2nd base...

My first appointment at Nashville Fertility was on April 5th, Jimmy and I were literally walking into the unknown.  I had done some research about reasons my tubes were blocked, I had talked to several people that had been through fertility treatments but I don't think it ever prepares you for what you are about to face.  I was comfortable with going to Nashville Fertility, we have some very dear  friends that had been treated there and now have precious twin boys, however I had no idea that the first meeting with my new DR would be so intense.

Dr. Eblen is Board Certified in Obstetric and Gynecology and subspecialty certified in Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility.  When we met with her she already had my file and test results from my OB and was very familiar with our situation and that really impressed me.  She first introduced herself and explained what she and Nashville Fertility specialized in, which is basically all types of INFERTILITY but with my tubes being blocked she kept mentioning IVF...


What is IVF? IVF is a process where fertilization takes place outside the body, in a petri dish or a test tube. A woman's eggs are aspirated from her ovaries and placed with sperm. After culture of the embryos for three to five days, the embryos are placed in the woman's uterus. The IVF cycle includes administration of medicines for stimulation of the ovaries (ovarian hyperstimulation), egg retrieval, fertilization and embryo culture, and embryo transfer.
 
This really frustrated Jimmy and me at first cause it just seemed like she wanted to push this instead of trying other options but we sat through it and tried to be patient.  After she talked about this for about 30 minutes she decided she was to do an vaginal ultrasound on me to see what she could find...my consultation now has turned into a very personal situation...so we go for the ultrasound.  She gets the results back is stunned by what she saw...I had several cysts on both of my ovaries and had some black spots around my tubes and ovaries that appeared to be ...Endometriosis excuse me?  I have Endometriosis and I had no idea???  Isn't that suppose to be painful?  Well turns out, she sees women everyday that have it and have had zero symptoms.  WOW...mouth dropping again...SO she explains to me that when women are between the Ovulation phase and their cycle that they tend to have more cysts on their ovaries that disappear after their cycle, so she wants to see me at the end of my next cycle which happen to be the next week.  I went back this time with Tiffany for a second ultrasound and she was right almost all of the cysts disappeared but there was still  visible cysts on each ovary and still those dreaded black spots around the tubes and ovaries...we talked after the ultrasound and decided to schedule a Laparoscopic Surgery.
 
Laparoscopic surgery, also called minimally invasive surgery (MIS), bandaid surgery, keyhole surgery is a modern surgical technique in which operations in the abdomen are performed through small incisions (usually 0.5–1.5 cm) as compared to larger incisions needed in traditional surgical procedures.
 
This surgery would allow Dr. Elben to get a closer look inside and determine that actual damage, she would also remove the cysts and laser the Endometriosis if need be.  This would also allow her to "clean" out whatever was blocking my tubes.  Needless to say I was NERVOUS at this point and wanted it to happen ASAP! The surgery is to be scheduled on the 8th or 9th day of your cycle...well in May that landed on Wednesday of the week we were leaving for the beach so we scheduled it for June 15th...I would now have to wait OVER a month to get more answers...

Whew that was a STRESSFUL 2 months...