drugs

I meet with a doctor today to discuss my options. It was difficult to talk and listen to him inbetween my sobs, but I made it through. I only saw two noticeably pregnant women at the office, so that was nice. I haven't been that close to a pregnant woman in a while. Ten feet is close, people. Close enough.

I had seen this doctor once while I was pregnant but he didn't seem to remember me. That's ok.. he sees a lot of women...in a professional manner, of course. I told him my story and what my cycle is like right now. My cycle length is fine (even though I think it's short), but he seemed to think my luteal phase is too short - it's around 11 days. If I were a typical "average" woman I'd have a cycle length of 28 days, with ovulation on day 14 and a luteal phase of 14 days. I bet there are like 2 women in the world who are normal like that. Maybe 3. Anyway, I haven't been charting that long but so far I've been ovulating on day 15/16 with a 26/27 day cycle.

So, technically, I'm normal. The doctor made a point to tell me this, but he thankfully is not a stupid doctor and said it would be ok to start me on some medicine to see if it will help get things going. He wants me to get pregnant. In many cases doctors or fertility specialists will tell couples to try for 6-12 months and then they'll start testing. The fact that we got pregnant before is a good sign. And while we've been trying since June (so not a full 6 months), I've gone through 6 cycles now without getting pregnant. That's a long-ass time when you've gone through a miscarriage and the only thing you want right now is to get pregnant again.

He wrote me two prescriptions: One for folic acid and one for Clomid. Folic acid is said to help reduce the risk of infant spinal cord birth defects. Clomid is an estrogen receptor blocker, so it fools my brain, ovaries, etc. into thinking that I am not producing enough estrogen. This influences them to produce more estrogen and thus encourage ovulation. Now, according to my temperature charts, I am already ovulating normally (maybe a little late in respect to my cycle length), but it's been reported that Clomid can help you ovulate BETTER.. so a better chance of pregnancy. It also raises the chance that your follicles will release more than one egg, so a higher chance for twins.

I'll start the folic acid right away, but since I'm in the middle of a cycle I can't start the Clomid yet. Apparently you only take it on days 3 through 7 of your cycle. Maybe I won't even need it. Maybe cycle #7 will be our lucky number.

If not, we'll try for a few more months on Clomid, and if I still don't get pregnant we'll go back to the doctor and have him run some tests on the both of us.

Fun, fun.