Not Dead Yet - Part 1

We finally had our regroup with Dr. BloSunMyCha. The meeting started with, "how can I help you?" Uhhh, did you even look at my Day 2 results from back in June? Do you remember my name?

I know now why I waited almost three months to have our regroup. I knew that the news was not going to be good with my test results, but I wasn't quite prepared for the gloom and doom talk we got. It was the "almost donor egg" speech, but we are allowed to do IVF again with my eggs, with some conditions. It's the conditions I have a hard time with. I will save that for another post.

Let's review my test results from back on June 18th. The ideal will be in parentheses next to my test results.

FSH 15.4 (less than 10)
LH 5.9 (less than FSH)
Estrogen 85.5 (less than 50)
AMH 0.2(>1.0)
Resting follicle count 2 (>10)

The number that bothers me the most is the last number, my resting follicle count. All the numbers were "abnormal" except for the LH. I know that I would not have done IVF that cycle, but Dr. BloSunMyCha is in the camp of doctors that believes you are only as good as your worst FSH. He does not believe my egg quality will get any better. I think that is BS, but the resting follicle count AND the weird symptoms I have been getting the last few months worry me. Dr. BloSunMyCha gave me a less than 5% chance of getting pregnant with IVF. Ugh.

I'm at a point that I really do not know what to do. I asked if I could do my Day 3 testing again for my peace of mind. I want to know if anything I have been doing in the last three months has been making a difference. He warned me that if my FSH goes to 20 or higher, he will not let us do IVF with my own eggs. At that point, I won't want to either. Up to this point, Magic has been adamant that I use my own eggs. I asked him after our appointment, "what will you let me do?" I can't imagine not having children. I can't imagine leaving our spirit baby out there.

I was a little upset after our regroup, but honestly, I had already done much of this grieving and I had to go to work. I had a big project I was working on for today and a big grant application due Friday. It would have to wait until after work until I could get back to processing all this.

Evil-FSH-Pee-Sticks Part II

Following up to my post on Evil Pee Sticks for FSH this week, my blogroll popped up this post today from the High FSH Info Blog. I discovered this blog when I was trying to find the IVF clinic in Massachusetts of Dr. Car.done. Em, my acupuncturist, told me a story of a client of hers. She was young, late 20s/early 30s, but had high FSH. She did try cycling at BigShotFertilityClinic, but she ovulated while stimming and had to be twice cancelled. She finally decided to work with Dr. Car.done's clinic because another friend of hers got pregnant there.

There are two camps of REs. The first camp believes that once you have one high FSH, you are doomed for the rest of your life to have poor egg quality. All the REs I have been to are in this camp, including BigShotFertilityClinic. Those of you who commented that I can get this test done with my RE or Gyno, of course I know that after having gone through two IVFs and many other fertility procedures, but I don't want to be branded for the rest of my fertile life by a high FSH. That is the reason I would buy the evil-FSH-pee-sticks.

The second camp of REs, like Dr. Car.done, will do IVF on patients with high FSH, but only in cycles in which the FSH has dropped to an acceptable number. They believe that you can get pregnant in a cycle when your FSH is low. The client I described above had her FSH tested monthly. Once her FSH was low, she started her stim drugs for that cycle, no suppression ahead of time. She did end up getting pregnant.

The first FSH test I had done was very high, almost 18. Since I had it done at a lab that was not at a fertility clinic, I did have to repeat it at my clinic at the time. After getting the first donor egg speech by RE#1, I was devastated. I scoured the internet for information and found a reference to Randine_Lewis' book "The Infertility Cure". After reading in her book that "eggs do not have an expiration date", I had hope! I started acupuncture and Chinese herbs immediately. After a couple of weeks, I had my FSH tested and it was 6. However, my estrogen was high, over 100, so I was not out of the woods with a poor egg quality/DOR diagnosis. My theory is that the fibroids were causing my estrogen to be high. I went on to have them removed and passed a Clomid.challenge test with flying colors at age 40, which I did acupuncture and Chinese herbs through. My RE#3 didn't know what to think of that first FSH, but he was kind enough to brush it off as a lab error.

For those of you with high FSH, you may also be interested in checking out the High FSH Info website. You can find a list of Reproductive Endocrinologists there who work with high FSH patients.