4/24/08 - My first meeting with Dr. Hinckley

LOVED my doctor! She talked SO fast though. But she surely knows her stuff!

She did a transvaginal ultrasound. When she whipped out the...uh, we'll call it a dildocam, I just about died. But she turned the screen towards me and I was just in aw!

So my cervix is tilted forward perfectly, my uterus was great - no fibroids and she said my lining was perfect for this point in my cycle. My ovaries looked good - right side had 6 follicles (2 mature), left side had 4 (1 mature). When the follicle is mature, it bursts to release the egg from the ovary. Usually only one per cycle. She said she would have liked to have seen 15, but she said 10 is good.

She said she didn't think I had endometriosis because my periods are so normal - normal flow, normal cramping, nothing mid-cycle. They can only confirm it surgically. So we'll be holding off on that for sure. She wants to send me for a few more tests - she didn't go into detail, but the nurse is going to call me. I think probably hormone tests after I ovulate to make sure the progesterone is getting up high enough. Scott has to go there and do a sperm analysis because it will be more detailed than the one Kaiser did 3 years ago. They need to know exactly what the motility and morphology issues are/may be. She said his count was great.

If Scott's sperm checks out, and she didn't anticipate my hormones having any issues based on my charts, she wants to more forward with hysterosalpingogram (HSG). HSG is an X-ray of the uterus, fallopian tubes and ovaries. They shoot dye into the cervix. If the dye doesn't make it to the ovaries, they know there is a problem. If there isn't blockage, it can also really open them up. A lot of people get preggers after an HSG without any other treatment. She also wants me to take clomid and do artificial insemination (IUI) all in the same cycle. I think I'll ask her to do the HSG and clomid, and then do IUI the next cycle. We'll see if she agrees. If my tubes are blocked, I'd hate to spend the money on the IUI.

She'll do three IUI cycles, then move on to three cycles of follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) shots. She said I have to be sure I'm okay with twins or triplets w/ the FSH shots. Agh! Twins okay, triplets...shoot me now! If that doesn't work, then we discuss IVF. At $14,000, I'm praying to God that we don't have to go there.

So we're on our way! She wants to start right away. Looking at the calendar, I would be fertile the day AFTER "the layoff day", so we can probably go for it starting in early May. I'm so scared to end up pregnant with twins, and unemployed with no medical insurance. But that won't happen, right? Right?