Hysteroscopy

*Warning: Lots of attempted-baby-making details in this post, read at your own risk!*

No luck on the baby-making front for us, but perhaps some progress into figuring out why we haven't had any luck these past 11 months. For the last 2 months we have been seeing a reproductive specialist, Dr. Schmidt, in Columbus. We absolutely love working with him! Unfortunately the first month I went to see him I had already taken Clomid, a drug Dr. Schmidt is absolutely not a fan of, but he said we would try to make the best of it so they did an ultrasound to look for mature eggs, found them, and gave me an injection that would make me ovulate 36 hours later. Then 36 hours later we returned to his office where they did IUI (intrauterine insemination) to place Chad's sperm directly into my uterus - in case my cervix was the trouble maker in these past months. I've been ovulating very well on Clomid, but Clomid also destroys your cervical mucus and mimics menopause - lots of negatives that all add up to the likelihood that if you don't get pregnant on Clomid in the first few months, you probably won't.

When they did my ultrasound that first month, Dr. Schmidt noted that the center of my uterus was more echogenic (white) on ultrasound than it should be, but he didn't say too much about it at that time. I did ask what the differentials for that would be, and he said it could be lots of things such as a polyp, fibroid, or even just the lining of my uterus 'fluffing up' because I was getting ready to ovulate.

Well, no luck with the IUI and I decided that I just needed a month off of all crazy drugs - I wasn't 100% convinced that they were the only reason I was ovulating anyway, and I wanted to give my body a chance to do its' own thing. I'm glad I did, because sure enough I ovulated on my own this month! I went up to Dr. Schmidt's for another ultrasound, thinking we would do IUI again if we managed to time it right, but I ovulated a few days before my appointment (I could tell because I have crazy ovulation cramping ever since I finally started ovulating again - exactly one year after Haley was born! And Dr. Schmidt could tell on the ultrasound too.) But since I had already ovulated, this allowed him to more clearly see that echogenicity in my uterus which he now believes is a polyp. There's a small chance it could be a fibroid, but he feels confident that it's a polyp (which would be better & easier to remove.) It's about 1" in diameter which fills up the entire volume of the non-gravid uterus.

A POLYP!! A REASON for why we're not getting pregnant! It basically acts as a giant blocker to keep out any sperm invaders! I mean, I know I shouldn't be happy to have a polyp, but I'm just happy to have a possibility of a reason for our infertility. There's nothing more frustrating to me than 'unexplained infertility', maybe it's the doctor in me that needs a reason? Regardless, now that we have found a trouble maker we are going to take it out! There is a small possibility that we could get pregnant even with this intruder hanging around, so we have to wait for my period to start (& end) before they can remove it. For now the hysteroscopy is tentatively scheduled for February 7th - it will be done up at Riverside hospital in Columbus, and they just take a scope in through your cervix so there will be no incision. They will mask me down with gas anesthesia, but I won't have to be intubated (hopefully), and the procedure should just take about 15 minutes.

Here's hoping we get that bad polyp out of there and then get back to our fertile turtle selves! I'm not too optimistic for next month - I'm sure that's a pretty traumatic procedure for your uterus and I doubt it can recoup in time for ovulation - but we'll keep our fingers crossed for the month after and a December baby! I would dearly love to squeak a cutie-pie baby-roo in in 2011, 2009 to 2012 just seems too long... (Though I know for many people that's a drop in the bucket compared to how long they've tried.) We will be saying lots of prayers that we have finally figured this puzzle out and that we can now fix our problem and experience the wonder of a sweet bundle of joy again soon.