Calendar Review!

The appointment went very well!  There is soooo much to read and learn! 

All the prescriptions have been faxed to the pharmacy in New Jersey.  Our coordinator tells us that this pharmacy has the cheapest follistim which is a few hundred dollars for one tiny vile!  She did say that we are on the cheaper side of the med scale at $2000 to $2500 (whoa - cheap?)  We will receive a large box of needles and meds by mail in the next couple of weeks.   One other good thing in regards to injectible meds - the oil injection - patients use to have to inject it every day towards the end but now there is a new prescription allowing every third day!  Whoo hoo!  I wasn't looking forward to a nightly date with that big ol' needle.  Eek!

I also just dropped off three prescriptions at our local pharmacy for a z pack, prescription prenatals (I have been taking otc ones for the last year with a separate folic acid pill) and one other med that I will take during stimming.  The prescription prenatal pills have over double the quantity of all the important stuff.   We learned how to inject the different types of meds and where to inject as well.  We also learned how to measure and mix some of the meds. We were given our follistim pen which is pretty neat.  It has a dial at the end that allows you to click to the dosage you need.  We both got a lesson on how to use it and a practice cartridge filled with saline.

And more information!  Pretty detailed information on medications and storage temps, tips and a little description of each med I will be taking as well as injection sites.
 
As far as the calendar goes, there will be many more ultrasounds the first and/or second week of March to monitor follicle growth but I won't know until later when those are.  I will get a whole new personalized calendar based on what has happened during stimming. 

Some neat things - the dexamenthasone (she told me it's side effects: jitters and hunger-great...)which is my first injectible med helps my body readily accept follicles, the follistim med stimulates the follicles and the lupron helps them grow.  The day of retrieval Jamie will give his specimen and drive me home, we will also get an approximate count of eggs retrieved that day.  The day after retrieval we will get a fertilization report letting us know a real count of how many eggs they retrieved  and then we will get reports every other day or so hopefully on how they are growing and how many there are. 

I hope that we make it to the egg transfer.  I hope that my body responds well to everything.  In hopes of preparing my body I am going to my first Acupuncture appointment tomorrow, I will write more about this tomorrow afternoon after I pick up Jamie from the hospital - he is getting an endoscope - poor thing.  We have had a couple of emergency room trips for him in the last four or five months.  We're a medically needy household!

Okay, one more thing I thought was neat.  My coordinator had two kids because of Dr. Ahlering!  She has PCOS too - a great success story that made me feel good.  Oh yeah, We have a trip to Chicago scheduled for Feb 19 and 20 which I am so glad won't be affected by our new calendar as I can't wait to see my friend Anna and her son Jack.  Guess we will be traveling with a small pharmacy! 

So, really there is just a lot of waiting going on here until the 17th of February!  Can't wait to get the show on the road!  Anxiously waiting for our first chance!   I have a question for you ladies that have done this before - how do you organize all of the meds, etc?  I was thinking about getting a large tupperware container for the fridge and counter as not all of them are refrigerated.  Any tips from the pro's?

More about acupuncture tomorrow!  :)

Our Meeting with Dr. Silber

So we went to meet with our second RE, Dr. Silber yesterday. I was and still am a little shocked with what he told us during our meeting. After introductions he reviewed my medical history, asked me about some of my PCOS symptoms, irregular menses and acne, etc. and asked me if I have noticed any changes due to Metformin which I have been taking for 9 months now. I replied, no. He said it's "stupid" for women with PCOS to be on Metformin and that drug companies are miss educating Doctors to boost sales. Now mind you, my family Doctor put me on Metformin in Jan when I was told I had PCOS. Then my Gynecologist upped my dose and finally my RE upped my dosage again and this Doctor is telling me that it's of no value at all!

He then went on to say that he believes there are two things women with PCOS need to do and only two things...take birth control when they AREN'T trying to get pregnant and use IVF when they ARE trying to get pregnant. I thought this was interesting.

Dr. Silber also said that he would only perform IVF if I was on birth control for a minimum of 2 to 3 months before starting the IVF process. I believe this is so that debris can be cleaned out of my system, i.e. old eggs, lining, etc.

It was interesting to hear a completely different view than the other doctor's have given me. His pricing was higher than the other Doctors by about 2K but I was intrigued by what he had to say.

We are looking forward to Dr. Ahlering on October 18 for our third and final opinion. We will have all that we need then to make our decision. We can't do anything until January when my insurance kicks in, so we have a lot of time to prepare.

Appointment with Dr. Silber-YAY!

Monday, September 28th Jamie and I will go to St. Lukes to meet with Dr. Silber and get his opinion on whether IVF is the appropriate next step to take. Apparently Dr. Silber has some other techniques that may meet our needs. I hear he is a straight shooter and I could use that right now. I am eager to meet him and I know J is too.

Where do we go from here?

Jamie and I had an appointment with Dr. Keller at the Washington University Infertility and Reproductive Center http://www.infertility.wustl.edu/ Friday, September 11, 2009. This was a "what to do next" type of meeting. The clomid I had taken four times previously had not worked. I was up to 200 mg of Clomid and 1500 mg of metformin. My body was not responding. I wasn't even ovulating. I was prepared for the next step to be injections which would be more costly than clomid but not as bad as IVF. Dr. Keller recommended in her meeting that we move right to the In-vitro Fertilization process which surprised us. The cost surprised us even more so. I always knew IVF was expensive, I had no idea just how much it would be.

It was hard for me to keep it together during the meeting. I wanted to be strong, but what I kept feeling was that I had a broken body. I feel responsible for Jamie having to go through this with me. I broke down in the elevator as soon as we walked out.

After talking about it, Jamie and I have decided to talk to another Doctor. It can't hurt to get some more pricing and learn of other procedures, right?