Living life with Dr.Hughes office

When I met him he instantly made me feel warm and comfortable. He listened to everything I said, all my concerns and he never made me feel rushed. This is my fertility doctor, Dr. Hughes. In case you live in the area he practices at Lowell General Hospital. He is soooo awesome!!! He has spent numerous appointments with me, some lasting 45 minutes because we are just talking. I do however ask a lot of questions. Not only do I find this whole process interesting, I want to know what he sees and what is going on. I want to be informed! Unfortunately he only sees his fertility patients between 6-7am. I know its sheer torture but once I'm there he instantly makes me forget that. He is soo nice - I cant even say enough. His right hand person Erin is fabulous too! His entire office is wonderful - they actually make me miss them. Not that I want to get up that early all the time.

So he takes my blood work and does an internal ultrasound. He says that internally from what he can see things look good. Not that they can really see much. So he says to call after 2 and get my results. We discuss that maybe for now we will just take blood work at the appropriate times of the month and go from there. In the meantime he tells me that Jack should get tested. Which we do and things come back great. So I'm thinking I guess its me....

Come to find out my hormones are like non-existant...Dr.Hughes says my brain is on hiatus...its perfectly happy producing those low hormones. He said that could be part of why I had a miscarriage. (As a side note - what I had they call a Blighted Ovum. As I understand it, its basically an empty sac. Your hormone levels go up just like a pregnancy but the body senses there was something wrong and it basically aborts it.) He said maybe the fetal pole started to rise and sensed something was not right so it went back down and nothing ever grew.

OK, this is something that I can deal with because it seems as if its easily fixable. So its kind of hard to remember sometimes since I feel like Ive done so much but what came next was he recommended a Hysterscopy. Have you ever had one? Well, he said that I should actually have that dye test (which I cant spell the correct name of) but I opted for the Hysterscopy because I heard the dye test hurt. Yes, I'm a wimp! I'm also very slow in how I want my process of all this to be.
SO, I get the hysterscopy test done. It actually didn't hurt UNTIL he decided to take a sample of my uterine wall. Yeh, that hurt like a son-of-a-bitch! But, its over soon enough. So the test showed my tubes were open and the sample came back negative for whatever it was he was looking for which to be honest, I forget now. haha
So really now, nothing is working on its own so its time to make a decision. Do I take the next step and have an IUI. For those of you who are not familiar with that term its Intrauterine Insemination. Basically they take sperm and insert it in you into the cervix so they can get as much up there as they can.

Do I really want to do this IUI? No, I wanted to get pregnant the regular old-fashioned way. But hey its not working that way so have to do something different!

If you've been where I was....its very exciting to take those shots ha? NOT! Not only did I have to take them but I had to pay $1000.00 for them because our insurance does not cover them. Oh well....whatcha gonna do? What you have to!

The first night I had to take them was hysterical. I got out of work and came home to a nice package of syringes. So my husband reads the directions carefully...almost too carefully cause I'm starting to get annoyed cause I just want to get it over with! So whatever, we go to do it - hes going to administer it into my stomach but we cant stop laughing! I mean it was so funny sitting there saying okay go! no wait! I said just give it to me and let me do it..so I take it and just inject it. It was fine - felt a little weird but OK. So we do this for the next week. I go to the doctors and my hormones and follicles are coming along great. So we do the IUI and NOTHING! To make a long story short - I did the IUI three times and it didn't work. Well 2 times but we did the IUI twice on one of the times.

Oh and one time in the begining...I was alone and had to administer the shot that makes you ovulate. So I called my sister - on her way to a wake she swung by to do it for me. I think we stood there with the needle for 1/2 hour. The poor thing was sweating. She couldnt do it - she felt to bad and was afraid she was going to hurt me and she had never done this before. Ok so now the needle is full and I have to drive to her friend Sara's house (she is a nurse & has done this before) so she can do it for me - in my butt none the less. I get to her house - we go into the bathroom and I tell her to let me know when she is going to do it and she says ok done - I'm like ha? I didnt even feel anything....I guess you do what you have to do to get the job done - even if it means driving to someone who can do it for you!

So after the failed IUI's I asked Dr.Hughes "is there something else that could be wrong that we don't know about?" I mean why isn't it clicking? He said that even though we did the Hysterscopy we cant really tell what else is going on - like if I have endometriosis or not? I have never had any symptoms but whatever....so he says that really what he recommends is a Laproscopy. He explains that you are under and they make a small incision by the belly button and go in and they can see everything! If there is anything that needs fixing they can do it right there and then - proving it can be fixed! I think to myself ok, doesn't sound to bad. But then I go home and have time to think about it and decide yeh - NO WAY! Maybe its me but sometimes the Internet does not help! So I decide that this is not something I can do at all right now so I call Erin at Dr.Hughes and tell them that I need to think about this surgery.

Over the next few weeks I realize that I am seriously out of control. I knew that something had to change when I was watching the season finale of The Bachelorette and I literally cried through the entire 2 hour show. I was not myself anymore. I was bloated and constantly sad...the hormones in those drugs are a killer. It was then I made the decision that I needed a break. My body needed one and I mentally needed one! I want to enjoy my summer and not get up at the crack of dawn and shoot needles into my body for weeks on end. I was toast. So I called Dr.Hughes and told him that I needed some time off. I told him that I would contact them after the summer was over.