Hey Berries. First off I'm really sorry for not checking in last night; we didn't get back til very late and I think everything caught up with me as I was fast asleep within minutes of getting home. Thank you all for the encouragement; it helped immensely and I did have to suppress a giggle during the hycosy part of the exam when I thought to myself that I needed to channel Berry Power to get through the extreme awkwardness that is a virtual stranger lubing up a dildocam next to you. Aaaaand breathe!
Ok so the deal is, both tubes are perfectly clear, my blood results and the consistency of my cycle indicate I'm ovulating every month (he was quite insistent about this, which surprised me) and that although my AMH number of 16.1 is low (insistent about that also, sob), it isn't disastrous, but given my age we need to crack on with things (duh). My antral follicle count is 16, 8 on each side, which he said was good and made him feel better about the AMH number.
Here's where it gets interesting. Back in Feb when I had a dildocam, the tech was surprised to see that two follies were ready to pop that month, when usually there's just one dominant one. Last night, the ultrasound showed a follicle on each side at 21mm, both on track to release eggs on apx Weds. He said it was v interesting that the two scans I've had both showed double releases, and said that it could be a hereditary thing, as I have a history of fraternal twins on both sides of the family. What's encouraging is that it could help account for the low-ish AMH number: if this is a regular-ish thing, then I'm blowing through my eggs more quickly than I ought to. Weirdly that has helped me put it into perspective, when before it just seemed shocking, given my other bloodwork. On the other hand, if I'm shooting out 2 eggs sometimes, and still nothing has happened despite double the odds....what the hell is the problem?? Anyway so he said I'll probably ovulate on Weds, and so to DTD on late Tuesday (tonight), Thursday and Saturday, leaving 1 day gaps between. This makes me reaaaaaallly nervous as you all know I'm a 1x/2x a day girl but we'll do as told.
The plan of action is to finish this cycle & hope for the best, then do 2 rounds of ovulation induction, which took me a while to realize is monitored clomid - clomid + scans to monitor follicle maturation and then a trigger shot to force ovulation, followed by sex within 4 hours. All to make sure that timing isn't the problem. He said it's possible that there's an implantation issue as a leuteal phase of 12 days 'could easily be problematic' (did not expect that) so I'll have to do a hideous progesterone suppository also, but that in his opinion there's no medical reason why TTC hasn't worked naturally thus far, so his gut feeling is that we'll wind up having to do IVF. I may have really tough eggs or some other issue that can only be addressed in a lab, and given my age and AMH result and the fact we've been trying for 14 mos with no result, that after 2 rounds of clomid/progesterone/monitoring, it'd be time to change course.
So. I feel utterly relieved at being in the care of a specialist, and wish we'd done this 6 months ago. He doesn't hold out much hope for Clomid doing the trick, but wanted to try it rather than jumping straight to IVF, which I appreciate as I know it'd help me mentally to know we'd tried all we could before getting that aggressive. The Hycosy wasn't exactly painless, but nothing a paracetemol and a deep breath couldn't take the edge off of. Afterwards I did feel stupidly tired and rather queasy which I'm not sure is normal but this morning I'm fine. So for the time being, I'm scaling back on the temping and the CBFM'ing and trying to think positive; this is not my "make or break" cycle anymore, and that's a relief.
Sorry so long! 