A Lesson in Ovulation 4/10/09

One of the crazy things about infertility is that you get to know waaaaay too much about how your body functions. As you go to doctors, it becomes necessary to do some of your own research in order to understand what in tarnation they are talking about.

So....Here is your quick lesson on a woman's body. Did you know that there is only a 20% chance each month that a couple can get preggo doing the love dance regularly? Did you know that a woman ovulates once a month, and there is only a short 1-3 day time period when you can actually get pregnant? The average woman has a cycle that is 25-30 daysish... The cycle starts when your body produces a hormone that tells your body to shed the lining of the uterus, which starts your "period"...When you are pregnant, you don't produce this hormone. Anyway, you have your menstrual cycle, and 14 days before your new cycle begins, you produce hormones that tell your body to ovulate or drop an egg. All the while...other hormones are being released to tell your body to get the egg ready to be released.
Now that you have an egg being released. If you get the timing right, the swimmers meet an egg and one penetrates the egg creating an embryo. An average man has millions of swimmers...only a very small percentage of them actually make it to the egg.

This is the basic explanation...not scientific at all, but all to say that conception is an absolute miracle. When a couple our age has been trying to conceive for more than a year, they are considered to be struggling with infertility. There are many reasons that this could be happening, as there are many details and steps that go into actually seeing a baby conceived.

In our case, we have multiple issues. Brian has only 2% swimmers that can actually make babies. Normal is over 20%. In his case, the doctors have said that it would be impossible to get pregnant without In Vetro Fertilization (IVF). In my case, they are still trying to pin down exactly what is going on with me. They suspect Premature Menopause in evolution, which means my body is running out of eggs. I normally have very short cycles and weird things going on with my hormones. During their investigations so far, they have found that my left ovary is shriveled up and like a raisin and my right one is small but actually is ok (how ok...we don't know yet)...This is after they found out that I had cysts on them...I had to take birth control for 2 months to get them to disappear. They are gone now! Praise the Lord! All that to say...we are about a month away from taking a major test. I am waiting until next month to take it because of timing issues...it has to be taken on day three of my cycle. That's Sunday, and the lab is not open. Oh well, God's timing is perfect. This test is the most advanced test out there and will basically tell us whether they could get viable eggs (eggs that could make babies) from me, in order to do IVF. Fun Times!

The Good News: I had a perfect cycle this go around...28 days...that is the text book cycle! Praise the Lord! I am believing for my complete healing, and we are moving in that direction!

I am confident in God's sovereign hand in all of this. His timing is perfect. He knows the days that my children are to be born, and I will trust him as we wait patiently upon him. All Babies are a miracle, and my babies with be a SUPER Miracle! I just can't wait to meet their squishy faces!