More poking and prodding

Alrighty, so we had our RE appointment yesterday. We liked the doctor and are so glad we went!  He did a very thorough job reviewing all of our files and medical records with us, gave us a short reproductive 201 tutorial (201 because it was definitely not what you learned in Sex Ed), talked to us about general "how to live healthier and improve your fertility odds", did some blood work and an ultrasound.  We were there, with the doctor almost the whole time, for over 2 hours. Pretty impressive to me that they spent that kind of time with us.

The Dr talked to us about environmental substances called hormonal disruptors, such as BPA, that can negatively affect fertility.  Some of the hormonal disruptors are found in plastic bottles, canned foods, cosmetics, pesticides, etc.  They are everywhere around us!  He said the best thing to do to combat these harmful substances is to 1) try to avoid them and 2)to get your daily recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables. For this he gave us a print out AND wrote us a doctors note for Fruit Plus+. It is this vitamin type of thing that is basically all of your fruits and veggies in pill form.  Check out the link.  I still plan on doing my own research before we buy it (I think he said it ends up being $40 per person per month), but it sounds pretty cool.  It wouldn’t hurt anything to take them (except maybe the pocketbook) and could only make us healthier!

He also recommended that I try to lose about 5-9 pounds. He said that any extra weight somehow can have a negative effect on fertility. AND he suggested that I try to cut down on all refined sugars because refined sugar also can negatively  effect fertility. Again, here I want to do some more research, but everything that he said makes sense.  He explained the effect on fertility, but he was throwing a lot of info at us, so it was not all absorbed.  :)  Boo...I love pasta and bread and rice and flour and sweet tea and....but if he really thinks it could help...

Then he did the vaginal ultrasound and the uterine lining looked good, no cysts, but he found 14 follicles on one ovary and 17 follicles on the other ovary. Normal is between 5-10. I don't exactly understand why more is bad...seems like the more the better but apparently not. He said that this could be an indication of polycystic ovarian syndrome.

Sooo, we did blood work looking at LH, FSH, testosterone, prolactin, and a couple other things.  I also went this morning to get a fasting glucose and insulin test along with a prenatal panel.

I am really glad that we are doing all this blood work and hopefully going to figure out what is going on!

A pretty cool thing...I started my period day before yesterday, which is obviously not cool, but I figured what awful time to have this appointment. But apparently it was perfect!  He said he likes to get that vaginal ultrasound and the blood work done on day 2-4 of the cycle. And it was day 2!  Which, being almost 4 hours away from the doctor, it was amazing that we came on the perfect day. God totally orchestrated that!  He's pretty cool that way. :)