Back Story : Clomid Cycle #2 & Sit-Down with Dr. M

Wow. Ok. So, I'm sitting  here getting ready to write the story of our second attempt at conceiving with Clomid and I realized that the details are already starting to get a little fuzzy. It was only February - not eons ago! Thank goodness I have a file on my 'puter called something like "Project Baby Timeline". Here goes.


When we last left this story, Clomid Cycle #1 had been a bust, but Dr. M (my gyno) was pretty sure I had ovulated. She didn't want to tweak my med dosages or anything - just repeat at 50mg of Clomid and continue with the Metformin at 500mg twice a day. No biggie.

Cycle Day (cd) 1 of the second cycle fell on cd34 of the first cycle, so I felt pretty sure that I was ovulating later along in the cycle rather than on the "average" cd14. My period was normal-to-heavy in terms of flow - surely this cycle would "mean something" because here we were, already starting off better than the first cycle with its "is it or isn't it?" level of flow. I again took the Clomid on cd3 through cd7. This time, since I thought I was ovulating later along, we postponed the baby dancing until cd 11, 14 and 17.

I went for the progesterone check on cd21.

So much for think that this cycle might be The One.

Progesterone clocked in at a WHOPPING 1.something-or-other.

One-point-too-damn-low.
One-point-ain't-gonna-happen-this-month.
One-point-stupid-f-ing-ovaries.

One-point-let's-make-an-appointment-and-figure-this-out.

One-point-let's-try-again.

I had very light spotting on cd25 though 30. Waaaayyy too light to ever be considered a period. Lighter than that whole "is it or isn't it?" flow that led into the first Clomid cycle.

On cd46, we had an appointment with Dr. M to figure out what in the world was going on. And also to discuss having Mr. Lost tested. Because scheduled baby dancing is not fun, and it's even less fun when you don't know if you're even in the appropriate magic window in time. Here's the rundown of that conversation:

{Thank God I messaged some close friends about the appointment shortly after it happened so I can relay all the info here. And this is (one of the reasons) why I keep this blog - so I can remember everything that's happened on the journey.}

• She prescribed 10 days worth of Provera to jump-start a period.
• She kept me on the 50mg dose of Clomid rather than increase because she thinks that I did respond well in January with the 1st cycle. She thinks that I probably did ovulate, but that timing or other factors just didn't make for success (success = positive preg test).
• She's adding Prometrium (progesterone) on cd14 - 23 to ensure that my uterine lining is thick enough for implantation. That's a picture of it to the right. Little pink balls. She said it's possible that egg and sperm met in January, but that the low progesterone number meant that my lining wasn't thick enough for implantation. 
• She ordered up a round of blood work to check my insulin and glucose in order to make sure the 1000mg of Metformin is enough. She doesn't want to bump it up because she doesn't want to make me suffer the side effects if I don't need to. 
• She ordered up a semen analysis for Mr. Lost. He is less than thrilled about this, but realizes it is necessary. I just want to make sure that we aren't wasting our time - if something is wrong with him, nothing we do with Clomid or anything else is going to make a difference. She said that if Mr. Lost's results are abnormal, we'll be moving on to a specialist - a reproductive endocrinologist. If his results are OK, we'll see how the 3rd cycle goes. If my progesterone is still not right, or if we don't get pregnant, we'll be seeing the specialist. 

Dr. M really wanted to give it one more shot (the 3rd) cycle because she's so sure that I ovulated in January - I'm just not O-ing regularly. I am less confident about January. The internet research I've done indicates that a progesterone result higher than 5 indicates ovulation, but that really, higher than 10 is preferred.

I asked about more testing . monitoring to try to pinpoint or at least narrow down when ovulation is occurring, but that isn't really her thing. She doesn't specialize in infertility, so she doesn't do that sort of thing.

I explained that we have friends who have gone through this infertility thing and then wound up at adoption, and that from what we've heard, certain agencies won't adopt if a parent is over 40. She hadn't heard that, which surprised me, but at least it gave her some understanding on our timing and desire to be more efficient / aggressive. Medically speaking, 37 for Mr. Lost and 31 for me are perfectly fine ages to make a baby so it isn't so much the biological clocks that are ticking the loudest here.

The next post will reveal the results of all that testing and talk about where we stand right now, which is in the middle of Cycle #3.