Labs are Done

A few months ago I emailed my IVF nurse, let's call her Marge...to inquire about doing an IVF cycle in January. I suspected that breastfeeding would pose some problems and I wanted to see if there were any supplements or medications that my doctor might recommend since we discovered that I have poor egg quality after doing our first IVF.

Marge responded immediately and recommended that I begin taking something called French Pine Bark. So I think I went to the store that same day and started popping those pills! She also said that I needed to have ceased breastfeeding for 3 months before we could attempt another IVF. Like I said, I suspected there could be some problems so I'm glad I checked! However, three months was a bit of a shock. I thought I'd just need to quit before I started the medications. But they want my body back in tip top "I can carry a baby" shape and breastfeeding MIGHT prevent that. 

And when we're forking over $15k for one single attempt at pregnancy we really don't want to take any chances!

So I thought about stopping but quickly realized neither one of us were ready so we pushed the date back further and decided we'd stop in January and aim for an April IVF.

So that is where we are now. I nursed my sweet girl for almost 17 months, an accomplishment that I'm very proud of. 

I then emailed Marge again and let her know we were "ready" to get the ball rolling. We got some lab orders in and my husband and I both had our blood drawn earlier this week and are awaiting the results.

I think its time I come up with names for my family...since we're anonymous here at Grow Blueberry Grow...this should be fun!

I'll just go with some names I like....Bryan, Katie, and Lauren. I'll be Katie. 

So Bryan had his blood drawn. One measley vial of blood. They're just checking him for infectious diseases. Meanwhile they took 5 from me. They're checking for infectious disease too, thryoid testing, clotting problems and one of the most important in my book: AMH.

Back in 2012 my AMH was a respectable 2.7. Very normal number for a woman of 31. At 33, almost 34, I must admit I'm pretty scared about what the number might be now. AMH gives you a round about figure of how many eggs you've got left. Obviously, the older we get the lower that number should be....but low numbers can be scary and extra expensive and lower the already low odds that we are going to get pregnant and have a baby!

And that's where we are now.

Our next steps: schedule a sperm analysis for Bryan, schedule a sonohysterogram for me, and then have a sit down with the RE, Dr. McBaby, and figure out our game plan!