Yeah I’ve heard reference to “the same time down, as up”. Ie, if you carried for 8 weeks you should expect 8 weeks for it turn go to 0. I don’t know how accurate this is, I’ve just seen people reference it on the patient side. If nothing else it’s probably useful to set expectations.
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This fits for me. I carried for 12 weeks and the doctor said I should expect it to return in 2-3 months.
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Follow-up went well.
- US showed that I didn’t have anything of note left in my uterus, so Hell Night effectively got the important things out of there.
- I can stop taking zinc and choline separately - doc said there’s enough zinc in my prenatal, and she’s not seen substantial evidence of choline helping anything; kind of a can’t hurt but won’t necessarily help situation, so if you’re taking too many pills you can ditch it.
- She’ll get me slow release metformin so I don’t have to take 3 per day.
- She said don’t take progesterone until after ovulation. Vindicated!
- Because of my short light periods, if I get my second period from now and I’m not pregnant yet, we’ll do an ultrasound on or around O day to check the thickness of my uterine lining.
- I may have the slightest of uterine septums, but it’s not likely drastic enough to be causing issues. Avoid surgery to correct unless there’s a 3rd loss.
- I can start trying after my next period. Which is a nice break, because after Greyman helping me through this (which he’s been amazing during), I feel pretty unsexy.
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Hugs! How are you feeling? This is a lot!
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Exhausted, relieved, overwhelmed, sad.
All of the feelings.
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Disclaimers: I wrote to my doctor to ask about this to get it flagged and get their advice, and I’ll stop taking the supplements in question.
Is it a known thing in infertility world that some people react to multiple DOR supplements? I don’t have any known allergic reactions to medications or foods, but I seem to be reacting to both inositol and DHEA supplements. I get an itchy throat and face with a little chest tightness, followed by puffy hands, if I take either one alone.
Weird, right? I have the most consistent routine a person can have, and the only thing that’s been changing is the supplements.
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A couple other things I remembered:
- She was iffy on whether progesterone would really help. She said I could keep taking it, but seemed kind of neutral. I’m inclined to keep on it because my cycle where I got pregnant I was on it? But hard to determine whether it was the progesterone, the metformin, or dumb luck and good timing that made it happen.
- Co-Q10 is recommended but not required for both partners. So is D3, which I’m taking the recommended dose of plus my prenatal. GM is getting half the recommended dose in his multivitamin. I’ll nudge him to take these
- Doc said we could do a semenalysis anytime we wanted or wait, and offered to write me a note if I needed a doctor’s note to give him a push, but GM will do it if/when we’re ready to take that step to see if sperm quality is an issue.
- Paper I was given recommends against nsaids and hot tubs while ttc.
- I should probably continue on my half-caf coffee schedule.
- I should figure out fun and mild to moderate exercise, but should avoid strenuous.
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Your doctor sounds pretty great with listening to your concerns and helping you reduce pills in an evidenced based way!
I’ve read a lot of papers on progesterone post-ovulation and early pregnancy. I agree that the literature doesn’t show great evidence BUT I don’t think the studies were set up optimally so I came down on the side of taking it because I had known low progesterone and it wasn’t going to hurt. (Most studies were general population and didn’t actually look at the difference between taking progesterone or not in a subset of people who were known to have low progesterone).
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I love my doctor and nurses so much. I just wish the admin side of the office wasn’t such a shit show.
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Yep that’s been my read as well- it’s thin evidence quality that it helps, BUT it isn’t harmful and MIGHT help. So with low progesterone may as well try, AS LONG AS you’re not ignoring other possible causes of low progesterone- namely, my prolactinoma was causing poor ovulation which led to low progesterone (low follicle quality/maturation) and so it definitely needs to be coupled with a full investigation of prolactin, thyroid, etc that can cause low progesterone.
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So I didn’t get solid pricing info yet, but we have formulated the bare bones of a plan. I’m going to get my meds from the Mexican pharmacy this time, and he’s going to try me on a new protocol with Lupron, Pergoveris (which isn’t available in the US), and a steroid. He said my next cycle will probably start 4 or 5 weeks after my post-BCP bleed last week, sooo, hopefully CD1 comes AFTER my vacation or else we’ll probably have to wait an additional cycle.
In the meantime, Swan is going to get the DNA fragmentation test and the full genetic testing (we’d just submitted our 23&Me results before) to make sure that he won’t have any conflicts with the donor eggs. And, of course, we have to shop for our egg donor. The doctor linked me to profiles of 4 donors whose eggs they have on-site and said that it’s $12,500 for half a dozen eggs and then $500 to thaw them. He also told me the names of two donor banks that they work with regularly, and said that I’m also welcome to source my own if I see a place/donor that I like.
Starting to feel a tiny shred of hope again. (My heart is like a beet in the crisper drawer—no matter how many times I have to cut the leaves off, tiny new ones keep sprouting.)
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Yeah, my thyroid levels and I think my prolactin was good - I got a pretty thorough workup and just had 20% lower than desired cd21 progesterone levels.
The biggest thing is it’s expensive and Medicaid won’t cover it if used for “fertility treatment purposes.”
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Has anyone come across good, reliable papers on CoQ10 and pregnancy/live birth outcomes? It’s on the list of recommended supplements from my doctor, but isn’t FDA approved for treatment of anything, and I’m having trouble coming up with sources with any statistics or reliable-looking studies. My medical google-fu is pretty lacking.
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Do you have It Starts With the Egg or would you like me to check my copy to see what it has?
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I’ve borrowed it from the library in the past but don’t own it.
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I do remember that being a recommendation but it’s hard to convince The Skeptic without an academic or medical paper 
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Shoot, I can’t copy and paste from my ebook. There are a bunch of different citations in here for CoQ10, though. Mostly in an IVF context because that’s the only way to look at eggs, but there are also studies about its impact on sperm quality. I did not read the papers myself, of course, but it might be worth getting the book back from the library so GM can look at the citations. They look medical to my untrained eye.
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Thanks! I’ll grab the book.
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Virtually none of this has studies of good quality and end results (live births). It’s all mechanistic theory and expertise based really.
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Yeah. I think the stats that they DO have are more like # of eggs retrieved and whatnot as opposed to live birth. We dutifully popped them all- at once time I was on 25 pills a day- and surprise! Did not magically become fertile. Not having to take a million pills was a nice thing about using donor material. But maybe they move the needle for some people!
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