Treating Infertility

On June 11 after all of the infertility testing was completed, we had a consultation with the doctor to determine what the next steps needed to be. I was put on Metformin (started with 500mg and was told to work up to 1500mg). Metformin is an insulin resistance medication often prescribed for PCOS that helps regulate blood sugar which somehow gets the hormones straightened out. It is a pretty difficult medication to get used to. It really messes with the digestive system which is why you start with one pill and try to work up to three by adding another one every week or two. The pills are also huge which is sort of a pain. I was also told to take low-dose aspirin which has an unexplained positive effect on fertility and prenatal vitamins. So at that point, I was taking 5 pills each night. When my next cycle started (who knows when that would be), I would take fertility medicine and we would do the IUI procedure (think turkey baster).

You may be wondering about the cost of all this testing and treatment. Luckily, my employer's medical insurance includes up to $10,000 (lifetime) for fertility treatment. Additionally, many of the tests and maybe even some of the treatments were coded as a birth defect rather than infertility. We are extremely fortunate in that all of this only cost us a hundred dollars or so (most of which was for the medications).

Cycle Day "CD" 1 was July 1st. CD 3 through 7 I was put on a low dose of fertility medicine called Femara/Letrozole which was one pill per day. Luckily, the only side effect I had was a few hot flashes (some people have a lot of side effects with these types of medications). I was put on a low dosage because it is sort of a trial and error calculation to determine how much you need to get an egg to develop and grow and how much is too much, causing multiple eggs to develop. The low dose seemed to be enough because on CD 10 I had an ultrasound and there was a follicle measuring 12 (the goal is to get it to grow to around 20). The hope was that it would continue to grow. And it did - at CD 13 the follicle was measuring 19. It was a little later than normal but since my cycles are a little longer it made sense. Since the follicle was big enough, I was told to take Ovidrel which is a shot you have to give yourself in the stomach to tell your body to release the egg from the ovary. I could not get myself to do it myself so I had to have Brett inject me. The needle was so tiny that I didn't even feel anything. On CD 15 we had the IUI which was pretty awful and painful. Because the egg was on the right side, they had to inject into my right cervix which is very difficult to get to. Starting on CD 17, I had to start taking progesterone suppositories twice per day. Let's just say I am glad I am finally done with those! On CD 22 I had my blood drawn to determine whether I had ovulated (which would mean the egg was released). They are looking for a number above 10 and mine was at 20. Then it was the waiting game - after seven days I would take a home pregnancy test to see if this worked. On July 29, I took a test and it was negative. So we would have to start over next cycle. The doctor said that if IUI didn't work after 2-3 times we would have to move on to IVF which Brett and I were not comfortable with.

The next cycle started August 1. We decided to not do any treatment this cycle because Brett was traveling for work probably around the day that we would need him and we also had a vacation scheduled in Las Vegas at the end of the month. We would wait until the next cycle started... which was taking forever! It was almost the end of September (close to 2 months) and I had not started another cycle.