When we discovered it had been another six months of unsuccessful trying after my ectopic we decided it was time to seek some medical help. I had been told after my operation at the hospital that due to it being my third loss, I should be eligible for testing, just to check that there isn’t something else at the root of the problem. So I booked an appointment with my GP and went to have a chat about the tests and what exactly was going to happen.
My doctor was not the most helpful of fellows. He tried to tell me that because I had technically conceived with my ectopic that he wouldn’t test me for reasons of infertility and because we had an answer to why my last pregnancy ended, he wouldn’t test me for unexplained loss either. Have you ever seen ‘The Nightmare before Christmas’? The mayor has two faces that he can switch between according to his mood, one happy, one not. Let’s just say my unhappy face got snapped on and the doctor got to listen to a rather eloquent five minute rant about why he was wrong and why he was going to give me the blood test forms. I got the forms.
The tests I was given were to take place between cycle day 2-5 (base hormone levels) and day 21-23 (progesterone levels to indicate ovulation). As I have mentioned before most cycles are around 28 days but I happen to know mine is 30 days, so I did the bloods at the higher end of the window, on days 5 and 22. At the same time my Husband was told it would be a good idea for him to have a sperm analysis done, just so we had a whole picture of what we were dealing with.
My First lot of bloods came back rather quickly; according to the doctor everything was fine, well within normal limits across the board. This was what I expected to be honest, I’ve had hormonal bloods done before and there’s never been an issue with my levels. My second lot of results came back a few days ago and after a lot of calls to the doctor to get the levels (for some reason the receptionists can’t give you this even though it’s on the screen in front of them) I was told that my result was boarder line at 30. After consulting Dr Google I have come to find that 30 is the cut off for what is deemed a normal result, ovulation should have occurred with that result although it may have occurred earlier in my cycle than we thought. Needless to say the Doctor was not convinced so I’ve got to repeat the bloods again on cycle day 22 next month.
My husband did his sperm analysis – I was rather annoyed at first that my husband seemed to get the better test compared to the needles involved with mine, but on the day of his appointment our daughter was off sick from preschool. This resulted in him trying to produce a sample in our locked bathroom, whilst Evie sat outside the door shouting ‘Daddy!’ and serenaded him on her Hello Kitty keyboard. He’s a trouper and produced a sample anyway. His results came back a week later and everything looks really good, in fact when he walked in with the test results he exclaimed ‘I’m not sure if I’m reading this right, but if I am, I have super sperm!’ I’m not going to deny him boasting rights after the bathroom fiasco. His results were higher than average across the board, so we’re confident at this point that if there is an underlying issue, it’s probably going to be with me.
For now I guess we just wait, I have another three weeks before I can have my bloods done again so there’s not a lot more we can do at this stage. My results weren’t all that bad and I’m confident that knowing my body, I probably just ovulated earlier than the average person and so had low progesterone by the time I had the bloods done. The good news for me though is that my daughter is now off for the summer, I have my birthday coming up in a few weeks and my little sister is back from University in Wales, so there is a lot to keep me distracted until then. I am trying to keep a ‘whatever will happen, will happen’ approach to it all, but I have the patience of a toddler; so I’m not entirely sure how long that will last!
playingtheconceptiongame 