yesterday we headed down to charlotte to meet with my RE for our follow-up visit. he pretty much told us what i expected. all my numbers were great throughout the process. well up until retrieval that is. he had expected to see more eggs retrieved, which i did too. he also said the quality of the embryos weren't as good as he had expected either. he said they fertilized great and were initially growing fine but if they slow down or stop growing after day 3 it usually means it's a male factor issue. so for my next cycle we're going to do pretty much the same thing we did last time but bump up the dosage of the stimulating meds. he is also adding another drug called ganirelix which prevents eggs from being released prematurely. not sure if that was the case with my last cycle but it would explain why the numbers were so low. he also suggested aaron start taking an antioxidant supplement called ConceptionXR. as for dates, we've decided to wait one more cycle and start the process in late february which means the ER (egg retrieval) and ET (egg transfer) will be in late march/early april. we have a trip planned for early march where the tickets and hotel are already paid for, so if we would have started with this next cycle it would have definitely fallen into that time frame. so that's the western medicine update.
as far as acupuncture goes. i had my diagnostic meeting last tuesday. the first 1.5 hours we spent talking about anything and everything that could be interfering with our ability to conceive. sleep, digestion, kidney function, stress. he was very detailed and thorough with his questions, which i find most other doctors are not. the first thing he suggested: we fix my sleep habits. so that's what we're concentrating on now. not sure if the needle session concentrated on that or the infertility aspect. i ended up with a needle in each hand, five in the stomach and three in each foot. did i feel any different after the session? no, not at all. do i feel any different today? no. i asked my RE what he thought about acupuncture and infertility yesterday and he pretty much told me the only thing it'll probably help with is stress relief. i'm pretty much thinking the same thing. if it helps with anything else, great. but i'm not expecting much. i have another appointment tomorrow and i set up one for aaron for next tuesday. i already know that the appointment will be aaron's first and last.
aaron: "how did your appointment go?"
sue: "good. (blah, blah, blah) then he asked me to stick out my tongue and told me my liver wasn't functioning properly cause it was pale along the sides."
aaron: "WHAT!?!"
and that was pretty much his reaction to everything i told him. i thought maybe i wasn't explaining it right (i'm the poor layman), cause it kinda made sense to me when the acupuncturist was explaining it. i just have a feeling that east isn't gonna meet west as far as aaron's concerned. we'll have to see. ;)
3 comments:
I am wishing you luck this time around. Tell Aaron to start taking zinc and folic acid. My hubby took those on our furst IVF and his boys were GREAT!!!! Good luck. :)
Yes we will be on almost the same cycle :) I took ganirelix during my last cycle and I think you will like the protocol, if it's the same. It was called the "antagonist" protocol and I didn't take lupron. So it's less shots and I think that makes it easier. I did acupuncture during my first cycle and as you know, I didn't get prego, but it really helped to relax me. Also, she healed my knee, which my orthopedist could not do (he wanted to do surgery). We have a mini-vaca coming up too, just before we start the next cycle. Good luck and I'll be in touch :)
My husband will NOT do yoga, acupuncture, any of that "hokey stuff". *shrug* It's expensive anyway so less for him = more for me.
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