Monday, November 15, 2010

Crawling out of my hole to tell you.....

I had my last blood draw today.  This one was to tell my doctor what my progesterone levels are.  The nurse practitioner that I've been "dating", as she says, every week for the past 4 Mondays, said as I left that the results would not be in for a couple days, and at that time, I could expect a call from my doctor giving us the results of the complete battery of tests.

Imagine my surprise when I got a call this afternoon from the nurse practitioner.  She told me that from all of my labs that have come back, my doctor thinks everything with me is normal.  She did say, however, that Grouper has some issues.  She said she wasn't super familiar with reading the SA results, but that from what she could tell, he had a sperm count of 12 million, and they prefer that the count is higher than 20.  Also, his sperm motility was 60%, which she said is somewhat low.  She said that treating male fertility issues tends to be a lot easier than dealing with female fertility issues, and that my doctor thinks that IUI is the best bet for us.  She is referring us to an RE in the area, but I am not sure if he will do the IUI or if my doctor will (if I have a choice in the matter, I'd honestly like my doctor to do it, but I can't really make that decision, especially not until after I meet this guy). 

I feel terrible and somewhat selfish saying this, but it's like a huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders.  Even though I know I shouldn't, I tend to have this underlying guilty feeling about all of our issues....that they're my fault.  And I don't want to think of them as my fault or Grouper's, I just want to get things fixed.  I must say, though......I am somewhat looking forward to letting my MIL in on this piece of information, because she was pretty much sure that there was no reason for us to be getting checked out, and for sure there wasn't any issues with HER son, it had to be my fault (she never said that last bit, but that's most definitely how she has made me feel in the past year and a half).  I just hope it'll shut her up, or at least make her more supportive.

Now I just have to figure out how to tell Grouper.  He's hunting Up North until late Wednesday night.  I'm not going to call him right now and take his focus off of hunting and put it on this.  I think overall he will have a positive attitude about it.  He is more of a, "Ok, this is the problem.  Now we know.  Let's fix it," kinda guy and I'm one of those, "Woe is me, why us, wah wah wah," person (if you didn't already know that).  I want to call the RE right now and get scheduled, but I can't until I talk to him and I know his schedule and all that.  I guess I just have to sit on my hands for the next couple days. 

I am relieved, though.  Honestly.  Last week was the week from Hell.  I am happy for all people who are finally out of this infertile battle, but holy crap, it's a heavy hitting week when I have not only the first anniversary of the loss of my pregnancy, but also hear 7 pregnancy announcements in 7 days.  That's rough.  I'm trying to get out of my funk the best that I can.  That's all I can do. 

And now we know what needs to be fixed.  If I can't get a positive pregnancy test right now, this is definitely the next best thing.

3 comments:

  1. This is a great start. From what my RE tells me, any motility over 50% is good, so I wouldn't worry about Grouper's 60%. The count is on the low side, but not so low that IUI can't help considerably (as your doctor said). And obviously not so low that you can't get pregnant on your own.

    Telling LG his results was one of the hardest things I had to do. And he seemed to take it really well. Later, he started to react emotionally and we had to work through some tough stuff. But we are coming out of it now.

    This is the start of great stuff Gidget! You've got some stressful times ahead, but I'm hopeful the payoff will be huge.

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  2. I'm so glad that you got the results back and have more information about what's going :-) And hopefully your MIL will ease up a bit, too!

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  3. I'm glad you got some results! And, as Sloper said, the numbers don't look terrible.

    My MIL was similar... and had to accept that, after all, there was something wrong with her son's material. She goes much easier on the topic now though, so I hope yours will become understanding, too.

    Our doctor told H herself, and I'm glad I didn't have to. I also understand your feeling of relief, and how selfish it seems to feel that way... it's hard. In our case it is quite likely that there are issues on my side as well, but somehow I was still relieved not to be the only one that has/causes problems. Even though that is probably ridiculous, and our overall chances with two sets of problems are much worse than those of a couple with just one of those issues...

    Good luck!

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