A little bit about me

This is my first blogging attempt ever so I'm curious to see how my blog will evolve as I get better at all this. The infertility world uses quite a lot of abbreviations so I will spell them out the first time I use them.

A little bit about me: My name is Christa and my husband's name is Brandon. We currently live in Silverdale, WA where Brandon is stationed in the Navy. We have two pets, a cat named Jasmine and a dog named Oso.

I have been trying to conceive (TTC) with my current husband since our marriage in October 2007. I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) in 2002 with my ex husband and we immediately started fertility treatments. I became pregnant but miscarried at 6 weeks. After that the treatments simply stopped working. We tried the fertility drugs off and on over the period of our marriage and even briefly became foster parents before we split up.

Fast forward to my current marriage. So far I have taken 3 months of fertility medications (Clomid). One cycle worked but we did not get pregnant. A sperm analysis (SA) showed that Brandon had a very low sperm count. Our local naval hospital said there was nothing more they could do and referred us to a Military Treatment Facility (MTF) an hour away (Madigan Army Medical Center). The doctor at Madigan told me that the only recommended route for us would be in-vitro fertilization (IVF). This normally costs $12-14K in the civilian world but through the military we can do it at a discounted price of about $8K. We were devastated. We had hoped to do the less expensive intrauterine insemination (IUI) treatment. This is where they place a catheter inside the uterus and inject the sperm directly into the uterus (also known as the "turkey baster" method). The doctor said we could try some IUI treatments but he didn't recommend it and the chances of success were minimal. Still, I wanted to give it a try so the doctor gave us the medications to get my cycle going.

Fast forward to today. I am currently on cycle day (cd) 11. I had an ultrasound (u/s) yesterday which showed 2 promising follicles, one at 12mm on my right and one at 10mm on my left. A mature follicle is at least 18mm and ovulation can be triggered naturally or with a hormone injection. Since this is a holiday weekend I cannot have my next u/s until Tuesday which would be cd15 for me. The follicles normally grow 1-3mm a day so I hope I do not ovulate over the weekend. If so, I will go to Seattle Reproductive Medicine (SRM) for my IUI treatment. That is the fertility clinic that Madigan contracts with and where I will have all procedures done. So the next few days will be a waiting game for me. I am hopeful about this IUI but not overly optimistic. We're still saving up for IVF.