So Friday I went to see a fertility specialist because my regular OB/GYN doesn’t do IVF. After what the endocrinologist said, I thought this might be a waste of my time, but I wanted to get in because new patients have to wait three months for an appointment while existing patients can get right in.
So basically they told me that they would start me on Metformin right away without even waiting for the bloodwork to come back, because I have enough symptoms. They also said they saw no reason for me to wait to start IVF, and that what my endocrinologist said about “ambiguous genitalia” was a bunch of hooey. Well, not in so many words, but the nurse practitioner seemed really informed about PCOS, and said she’s seen tons of patients have beautiful babies with no complications.
So then I did some research of my own and found out that, even when the mothers have elevated androgens, the placenta acts as a filter and converts the androgens to estrogens for a female fetus. The majority of the time when there has been a problem, it’s due to the mother having a hormone-producing tumor or something.
So I went in and got my blood taken for the endo, and this week I have to go get my bloodwork done for the fertility doctor. I go back to the endo in two weeks, and I’m going to ask him about all this and see what he has to say. My plan right now is to start Metformin after that (I’m assuming he’ll give it to me since he seemed pretty likely to), give it a month or so to let my body react and build up my dosage, and then do IVF. It’s a compromise between the four months the endo wanted me to wait and the right now the fertility doctor wanted me to do. I see the benefit in both approaches, and I also know that they each have their own agendas, which only partially includes my best interests.
Even when I start the IVF process, it could take up to two months to get my body ready for the actual retrieval of eggs and then reintroduction of fertilized embryos. So just because I say I’ll start in a month, it will be summer before the first attempt goes off. Hopefully that will be the only attempt, but I am so, so fortunate in that my insurance covers IVF at 100%, which is really rare, and I should be able to do about 3 attempts before the insurance runs out. It’s nice to be able to make these decisions based on what my husband and I want, and my body, instead of based on what we can or can’t afford.
