The Doctor

I interrupt this blogging story to tell you about our Labor Day weekend. Friday night we went to a hip hop fundraiser concert in which two of my husband's favorite artists performed, Manchild and Playdough. We had a great time and two of our friends Paul J. Kim and Casestudy also performed. Saturday we did housework, which sounds boring but it was so nice to do it together, we also got to sneak in watching some episodes of The Waltons. Sunday we went to Mass earlier than usual and went to a Dodger game with some friends, the Dodgers won in an exciting 9th inning. I am not a Dodger fan but it was fun to go and be with friends. I would have posted pictures if I took any, I am not very good at taking pictures at events. Monday I studied with my practitioner intern partner in crime for a few hours. We got an unexpected guest during dinner which was a very pleasant surprise! Then we went to a friends house for game night and did not end up playing any games because by the time everyone stopped socializing to play games, we had to go because of our early bed time for work the next day.

Ok, back to the story...  

As we prepared to meet with this new Dr. we anticipated having to fight for them to listen to us as we had done with the other Drs. we had seen. On the other hand we were very hopeful because we knew that this Dr. was at least Catholic and would respect our beliefs regarding A.R.T and artificial hormones. We were willing to pay the out of pocket expense and drive the 1.5 hrs-2hrs. just to see if we could start getting some answers. I have to admit I was a bit pessimistic going into the appointment thinking that this was just going to be the same routine of disappointment of no answers or the answers were going to be grim, I am a melancholic and we tend to imagine the worst case scenario.

As we were driving into the town we noticed that the town was small and passed a homemade, or as my husband likes to say ghetto Ron Paul for president sign nailed to a tree. We were thinking, where the heck are we? We finally get to the Dr.'s office and are met by a smiley receptionist. She hands us the paperwork to fill out and some of our fears are calmed by the Dr.'s mission statement, which is totally Catholic. As we waited for the Dr. in the exam room I was expecting a woman around 40-50 yrs. old. I was surprised as a pregnant woman that looked like she was our age came into the room. I was taken aback by the fact that she was so young and around 8 months pregnant! When I first saw her I thought "Sure, rub it in we are not pregnant and may never be"(there is that pessimism again).

We were surprised at how well we connected with the Dr. She was attentive, answered all our questions and looked at our sympto-thermal charts. She was also very cool and humble and did not give off that prideful, I went to medical school and you didn't vibe that we get from other Drs. She advised us to start taking Creighton classes because we were already coming in with infertility issues and she needed a clearer picture of what was going on. She explained her infertility work-up process and she said to come back after we had 2 months of good charting. After that appointment we felt comfortable with her and decided to try and get her covered under our insurance. It took us awhile to get our insurance to cover our treatments with her, I will not go into those details here but if you would like to know how we did it you can email me.

We have been working with this Dr. for a little over two years now. In those two years we have discovered that I have PCOS or PCOD (polycysctic ovarian syndrome/disease), my thyroid is a bit off and I had pelvic adhesions that were causing me so much pain. I had also been suffering from severe PMS from the lack of progesterone that my body was not making. I have to say that I have the most supportive and patient husband who has loved me through this all. There would be times where I would be having a very bad PMS episode and he would pray for me and just hold me. What this Dr. diagnosed was a very different picture than that of "fine" my previous Drs. had painted!

I am so thankful that we have at least gotten some answers after not having any for so long. During the hormone profile, I told my husband that if everything comes back normal I should go into intense therapy because that would mean I really am crazy.  After I had done my hormone profile and we sat down with Dr. Awesome she showed me that I probably have PCOS(boo) and that my progesterone level post peak was way low, like not even on the chart. Science lesson for today: before ovulation a woman's estrogen should be higher than her progesterone, after ovulation a woman's progesterone should be higher than her estrogen. Well in my case my estrogen was always high which makes for crazy cycles and a not so happy woman not to mention not a good place for a baby to make a home.

I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. You mean I am not crazy?! There really is something wrong?! After that appointment we went on cycle plans to try and conceive that included post peak bioidentical progesterone. Yay for progesterone!