Hi ladies
PnM firstly, you poor poor thing with tonsilitis - I suffered from that for a few years before having them out in my early 20s and it's totally horrible (once even ended up rushed to hospital with quinsy throat as was in the process of slowly suffocating!). It's so painful and you have my full sympathy - hope those antibiotics kick in good and fast! Also, gargling with one of those dissolved painkillers can work wonders with pain relief...Secondly, what a bummer about not being able to ttc this cycle, so frustrating for you ...and thirdly, at how your PCT would act if you went private! I'm amazed at how NHS care can vary as my doctors have always been like "yup, you can go private and come back into the NHS if necessary" as I've gotten the impression that for fertility stuff often the attitude is that going private takes the strain off an already under-resourced part of the NHS. I really love the NHS (compared to the shocking expense of the Irish and American systems!) but I hate to hear of your struggles to get the help you need and deserve...re the metformin, how about clomid? Or re-testing? Things being "inconclusive" for PCOS doesn't rule it out entirely. My impression from MN is that women often struggle to get a good diagnosis of PCOS so perhaps it's worth checking out the pcos website that Attila recommends (verity)
MrsH I am so hoping that you caught the egg this month [fingers firmly crossed emoticon]. That temp drop could in fact be a temp dip and that combined with the cramps could also be very good symptoms (espec after Friday's nausea!). Where are you and your DD going on hols? What with Bucky in Miami, I'm getting more and more envious of folks' holiday plans!
JollyBear so good to hear from you and to hear that your little girl's a smiling cutie too . As MrsH says we all love to be reminded of keeping our eyes on the prize!!
Bucky hope you're having fun in Miami (when we have our meet up I'll be annoying you with my peculiar Miami pronounciation as two of my closest friends had one of their best holidays ever there and I've heard so many funny stories about it that I just cannot say it out loud without a comedy "My-am-iiiii" style pronounciation!). Also hoping that you come back with some good news that the clomid's worked!!
MOB hope you're doing well and taking care of yourself. After my experience at the Lister this morning I'm keeping you as my inspiration for how right ICSI can go!!
Ei hope you're fully recovered and enjoying life
So the Lister consultation was most interesting but also quite draining. The consultant was totally lovely (MrsH I saw Dr Jaya Parikh and she put us both totally at our ease - she really seemed to "get" ftc in such a sympathetic way that I almost cried with relief to find a medical person who truly understood). I was utterly fascinated by the ultrasound. I'm literally about to ovulate from my right ovary and was loving the sonographer pointing out the dominant follicle and all the other follicles and showing me my endometrium etc. Fascinating! And also very heartening as no cysts, fibroids or anything and also loads of small follicles (she counted 17 follicles in total, including the dominant follicle) which indicates I'd probably respond well to IVF drugs but yet definately nothing to indicate PCOS. However, my DH's sperm sample was even worse than last time - down to a concentration of 7million/ml (it was 13 million/ml back in November) but with slightly better percentages of abnormal forms etc. But even with the first SA she saw she immediately said ICSI, which I must admit surprised us both. Then when today's SA came back in the midst of the consultation it was even clearer that ICSI is our best route forward (well, pretty much our only assisted conception route forward). Poor old DH was very but also tried to put a brave face on it by saying at least we have a reason. But anyway, she did say that the early m/c back in Sept was a good sign, and that all indicators are that we'd have a high chance of success at IVF/ICSI (over 70% if we could get to a blastocyst stage).
We've now decided to take it easy on things for a little while, as I don't feel emotionally or physically ready to start IVF just yet. I know that seems crazy, since all I've wanted is a baby for so long now, but I just want to take a couple of months to get my head around the idea of IVF. This is how I handle all the big events in my life (I like to spend time thinking about things!) so I went into the consultation knowing that starting IVF in 10 days was never realistic for me. I'm going to tune up (so to speak) with some weight loss and acupuncture and look to start IVF in Apr/May (post Easter anyway). She also advised trying to get as much of the bloodwork sorted at my GPs as possible (even try to get the drugs funded!), as the ICSI element adds a whole level of more costs we hadn't originally expected.
So god, sorry for the "war & peace" length of this post! Am sat at my desk feeling a bit drained by the whole day, but also strangely upbeat...hard to describe...especially after a very fun but totally exhausting weekend!
Love to you all,
Caitni xx