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.

The Shades of Gray

Okay get your mind out of the gutter.  This is NOT a post about 50 Shades of Gray.  (although I'll admit to reading the books and could probably write a pretty entertaining post about them!)  It's about the shades of gray that lie between black and white.  And opinions that vary between experts.

I think I mentioned to all of you that my clinic has a new doctor.  I'm excited about this for a couple reasons.  #1 - she's a woman.  I like this.  #2 - she provides a fresh perspective to my case.  As most of you know we had a phone consult with CCRM and if the outcome of this next FET (with our last 2 frozen embryos) is not successful we will be packing our bags for Colorado.  However, since we still have the 2 embryos we opted to see them through first, before moving on to a new clinic.

That being said, it was great timing when Dr. Emmi joined our clinic.  I had a bad moment when Nurse Jenny informed me that I needed to re-do ALL of my initial testing since it has been 18 months since I started at the clinic.  That was hard to hear.  Obviously I fully envisioned at least graduating from the clinic by this point, if not holding our baby in my arms. (oh how naive I was!).  But since that's obviously not the case we went ahead and took the 8 tubes of blood for all of the consultation tests.  When we did this the first time the only number I was informed of was my FSH since it was elevated.  They told me that the rest of my levels came back within the normal range and I never pressed for the exact numbers.  This time I got the call that my thyroid level was a little high and they wanted to re-test it to determine if Dr. Emmi would treat me for that during cycle.  I did some research and came up with mixed results (shocking I know).  Basically you aren't considered to have hypothyroidism (under active) unless your TSH levels are over 5.5. However there is an ongoing controversy among RE's and more and more of the experts are proclaiming that the normal range needs to be revised to .3 to 3.0.  After reading all of this information I was anxious to get retested if only so I could find out how "high" my level was.  I went in this morning for the blood draw and Nurse Jenny told me that my TSH from last week came back at 3.2.  She confirmed that Dr. H just wanted to see levels under 4, but Dr. Emmi wanted to see them under 3.  Interesting.

Now we wait to see what the re-test comes back as.  Jenny seemed to think if it was under 3.0 she won't treat me but if it's over that, even in slightest, she will most likely put me on meds.  Either way it's refreshing to have that new perspective and feel as if someone is really examining my case.

I start suppression meds next week and then we'll really get this party started.  I'm so looking forward to crossing off the days until transfer.  No I don't ENJOY giving myself shots but at least it feels like we are doing something more than waiting.  Our last transfer (which resulted in a chemical) was in Aug.  In some ways that feels SO long ago and in others I'm shocked that it's been 5 months.  Now that the wait is almost over I'm glad that we did the procedures and the Lupron Depot.  I'm hopeful that my body will be in the best condition for this transfer.  And I'm praying that  9 months from now I'll be holding one (or both!) of those little embryos in my arms.