Breathing In, Breathing Out, Beginning Injections

I know my last post was one big, long, hysterical shriek. You'll be glad to know I've calmed down quite a bit, and we're moving forward with our cycle.

I was able to talk with RE last week. He explained that he tested for something called anti-Mullerian hormone, and my level was lower than expected, so he thought it would be okay to skip the birth control pills. (He believes there's still an increased risk of blood clots even if I'm taking Lovenox, though other doctors seem to disagree. But then again, when does anyone in the medical community agree about anything? But I digress...)

I've never heard of AMH before, but apparently it gives an indication of how severe one's case of PCOS is. And if RE's nurse had explained that to me a month ago when I first raised my concerns, I probably would have been (at least slightly) less hysterical about all of this.

RE made it clear that he was not happy being questioned, but I'm not the type to move forward without being comfortable with something, so I guess we're both going to have to learn to give and take a bit.

Speaking of not being comfortable moving forward, I've decided that I'm not on board with the radioactive iodine that is involved in the thyroid scan and uptake test. Apparently radioactive iodine (RI) has a half life of 11 days. I spoke with a radiologist today who said it would be fine to do a transfer three months after the test, but if the test causes them to recommend that I take the full dose of RI to kill off my thyroid, I'd have to wait an entire year before trying to get pregnant. And my family physician and RE both said they've had patients who have required 2 or 3 doses of the full RI treatment before it worked.

R and I talked about it tonight, and I just don't feel okay with the idea of putting any sort of radioactivity in my body. We've gone through hell these last 6 years, and now that we've found a possible answer to some of our losses, I don't want to take the risk of causing damage by ingesting the RI. So I'm going to call my family physician tomorrow and set up an appointment to talk with her about skipping the scan and whether she would be willing to take the approach of just treating it with medication (which may require some trial and error to get the dosage right) or having surgery to remove the thyroid and then start Synthroid for hypothyrodisim (which is a lot easier to control with medication than hyperthyroidism is.)

Someday, I keep telling myself, all of this medical drama will end. But in the meantime, I'm off to give myself the first injection (Lupron) of this cycle - here's hoping R and I don't get the dosage wrong, which has happened before.

One last thing: Thank you to those of you who commented - I appreciate the honesty and support. I will be catching up with all of you soon, hopefully within the next few days. (I want to get the shot done and get to bed before midnight tonight, so I'd better get offline now...)