and my chemical.  I explained that I didn't want to challenge her, I only wanted to give this transfer the best possible chance we could.  In what was surprisingly a quick response she agreed to put me on 25mcg of thyroid replacement and to re-check my levels in 3 weeks.

I feel good about the fact that I pleaded my case and even better about the fact that we are going to try and get it down to the optimal level.  Most importantly I'm so glad that I can move forward confident that I've down everything I can to make this cycle a success.  Meds start tomorrow - 4 weeks from transfer.  Let's do this.