Seeking Help - April 2012

When the month of April hit, and I found myself still not pregnant, I decided to do something about it.  People always say you have to be trying to conceive for a year before you can/should see a doctor.  This is only partially true.  While most doctors won't treat you for infertility, there are tests and other things that can be done before that one year mark.


So in mid-April, I made the decision to make an appointment with the local Women's Clinic in my community.  My primary concern (other than the fact that I hadn't yet gotten pregnant) was that I was experiencing incredibly painful ovulation cramps that would last for a week or longer.  I felt like this couldn't be normal.  So I called to make an appointment.  I was incredibly frustrated when I discovered the soonest I could get in for an appointment would be end of May.  Waiting a month and a half to find out what was going on with me just wasn't an option.  Luckily, one of my best friends' mom works as a nurse at this Women's Clinic and she was able to pull strings for me and get me an appointment for the following week.


I went in for my appointment and visited with my doctor.  She assured me that a lot of women have painful ovulation cycles and that I probably didn't need to be concerned.  But to be sure, she scheduled an ultrasound to check out my uterus and ovaries.  She also sent me down to the lab to do some blood work.


I went in later that week for my ultrasound.  They told me to come with a full bladder so they could try to do a transabdominal approach (rubbing the wand over your belly). Apparently a full bladder is somehow supposed to make the images clearer.  They told me in advance, that they may be able to get what they needed from the transabdominal ultrasound, but if not, they would have to do a transvaginal ultrasound (inserting the probe into the vagina).  So, I went in, laid down on the table, lifted my shirt a bit, and they rubbed the wand over my belly and didn't see much.  So she then asked me to go "relieve myself" and take off my pants and underwear so we could do the transvaginal ultrasound.  This procedure really wasn't bad.  She talked to me throughout the whole thing, explaining what we were seeing on the screen.  She said everything looked normal.  She didn't see any cysts on my ovaries.  She said she did see some fluid which could either mean that I had had a cyst that ruptured or that I had just recently ovulated.  Since I had been charting my cycle, I knew that I had just ovulated, so the fluid was not concerning.


After my ultrasound, I got dressed and went and spoke to a nurse about the results of the blood work I had done earlier in the week.  She said everything looked good.  She said I'm immune to Fifth's Disease which was a concern of mine since I'm an elementary school teacher.  She mentioned that the blood tests came back saying I was not immune to Rubella and that I should get a Rubella (MMR) vaccination as soon as possible (more on that later).


I ended up going home feeling pretty good about things.  I thought this appointment might be just the thing I needed to confirm that my body IS "normal" and that I AM capable of conceiving a child.  One less thing to stress about, right?