Today was testing day! I didn't sleep well last night (I had figured I wouldn't). Dominic woke me up at 5 when he got up and he went and got my box of prenancy tests (he hid them from me so I wouldn't take any early). I waited the required 3 minutes and found out that we aren't pregnant. I had kinda expected we wouldn't be as we only had a 14% chance of it working on the first try. Now we just have to wait for my cycle to start so that I can go back on the hormone pills and we can start all over again. I am rather excited to have a week without extra hormones coursing through me. I didn't get mean, but all the extra hormones make me queasy and tired, which I don't like. We are going to try the same treatment this month and we now have a 25% chance of getting pregnant. If my follicles aren't where the docs want them to be this month, we are moving to injections next month, provided I don't get pregnant.
So I've been doing a lot of reading about PCOS and trying to figure out what it is and what all it means and so forth. When I saw my doctor last week, he went over all my lab results which helped to explain part of why we've not been able to get pregnant. Two of my main hormone levels are backwards. My body also doesn't break down insulin, which causes fertility issues and puts me at an increased risk of getting adult onset diabetes...which I've been told since I was a teenager I would probably have, so no surprise there.
I wish that more doctors knew about PCOS. I've always had an irregular cycle and when I was a teenager and in my early 20's, the solution I was always given was to go on birth control to regulate my cycle, no one ever wanted to run tests to find out what the problem might be. It wasn't until we had been trying to have a baby for over 2 years before we even had any tests run to see what the problem might be, and even then, my doctor said that I didn't have PCOS, but they couldn't give me an answer as to what was going on. It wasn't until we started seeing a specialist that we got any answers. There would have been a lot less heartache and doubt had I found out when I was a lot younger that I would have an issue having kids someday.
Infertility is such a wide spread issue these days. Women are told to be so careful when they are pregnant, but it used to not be that way. Women were given all kinds of medications while they were pregnant that we now know contrbute to all kinds of health and medical problems. I wish that more insurance companies and employers would add more to their insurance plans to help with infertility. We're lucky that our insurance will pay for $2000 per year, but they will only cover hormone pills, absolutely no injections, because according to the insurance company, pills are all you need, injectables are elective. I can kinda see the point of that, but at the same time, our chances of getting pregnant are much better on injectables then on pills. Also, $2000 doesn't cover much. I'm trying to find out right now what all is considered Advanced Reproductive Technologies (ART). What is considered ART greatly affects how many tries we get each year. We can't afford to pay for very much out of pocket because I'm already paying for a number of things out of pocket...so we only get as many tries as insurance allows.
Infertility is very frustrating and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I'm doing my best to handle it all and I am lucky to have a great support system, but I know that isn't the case for everyone, which is sad.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment