Here I am googling antral follicle count...

and guzzling green tea. LOL

I'M PRETTY DARN HAPPY AFTER OUR RE APPOINTMENT TODAY!

So, Christopher and I went in for the consultation regarding trying to conceive our second child with our reproductive endocrinologist. I actually left feeling pretty positive.

And even more disgusted with our previous RE, famously known as Dr Creepy Skulker.



Let's back track a few days....

I had some Cycle Day 3 blood work and an AMH assay drawn on Wednesday. When I saw that she ordered the AMH, I cringed inwardly. This is the test that Dr Creepy Skulker was so proud of 2.5 years ago. (Let's go back to 2007....) He had been on the news about this cutting edge fertilty testing yada yada. AMH indicates the number of sleeping follicles in the ovary. This is a constant hormone that is released. Low levels indicate low or poor ovarian reserve. Hoever all the labs were quick to add fine print that this was not a diagnostic test. AMH testing was for research only. Well in 2007 my AMH level had come back as .075. That's extremely poor according to his scale. Dr Creepy told us that we would need IVF to conceive based on this AMH level.

Well, back then I wasn't satisfied with this test, especially based on my antral follicle counts and other hormonal bloodwork. So in 2007 we had gotten a second opinion with the good Dr G. She thought IVF was a huge leap considering we had gotten pregnant twice on our own without treatment. She discounted the AMH level as it was too new of a test and not really standardized yet. Also for my age, it wasn't an awful number any way.

Okay, back to today....


The results from Wednesday's draw were back today so Dr W was prepared to go over them.
My AMH level was 1.9. Um, anything over 1.0 is NORMAL!

In fact, that's great for an almost 40 year old! We would have expected it to be a little lower than the previous .75. Dr W was very happy with 1.9. Of course we had some questions about the accuracy of this or the previous test. She was quick to point out the the tests were analyzed at the same lab but that she did not know if the assay had changed in the previous two years. We repeated the AMH test again today just to be sure.

My FSH number was 6.3. This is also better than I had tested back in 2007. With Dr Creepy my FSH was running 7.9 to 8.3. My antral follicle count was 22 plus. (Amd yeah, not too shappy for a soon to be 40 yo.)

So overall the outlook is very positive. We have reason to hope that conceiving our second child could be as "easy" as before. Granted having two back to back miscarriages before Andrew was no picnic. But getting pregnant 3 times in 5 (non consectutive) cycles of actively TTC isn't anything to sneeze at. It was all the emotional turmoil and infertility testing between all those pregnancies (a year total of TTC) that was an ordeal.

The good Dr W wants me to wean Andrew before going on to any fertility drugs.

That's not happening any time soon if it all. My dream would be to get pregnant and Andrew naturally wean himself.

Any whoo, in the mean time we're going to do some "natural" cycles. But her use of natural is a little fast and loose.

We're gong to have timed intercourse with OPK. At the first positive OPK, I will go in for an ultrasound. If I have mature follicles, then I will trigger with Ovidrel. That will help me ovulate in a timely manner. We'll then do a post coital the next day and see what's going on. If we see low or no sperm, then Christopher gets to do a semen analysis later on.

We'll then do a progesterone test at 7 DPO to see how things went. Beta at two weeks.

So we have a plan to move forward and I can still breastfeed while TTC. For now. We'll have to make some decisions regarding that later on. I would much prefer to let him wean naturally with respect to his needs.

But there does need to be some balance. Isn't balance always the tricky part?