We got our new medication shipment Friday. It was just Lupron and some antibiotics but I got this with the package:

I bet they do!

I thought it was funny. It's not like we have much a choice. There is no specialty pharmacy in our area so we have to go out-of-state for most of the medication, just like the sperm. That probably makes it sound like we live in the backwoods, but I swear we live in a major city that you would probably expect to have a sperm bank and a specialty pharmacy!

Today I saw my regular endocrinologist. I've had thyroid issues since I was in my teens. No real reason for it. Usually it's inherited, but there is nobody in my family that we know of that has thyroid issues. No big surprise though, considering weird things tend to happen to me. My thyroid blew up when I was about 15 and became very hyperactive. We couldn't control it with medication so I had radiation treatment and it has been hypoactive ever since. I'll have to take medication for it for the rest of my life.

Thyroid issues can cause major problems when trying to conceive. Your thyroid controls a lot of hormonal balances and other stuff so you really need to have it under control. When we were doing IUI mine was not under control 100%, but I was impatient and I thought we could get it under control during the process and it would be fine. There's no way to know if the three failed attempts were because of this, or something with chromosomes since we have that information now, or something else. But before I would even consider IVF I got it under control and the levels were stable for months before we started.

Actually, although I've had this problem for years I've only seen this endocrinologist for about a year. I had to switch a couple of times before because of changes in insurance and the last one I ended his services before our first IUI attempt. He told me that if I got pregnant I would have a miscarriage. And he said it that bluntly too. When I left I never went back and when I told my fertility doctor she said it was bullshit so I found a new endocrinologist. And I really like her, except her office is so far away! That's my own fault though because when I was mapquesting the office, I forgot to put in "west" with the street name so it looked like it was right down the street from where I live when in fact it's about half an hour away. It's actually right across the street from the fertility doctor. Well, they're both worth the drive.

Today the doctor said that although I'm still within the normal range, she wants to bring my TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) down a little to make more ideal conditions for conception. It's better to be a little hyperactive than hyopactive. If the transfer in April works, I'll have to see her immediately and I'll have to see her every six weeks for medication adjustments. If not, I'll see her in May instead.

Since the next IVF news won't be until the end of this month, I have some posts planned with questions we get asked a lot and misconceptions that I thought were interesting. I'll try to put a couple up each week, starting this weekend.