I love my RE

Yesterday was our first appointment with the RE.  I was really nervous about the vaginal ultrasound and about how the appointment would go in general. Well, I had nothing to worry about.  Our RE put me completely at ease.

He came in and felt my thyroid, felt up my boobs supposedly as some way to get an idea of what my hormones are doing and then did the ultrasound.  He counted how many follicles I had on my ovaries and then showed me where he could tell I had ovulated.  He also told me my lining was at a 7.  Is that good for 3 DPO? After that I got dressed and we went into his office to talk.

So here is what we now know: Everything looks normal with me so far and Soren's sperm count is much lower than they would like to see.  The RE is thinking he may have a varicocele (varicose vein in his scrotum) and is having him see a urologist.  They also had him do a bunch of lab work yesterday to make sure that his testosterone, FSH, LH, prolactin, and thyroid levels are normal.  They also want Soren to check his blood sugar with my blood sugar monitor.  All his hormones are in the normal range except for testosterone.  That came back low, which would account for his low sperm count.  We'll have to see what they suggest to increase his testosterone levels.  I'm also eager to see what the urologist says.

At this point the RE is suggesting IUI.  I kind of want to wait to see what the issue is with Soren.  I feel like it has already been over 3 years so I can wait another month or so.  I have been prescribed some clomid to take if we decide to do an IUI this next cycle.  If IUI doesn't work then he said we could possibly do the kind of IVF where they actually place one sperm in each egg before implanting them in me.  I don't think we will ever do IVF because of the expense, but it's good to know our options.  We could also go with donor sperm if we want.  I just hope that we can increase Soren's sperm count and get pregnant naturally or off of an IUI.  I did find out that an IUI would cost $160 per cycle, which was a lot lower than I expected.

On the drive back Soren kept asking me if I really wanted to have a baby.  He kept saying that you can't put that Genie back in the bottle once it is out.  I just had to laugh.  Why would I put all this effort into finding out what is wrong if I didn't want a baby.  He also kept telling me that he didn't want to do all this testing they are making him do.  I assured him that I appreciate that he is willing to do it anyway.

Oh, another thing I found out is that our fertility clinic majorly has our back.  Our insurance covers 50% of infertility testing and treatment (excluding IVF), so we should have been paying for all of the lab work and other tests.  We haven't had to pay for any lab work because they coded it as other things so it would be covered 100%.  I also didn't have to pay for my HSG.  Even yesterday the doctor erased from the records that he performed an ultrasound so that we wouldn't charged.  Our visit yesterday only cost $38 and that is the only thing we have paid for so far.  I'm so grateful to them bacause we should have paid several hundreds of dollars at this point.

So, now that we have some answers we have to wait for more and then make some decisions.  We still have almost a month to decide if we want to do IUI my next cycle.  I think I am starting to convince myslef to do the IUI this next cycle.  We'll see if I can get Soren on board.