Gynecological Train Wreck

My appointment today began with an ever so slightly hungover Dr. T and Ultrasound Techie J jovially entering my little u/s room joking about how many glasses of wine Dr. T had had at dinner last night. Dr. T joked that Techie J needed to watch her wand motion b/c he’d gotten dizzy from all of the follicles that the lady in the u/s room next door had had. ‘Hee Hee, hopefully’, he said, ‘Chee Chee, you will have a similarly high follicle count.’

Nope. Techie J inserted the dreaded dildo cam and looked at my right ovary and said hmmm. Then she moved to the left and said 'It looks like your left is your big producer with 1-2-3-4-5 follicles. (She stopped counting at 5!!!! FIVE, FIVE, MY BIG PRODUCER HAS 5? ) She then returned to the right ovary and noticed 2 follicles. Yep, a grand total of seven. All seemed too small to measure.

The rest of the exam was spend noting my host of uninvited guests including cysts, endometrioma (at least 2 now), fibroids, and the dreaded possible hydro (and for those of you who have been following along for a while, I too thought that was no longer an issue). Did I mention that my lining didn’t look particularly good either? Dr. T began by saying ‘There’s a lot going on in there.’ (Gee, thanks, now what do we do?) He then tried to provide some comfort by saying that women with endo often have a difficult time producing many follicles. Wonderful, is that like saying it’s not your fault that your body is the gynecological equivalent of a train wreck????

I guess it goes without saying that this was not my best day ever. Oh and by the way, today is our 4th wedding anniversary.

After commiserating with David and attending a series of meetings with some of our service providers, Supernurse called and told me that my estrogen level was also low (48) for 4 days of stimming. (Could there be anything else wrong?) She advised me that they are doubling my dosage of Menopur and taking me off Lupron. She also assured me that many women have difficulty stimming after an extended break. I assumed this very same thing, particularly given the BCPs.

Unfortunately, the reality of it is so much worse. I may have a difficult time stimming in general now. This may be indicative of future cycles. What if the endo is placing too much stress on my ovaries? What if age is becoming a major factor given everything else? What if this never works? So many questions and no answers.

I return to Ginormous on Saturday for the next round of tests.