joycep that result sounds really good, woo hoo!
euro if your DH has a family history of prostate problems then I really would urge him to see a Dr. When DH had his checks they had a pretty thorough feel of his prostate because the Dr said it can cause problems, and I think low volume is one of the signs.
princess I have pcos despite not really having any of the classic signs. I'm slim and my periods are pretty regular, although I now know this means nothing. I'm sorry your parents upset you. I've not told mine, I think my mum would be ok but she'd want to know everything and would tell everyone all about it. She can't do discretion!
artemis that was a pretty awful thing for your friend to say. Maybe she was having a bad day and it came out wrong!
keepitgoing I wouldn't worry about the SWI and swab thing. I'm sure they've seen it all before. I hated it when I had to have the internal ultrasound for the follicle tracking and the Dr had told us to SWI every day so there would definitely have been some deposits there. Yuk.
wine I am so happy for you that DrBig has found the fibroid. Where exactly was it then? Why couldn't the others see it? Will they remove it now?
nelly I read your last line as "tuck up the breasts" I was thinking this was a new ttc craze I hadn't heard about!
We went to the info evening last night. It was pretty good and informative and the best thing of all is that I think it's finally got DH to accept that we're going to have IVF and he's seems raring to go now. I'll describe what the evening was like, in case you want to compare it to a UK clinic. Feel free to skip over it all if it's boring!
We got there at 7pm and were taken to a room where there were drinks and snacks laid out and chairs in a circle. There were only 6 couples including us, and I felt so nervous because I was thinking it looked like we were in group therapy. All the couples looked totally normal. I'm not sure what I was expecting but they didn't look like monsters or have barren across their foreheads. The head Dr of the clinic then gave us a very long presentation where he went through causes of infertility, lifestyle changes, what the clinic can do, investigations and treatments. Then he talked about their success rates . For IVF in couples over 30 the take home baby rate is 26% per cycle at this clinic. He said they are well above the national average. The twin rate was 20% I think. Then there were questions. I found this bit awkward because the couples were asking questions related to their personal situations and I wasn't comfortable doing that in front of strangers so I only asked a question about waiting times. I was really surprised that the others spoke at length about their problems. One woman said that they'd only been trying 9 months but that she was 39. Her DH said he already had children so they were certain the problem wasn't his. She started crying at this point and I really wanted to go give her a hug but she was at the other side of the room. Another woman said she had endo and was asking loads of questions about how much each procedure hurt because she'd found the HSG really painful. Judging by the questions they asked these women were not mumnetters because they seems way behind us in terms of knowledge about treatments. I felt like I could have given the presentation I know so much about it.
Interestingly, the DR made a big deal of saying that we all must make sure we have had our immunity checked for Rubella, chicken pox, whooping cough and Hep A and B before treatment. He also said we must be taking Folic acid, vit B6 and 12.
Then there was the bit that DH really enjoyed. We split into two groups and got given a tour of the clinic. We even got to go into the lab and he showed us inside a climate chamber where there were three petri dishes with embryos growing. And he showed us on the computer a speeded up image of the cells in those dishes dividing because they have a camera inside the chamber to record what's happening. The first one he said was a bad one but the other two looked good. I'm pretty sure the couple whose embryos they are didn't know that we'd all be peering at them. I was thinking how nervous that couple will be waiting for the call this morning. We got to see where the embryologists sit to do the ICSI and he told us that each microscope costs 100,000 euro. We saw the room where they do the egg collection and transfer, it's part of the lab really. The recovery room looked really nice. It's like a little bedroom with a big comfy bed and duvet and he said they keep you there for 2 hours after ec. Then we saw the men's room. They have a couch, and magazines and even a tv with porn video. And on the wall was a painting of a nude woman. All a bit odd. Poor DH! He did make a point of saying the room had two doors for privacy. But it's right in the middle of the clinic so not that private.
After the tour we got to ask the DR questions on our own. He said that we should only have to wait 3 weeks for the first appointment so that was good. He also said that the health insurance sometimes will pay half the costs of treatment and that they would write up a costed treatment plan and submit it on our behalf.
So, all in all it was positive. And I feel like we might be getting somewhere now after all this waiting time. DH and I are going to go along in person tomorrow to try and arrange an appointment. The clinic is only 3km from our home so it's nice and convenient.