Making the First Visit

Today was our first visit to the fertility specialist, and, in my mind at least, our first steps into getting help in getting pregnant. Since the appointment was relatively early, I had initially planned to only take the morning off work. But with much deliberation (a couple of minutes) I changed this to a full day in case we got held up, or something went wrong. Nothing untowards happened, but as it turned out, I'm glad I took the extra time.

Walking into the doctors rooms together was like having a giant flashing light over our heads 'We're having trouble over here'. Luckily, the whole set up of the waiting room - from the obviously busy reception, to the awesome play area in the shape of a boat - was relaxing. We filled in the forms (with me wracking my brain to remember when I had all my surgery) before settling in to wait for our turn.

The doctor immediately put me at ease (phew) going through my reproductive history (very dull) and general medical history (much more interesting, especially when they ask about parents' health) and then asking similar questions of M. Then it was time for the exams . . .

Which meant internal exams. We started with a basic pap smear, a simple internal exam and then an internal ultrasound. Luckily, since I tend to freak out with new examinations, all these were familiar to me, and were done so simply and calmly that I didn't have any anxiety at all. The best news is that physically all looks well and normal there, and there are follicles developing in both ovaries, with a big one developing in the right ovary (great for this time in my cycle).

We followed this up with a billion and one blood tests (so much blood!) taken by one of the best nurses ever (barely a mark on either M's or my arm) and plans for a couple more tests to come (one for M and a rather uncomfortable one for me). They'll let us know in the next week if anything untoward pops up in the blood tests, but otherwise we're just on the wait until next time.

Possible treatments? Well the nurse only mentioned Clomid and intrauterine insemination, which seems to me that they're pretty comfortable with the less intrusive options first. Of course we won't really have an answer about treatments until our next appointment in four weeks time.

Am I glad we went? Well I do have really mixed feelings about everything at the moment, but I am glad that we chose this particular doctor and he was able to fit us in. As for the other feelings, they'll have to be for another post . . .

Photo from Flickr