Visit to the Reproductive Endocrinologist

On Thursday (3/21) I went to visit Dr Hook, she referred me to the Reproductive Endocrinologist and my appointment was today (3/25). I got really lucky to get in and see the RE so soon! Dr. Hook, really hooked me up!!!

There are 3 REs in Lubbock, mine is Dr. Huang at the Texas Tech Center for Fertility and Reproductive Surgery.

Back to the appointment! Sloan went with me and I was really, really nervous! I had no idea what they would find or tell me! We really liked Dr. Huang and his office staff! We felt welcomed and not rushed by any means! Normally I feel like the dr is trying to rush me out so he can get to the next patient. Dr. Huang performed an ultrasound and took what seemed like 100 pictures! He then pulled 4 pictures up on the screen and analyzed them in 4D. All kinds of crazy stuff.

We went back into his office and he explained that all of my hormone levels from the blood were in the normal ranges. I havent had time to look into this further to confirm, but at this moment I trust him. He then began to draw the stages of how a uterus forms. When a baby girl is in utero, her uterus is forming at a very early stage. It starts off as 2 pieces and the fuses together to form 1. When the 2 pieces form together, the middle piece is supposed to go away. Well, some people still have that piece. So the diagnosis is "Septate Uterus" I don't want to scar you for life with a picture, but if you are visual like me, click here for a drawing of what that means. This is a normal uterus.

I have to have surgery to remove the septation on April 17th. The miscarriage rate for a septate uterus is almost 90%. But after the surgery, the rate goes back to normal 20%. This was definitely the cause of my 2 miscarriages. There is no guarantee I wont have any more, but this surgery is a great thing for me! The reason the rate of miscarriage is so high is because the egg attaches to the septation and there is no blood flow there. So it will die. If it does attach to a side, the growth can be restricted by the septation and cause later term problems...

You may be asking, why didn't the doctors find this sooner? The RE said that its almost impossible to find this while doing a D&C or a routine ultrasound. It also takes a trained eye & several view angles to find.

After the surgery, I will have to wait 4-6 weeks to "try" again. Here is a cool video that shows the surgery. (There is no external view) So you cant really even tell what you are seeing. Click here for the video.

As I blogged previously, I still do have the luteal phase defect, but we will try and fix that using progesterone therapy. If it doesn't help, we will use clomid as a last resort.

So to all those people who kept saying "it will happen" "you guys are young" PLEASE DONT TELL ME THAT AGAIN! :D I appreciate your thoughts and prayers though. But its not so easy for everyone to have a child!

We are really happy to finally have some answers!! And we are looking forward to the surgery!