Second Opinion Next Week

All of you are the best! Thanks so much for your support and solidarity.

I should have mentioned in my last post that I do have a second opinion scheduled, kind of by accident, for Monday.

How does one wind up with an "accidentally scheduled" second opinion, you ask? Second Opinion Endo was actually my first choice when I looked into making an Endo appointment a couple of months ago, because I had seen him a few years back and he seemed supportive of our IF issues and concerned about my mom's thyroid issues being passed along to me. (But all my numbers came back normal at that time when he tested me, so nothing came of it.)

Anyway, Second Opinion Endo's first available appointment when I called in October was Dec. 8. So I scheduled that, but called around to see if I could get in anywhere else sooner, and Endo (who deals exclusively with thyroid issues) had appointments available two days after I called in October, so I went there. But because I've learned to never cancel a doctor's appointment until the very last minute (especially with someone like an endo, which can be a 6-month wait in our city), I still have Monday's appointment scheduled.

I also called Endo today to get last Tuesday's test results, and his office is supposed to call me back tomorrow with those and fax them to me. So we'll see what those show.

In the meantime, being one not inclined to let grass grow under my feet, I've already been thinking about various options. We may look into IVIg, but I've done intralipids before, and I'm hesitant about lowering my NK levels too much (intralipids brought them down to 3%). I have to think those little suckers are important for things like fighting cancer cells, and I'd hate to trade one heartbreaking problem for another, potentially deadly problem.

(Please understand that I don't know for sure that the use of IVIg or intralipids could make someone more susceptible to cancer, so if you've taken intralipids like I have or IVIg, I'm NOT saying you will get cancer. But to me it seems that if NK cells protect against cancer, and you reduce the number of NK cells that are functioning in your body, that by extension you're also increasing your risk for cancer.)

I'd like to consider gestational surrogacy, but if we don't have someone step forward who is willing to do it for us, I don't know that we have the emotional or financial strength to go through the process of finding a surrogate.

And because I'm a crazy person, I've also (with enormous reluctance and distrust) started researching adoption again. We really, really wanted to start at the beginning with a newborn, but after all we've been through, I think we're to the point where we would be willing to give up the newborn requirement if it means we could actually have a living, breathing child in our house.

I looked at Ethiopia and really liked that option, because it is possible to adopt a baby under the age of 1, the cost is (relatively speaking, of course) lower than some other programs, and you aren't required to travel. However, I did some checking around, and R and I wouldn't qualify, because Ethiopia has a no-anti-depressant policy, and after 6 miscarriages, 3 failed adoptions and everything else we've dealt with these last six years, I need anti-depressants the way a fish needs water. Even R, who before this nightmare was the textbook definition of an eternal optimist, had to start taking them this summer because it all just got to be too much.

So, Ethiopia is out. But apparently Lyberia and Uganda are still options for us, and I've also started looking at places like Nepal and Brazil. If you would have told me six years ago that at some point in the future I'd be considering going to NEPAL (I'm not even quite sure where that is!) to have a kid, I'd have told you that you were the crazy one. But I think the claim on crazy is all mine at this point. :-)