Bringing You Up to Present : Test Results and Clomid Cycle #3

This post will effectively get y'all caught up to the present day and where I'm at with this fertility journey.

At our sit-down with Dr. M, she wanted to check my insulin and glucose to determine if the Metformin dosage was adequate. Turns out, my buddies I & G are just fine. My insulin resistance is well-controlled by the 1000mg of Met I take every day so she is going to leave that alone.

Mr. Lost went for his semen analysis. It was a little bit of a "production" getting the appointment set and getting him to the hospital. My hubby and I are what I call "good kids" - we like to play by the rules and do exactly what we are supposed to. This meant that Mr. Lost was not particularly thrilled with the idea of being late to work just because he had to "produce a sample". But, as I explained to him, it's at least a 45 minute drive from our house to the only place is this area that does SA. The sample needs to be tested within one hour of being produced, and we were told that to drop off a sample meant that we had to stop at the hospital's registration area anyway - that process alone would add a good 15 minutes. It was in our best interests to have him produce the sample right at the hospital so they could test it immediately and (hopefully) remove any question as to timing or freshness of the sample. He agreed, but he was definitely on edge because of the "good kid" factor and certainly because I think to have your semen analyzed is, on some level, having your very manhood questioned. I understand that they (the men) feel this way, but I don't really "get it". I don't feel like less of a woman because my ovaries don't work. I guess some women do, but I've never (or at least, not yet...) had that feeling.

Anyway. His results.

(Not Mr. Lost's swimmers, just a picture from the interwebs.)

• Total Sperm Count : A normal result is anything above 40 million. He had 46 million in the sample they measured, so that's good. 
• Motility (the number of little guys that are swimming properly) : This number should be above 50%. For Mr. Lost, he had 57% of his swimmers mobilized and moving around. 
• Morphology (the physical characteristics of the sperm - are the tails the right length? are they straight? is the head attached correctly? etc etc etc...) : For the purposes of determining how well-suited the sperm are for fertilizing an egg, a rather strict metric is used to analyze the sperm. If more than 14% of the sperm meet this tighter threshold, it's considered to be an excellent result. Between 5 and 14% is considered OK. Mr. Lost was down at 6%. Dr. M spoke to one of the other doctors in her group about this. Apparently this other doc "dabbles" in some insemination. He's not a specialist, but I guess he plays around at it. Anyway, he said that he has seen couples with a morphology of 6% go either way. It's about 50/50 as to whether or not that morphology will be a limiting factor in getting pregnant. So, Dr. M didn't really come out and say it, but reading between the lines tells me that if we are going to have a problem on my hubby's side of this, it's going to be with that morphology number. Furthermore, Dr. M is very pleased that we do have an appointment coming up with a specialist, even though we are doing a 3rd Clomid cycle right now. This leads me to believe that perhaps this morphology result could be significant. 

So, with those results in hand and a fresh batch of meds, we embarked on Clomid Cycle #3. 

I timed the Provera to jump start my cycle so that, 1) we wouldn't be having to baby dance while The Outlaws were visiting for Easter, and 2) we wouldn't be having to baby dance right before Mr. Lost had his semen analysis done, since the test requires at least 2 days abstinence before hand. 

April 6 was cd1. There was nothing remarkable about the flow. However, what has put an asterisk on this cycle is that fact that a loverly intestinal bug struck on cd2. Yes, right when The Outlaws were here for Easter. Yes, the day before I started taking the Clomid. The loverly bug stuck around until cd6, which means that I have no clue as to whether or not the Clomid was properly metabolized by my body. I don't know if enough of it stuck around to do its job. 

As far as side effects go, during cycles 1 and 2 I experienced hot flashes or just a general warmer than normal body temp. This was not the case during this 3rd cycle - BUT, I was more emotional after coming off the Clomid right around the time I could have theoretically been ovulating. 

The other reason we have a very large asterisk next to this cycle is that the baby dancing didn't happen as often as it should have. As in, it only happened once. We were both feeling a little run down and tired, so it was hard to muster up the energy even though we knew we were supposed to be doing the deed. Mr. Lost is in a busy time at work right now, and he admitted that the stress was probably playing a part. In addition, we've been pretty busy on the homefront which adds to stress for both of us. I will say, though, that on cd 13 when we did the baby dance, I'm pretty sure I had some egg white mucous going on. So maybe we caught things at the right time.

It's a toss up, really. Hence the big giant asterisk. 

The star that means this cycle was less than ideal.

And to be perfectly honest, there is a part of me that said, "Screw it." to this cycle once we found out that we did, in fact, have an appointment with a specialist. A big (HUGE) part of me is tired of dicking around (Pardon the pun, and my language.... if you haven't noticed yet, I occasionally have a bit of a potty mouth.) with no real clue as to what is going on down in Ovary Land. 

So it will be whatever it will be. 

I have to call Dr. M's office to set up the progesterone check for tomorrow. 

I have to call the specialist (Dr. G) to find out if I'm supposed to be getting any paperwork or pre-registration paperwork in advance of next week's appointment. It's scheduled for May 2, which coincidentally (or ironically) is the 5 year anniversary of my mother passing away. 

I have to sit and take things one day at a time, growing ever more impatient for next week's appointment. 

And did I mention that the appointment is on cd27? Even though it will be too early, I'll pee on a stick that morning just in case this cycle meant something after all.

I'll pee on that stick even though I'm sure I won't see two lines.

I'll pee on that stick even though I'm doubtful that I ovulated this month. 

I'll pee on that stick even though Dr. G will probably order up a blood test anyway for confirmation.

I'll pee on that stick because even though this cycle has a big giant asterisk next to it, I still have hope inside me. 

Next week, I'll be sure to post the outcome of that visit. Until then, if you hear the sound of fingers drumming on a table, it's probably just me - expressing my impatience. May 2 seems so very far away.