1st visit to Fertility Specialist...

The day finally came yesterday where I was able to meet Dr. Miller, my fertility specialist. We decided it was time to move on with the process since we have had no success in 15 months of trying to conceive. My mom went with me yesterday morning and we had a great initial meeting with Dr. Miller. I felt like I was the only person he was concerned with, and he was so great at listening to my everything thought or concern.

When we first met, he asked a few questions about my history like how long I took BC and when that was, how long have I been off BC, were my periods regular, how long had I taken Clomid, was there any history of illness or infertility in my family's history, had my husband had a semen analysis and what was the result, etc. The list went on. Really, he concluded that I was pretty healthy, never had anything in the past that would suggest infertility, and wanted to suggest the next step.

He told me about the drug Famera. It is actually not an infertility drug, but it's a drug that breast cancer survivors take. In the last 6-8 years, it has been used to treat infertility and has sometimes worked when Clomid has not. I actually talked to a friend yesterday who told me 2 of her friends had gotten pregnant while on this drug. So, he suggested we start that next month. He wanted me to have one more piece of blood work done that had not been done previously in February, and also wanted to schedule the HSG test soon.

After talking about options, he did a short exam in which everything appeared to be fine. I got dressed, paid my portion of the visit, and headed home. It was later in the day yesterday when I got a call from Dr. Miller. He was finally able to look at both of Jason's semen analyses and was concerned about one thing. MORPHOLOGY. There are several things they look at in a semen analysis like concentration of sample, mobility, and morphology. Morphology is the shape of the sperm. The first semen analysis showed 2% morphology and the second analysis showed 3%. This means that 3% of his sperm in the sample were what they consider normally shaped. They like to see 6-10%. Basically, when the sperm have a "weird" shape, they can't swim correctly and get to the right destination. It's hard for them to fertilize the egg. So, after all this time being on Clomid thinking Jason was "fine," there may be some issue with the sperm and not necessarily my ovulating.

So, Dr. Miller suggested that instead of doing the 5 or so rounds of Famera alone, he thought we should go ahead and do an insemination this coming month. So, he would still want me to get the Famera, but thinks we will need to do an IUI to help the sperm have a shorter travel distance to find the egg and fertilize it. He told me if after 2-3 IUI's we would need to think of other things, maybe IVF.

We are just going to take one step at a time. I'm not upset. I'm not stressed out. I'm glad there's a plausible reason why it hasn't been working, but I'm sad the people who analyzed the semen back in Nov-Dec didn't alert us this was a red flag. I'm thankful God has led me to Dr. Miller. I think he's going to be a wonderful resource, and I'm excited to work with him. I'll keep you guys updated on things as they happen. Say a little prayer:)