Thursday, March 24, 2011

My Uterus on T.V!

Clearly I should never say in any post that I'm going to finish a story the next day...because I probably won't.  Most likely, I'll leave you hanging for days at a time.  But, you love me for my quirky charm, no?


So, let's carry on with the tale of my hysteroscopy.  I have had one before but it was done with my D&C last year and I was knocked out for that.  The one done most recently was performed at the clinic, I was wide awake and the Boy and I got to watch it all on the monitor.  Good thing I don't have a squeamish husband!  This procedure is even less fun than an ultrasound.  In fact, an u/s is a day at the beach compared to a hysteroscopy.  Here's why - instead of a wand pressing up against my cervix, a hysteroscope is inserted through the cervix.  Basically, it's a long thin tube (like a 'swizzle stick!' said the Dr. doing the procedure) with a tiny camera that magnifies all that it sees.  
On the (full colour!) monitor, I got to watch all of this happening.  None of it was surprising to me because when you've been trying to get knocked up as long as I have, believe me, you've checked out pictures of a million female reproductive organs.  It is kind of nifty to see your own though.  Really!  Try it.  The good news was that the passages to/from both of my ovaries were nice and clear.  The less than stellar news was that some slight ripples could be seen on part of the uterine wall.  These 'ripples' are apparently the beginnings of polyps.  


The doc who did the procedure said that these ripples could be easily taken care of during another hysteroscopy with a tool she described as being 'like a spatula!'.  I'm not sure what was up with her descriptions of things but she was very enthusiastic.  Anyway, I would have to be admitted to the hospital and knocked out for such a thing.  After my short follow up conversation with Dr. K about it, it was decided that I would be referred to a doctor that can do that.  Not sure when that will be happening, but given hospital waiting lists, it will probably be a few months.


On the upside, Dr. K said that the ripples are low enough that she doesn't think they'd interfere with implantation.  Also, since they aren't fully formed polyps, they're not blocking anything important like my cervix or aforementioned tube openings.  So, the Boy and I can carry on with TTC and I can give the progesterone a shot.

There is some frustration for me with the whole thing.  A) The doc who did the hysteroscopy, upon seeing the ripples, said 'I guess that's what Dr. H was talking about in his notes'.  Now, that was news to me because Dr. H, after performing the D&C and hysteroscopy last time, told me that everything looked 'normal'.  I'm sure his reason for not saying anything to me was because he didn't think what he saw was something that would interfere with my TTC and perhaps the ripples were smaller then.  Still, I would have liked to have known that he did see something.

B) Dr. K called me back the same day that I'd had the hysteroscopy.  I appreciate the follow up, but she had done 9 egg retrievals that day (we know because the nurse told us) and was clearly not fully focused on our conversation.  I would have preferred to wait a bit to hear from her, when she was less busy and had all of my information in front of her.  I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt though and for now, I'm going on the assumption that she's just not great on the phone.

Mostly though, the frustration comes from:

C) This whole business of trying to get pregnant is really just a series of fortunate (or unfortunate) events.  The medical profession seems to know HOW a baby is made but not WHY.  What I mean is, you can have two perfectly healthy women, with bodies that are able to provide the same welcoming environment for an embryo, yet one will get pregnant and one won't.  For the most part, reproductive medicine appears to be made up of educated guesses.  There are numerous tests that can be done, and that helps to give some direction to the course of action that can be taken but it all really comes down to the luck of the draw.

For myself, what I believe I need to do is to accept that knowledge, work on getting myself as healthy as I can be, work on being as happy as I can be, and hope for the best.  It's become a lot easier for me to do that recently and I'm working on perpetuating that feeling.

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