Forgive the verb tenses... I'm writing these in a journal with the intention of posting them in some sort of chronological order later. Back in February I had immunology testing done by our new
doctor- Dr. Andrew in Provo, Utah at East Bay Fertility Center. After asking a
series of questions (do you get sick often? No. Do you have a family history of
auto immune diseases? My bio grandmother had RA. Is there a history of
miscarriages? My bio mother had multiple miscarriages.) he was pretty certain
there was some underlying cause of our so-called “unexplained” infertility. Dr.
Z had pointed out previously that I have low AMH which can indicate diminished
ovarian reserve (not enough eggs left) and can also indicate that the eggs may
be poor quality. Dr. Andrew wasn’t overly concerned with my low egg count, but
he did want to know why it was so low. He thought perhaps it was from so many
unmonitored cycles of clomid- it was possible I’d been dropping multiple eggs
and essentially wasting them.
At this
point we had two options- start the drugs (clomid and femara) and hope that the
tests came back negative, or wait a cycle and get the results. The problem was
that we were supposed to start our Mini IVF cycle drugs February 21st
and the test results didn’t come in until the week after. I was devastated to
say the least… I’d been so set on starting as soon as possible. I had cycle
buddies just days apart from me. I had a plan darn it!!! We decided to go ahead
with the plan for a February/March cycle after prayers, fasting and multiple
blessings. When the blood work came back we had two answers: I have what are
known as ovarian antibodies and natural killer cells. This means that my
ovaries attack themselves and the eggs, destroying some of the eggs and
lessening the quality of what is left. The natural killer cells hunt down any
foreign bodies in the system (i.e. sperm, eggs, embryos) and attack them-
basically an over-active immune system. I had mono a few years ago and didn’t
even know it… that should have been an indicator that something was wrong,
right??? The good news is- we had our answers, the bad news is that it could
push us back up to three months. Treatment for OAs would be Humira shots once a
month for three months to suppress the immune response and allow the next batch
of maturing eggs to grow and develop without being attacked. At $2,500 per
shot, we knew this wasn’t an option, especially since insurance won’t cover it.
The treatment for NKCs was IV IG therapy that would put good antibodies back
into my system and try to override the NKCs. I asked the doctor what he thought
we should do. His response had me in tears- “My gut feeling is that you don’t
need to fix these, but you just needed to know what the problem was.” This has
been my BIGGEST hurdle- being classified as “unexplained” and not being able to
get a single one of the four previous doctors to figure out what our problem
was! Talk about tender mercies- I love love love Dr. Andrew. We ordered my
medications, scheduled flights, rental cars, hotels and everything we would
need.
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