Adoption

I have always felt that even if I could have a child or children naturally that adopting a child would be a wonderful experience. I have spoke with a co-worker of Heather's who has adopted 2 girls from China and Dan has spoken with a co-worker who recently adopted a boy from China. They both were eager to meet with us to answer any questions we had and describe the process. They both said it was a wonderful and amazing experience and that was really nice to hear. Susan, Heather's friend, highly recommended the agency they used so today I contacted them about information and an application. The time period is very long from start to finish, over 2 years, so we are going to get started!

The adoption agency is http://www.lavida.org/

Another CD 3 ultrasound (10/25/07)

Well my second CD3 ultrasound showed not one, but two cysts on my right ovary. Left ovary is fine. So of course no clomid, etc this month. Since I have had 2 months in a row with cysts they are going to put me on birth control for a month to attempt to "flush the cysts out". Repeat an ultrasound sometime between Nov 12-15 (we plan on leaving for Maryland on the 13th for Debbie's wedding so I will probably try and get it that morning before we leave.). One cyst was the same one as last month which hasn't gone anywhere, a left over cyst from who knows when that wont go away for some reason. The other one was a corpus leutum which is a normal cyst that forms after ovulation so I guess I didn't wait long enough when I medically induced my period because my body was about to do it anyways, granted we get in a catch-22 if we just sit around and wait for weeks on my body to work right.

Its kinda depressing to get your hopes up for these ultrasounds only to find out you cant start the process to even give you a shot a becoming pregnant.

First CD3 Ultrasound (9/7/07)

September 7th 2007, my first CD 3 ultrasound. I was very excited today to start the process. The image on the left shows a normal ovary with several small follicles on it

I had 5 nice little follicles on one ovary and probably another 4 on the other however it also had a 20x22 hemorrhagic cyst on it.

Cysts are usually just “leftovers”. The normal cysts of ovulation dissolve away just before the period. An ultrasound on day 2 or day 3 usually shows no cysts. There should be small follicles but nothing over about 10 mm. However, sometimes the scan shows larger cysts. If the cyst is producing estrogen (can’t tell by looking), the clomid cycle can’t start. Taking fertility drugs will do nothing more than make the cyst bigger.

So now I wait, no more drugs or ultrasounds this month. Hopefully my body will naturally dissolve the cyst. I need to call them back on my next CD1.

Fertility Doctor

Decided to go to an actual fertility center to address this problem 1 year after my 1st pregnancy since it was now about 3 years of trying to get, and maintain, a pregnancy.
Here is what happened:

Well Dan and I had a nice long meeting today with my new Fertility Doctor. We sat down in his office and went over all the lab tests from Dan and I and came up with a plan for having a baby. He said there is no overwhelming reason why we cant make a baby naturally based on the labs. Said normal couples have a 20% chance but since we have tried basically unsuccessfully for almost 3 years now that our chance is more in 9% range. Based on the fact that my cycles are kinda irregular (anywhere from 30-38 days in between and only lasting like 2 days) and Dan's sperm count while in the normal range is on the lower side of normal (his was 30million and normal is 25-50million) we are going to start right off with medicines and insemination. The success rate for a combo of ovulation meds & intrauterine insemination (IUI) is 60-75% which is nice to hear. Course that is just pregnancy success, you still have chance for miscarry and stuff. Anyways I am pretty excited that we have an actual plan.

Day 1 (first day of period) - Call the doctor and tell them, hey its Cycle Day 1 (here on out called CD 1)

CD 3 - Ultrasound -- they want to check out my follicles and my uterine lining..sounds fun. make sure I don't have any cysts or other issues going on. If the anatomy checks out I start the meds.

CD 3 - Begin Clomid once a day until CD 7

CD 12 - Another ultrasound to make sure my follicles have reached the desired size, if not large enough I come back in 2-3 days. If they are of the right size I get to inject myself with HCG. HCG basically stimulates ovulation which in 90% of women cause them to ovulate between 36 and 40 hours from the injection time.

CD 14 assuming the ultrasound was good I take my shot that night and come in the morning of the 14th day for IUI.

Dan has to produce a sample in the lovely sample room, they then cleanse and concentrate the sperm. About an hour later they place it in me and I get to lay there for a couple hours reading a book or something.

CD 21 Lab work

CD 28 take a home pregnancy test. If positive I call the doctor. they will continue to monitor me up until week 12 where they will turn me over to an OB/GYN monitoring progesterone levels and trying to make sure I don't miscarry basically. If negative I call them on my next day 1 and start the process all over again. They said they typically will do 4 cycles before they move up the ladder of things to try.

Moved to Ohio, got pregnant!

We moved to Dayton, Ohio in August 2006. Actually got pregnant in August 2006 but it turned to be a blighted ovum. A blighted ovum is a common type of miscarriage. It happens when a fertilized egg implants in the uterus but the resulting embryo either stops developing very early or doesn't form at all. On November 13th (12 weeks) I had a D&C preformed. Although I was 12 weeks along really the pregnancy was only ~6 weeks developed according to the ultrasound.

Good news is Heather after a miscarriage of her own became pregnant again and later had a wonderful baby boy!

History

I felt like writing out this blog to keep track of my plan for fertility treatment and for adoption. A history of Allison & Dan's desire to have children. We got married in December 2003. In May 2004 we decided to start trying to have children. We were stationed at Fort Walton Beach at the time and Dan was on his first assignment with the Air Force and was traveling alot so the timing was poor to say the least. In May 2006 we did our first fertility workups. This included lab work for hormone levels, semen analysis and a Hysterosalpingogram (HSG) to check my fallopian tubes out. We did these tests at the Air Force base with a OB/GYN. The tests showed nothing overwhelming wrong with us, so we didn't start any medicine or any further testing at this time.