Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Back from RE

I like Dr. M. He knows what he's doing, so I don't have to, and that is a great relief. We have a plan! And he confirmed the plan by sending me a letter via the patient portal on their website within minutes after our appointment. I like that.

The one frustrating thing is that due to HIPAA stuff, he has not yet been able to look at the images from my HSG or U/S, so I will have to obtain those and give them to him. If I had known that already, I would have gotten them ahead of time. But luckily, I don't have to worry too much about wasting more time. Without further ado, I present to you Our Plan, which I will transcribe/paraphrase from the letter.

From this point, there will be one of three outcomes:

1. If I have a definite bicornuate or unicornuate uterus, then he will not do surgery now but instead have me attempt pregnancy.
2. If I have a uterine septum, he will discuss hysteroscopy further for septum resection.
3. If he can't say with certainty what I have, he will perform a hysterosonogram [saline ultrasound].

Whatever the outcome, we can expect to be able to try again within a few months. Hooray! I'm still putting all my hopes into SU, since pregnancies can be so complicated and uncertain with BU or UU. (Even though my HSG report says UU, that's extremely unlikely, so I can pretty much not worry about that one.)

Some other things of note which Dr. M shared:
  • 1 in 200 women has a bicornuate uterus.
  • Surgery is not usually done right away for BU, but is considered if it is determined to be the cause of multiple miscarriages.
  • He has performed surgery on BU, but only about once a year or less. (That sounded like a lot to me, which means he's experienced!)
  • He can usually tell from hysterosonogram the difference between SU and BU, and if it's SU, he does the resection via hysteroscopy. He said there would be no incision, so I guess he does not feel the laparascopy is usually necessary.
  • He performs septum resections several times per month. (Yes! Yes! Yes!)
  • He saw no reason to do any other kind of infertility work-up, blood work, semen analysis, etc. I love that he's not ordering all kinds of unnecessary tests!

So, by tomorrow I should be able to have obtained digital images from my HSG and U/S. I'll drop them off at Dr. M's office (which is less than 10 minutes from where I live!), hope he has time to review them soon, and find out what happens next!


3 comments:

Sarah said...

As the crazy planner I am, I am thrilled you now have a plan! I like Dr. M already :)

anne said...

I'm with Sarah :)

I'm so happy to hear that you're in good hands and feeling hopeful!

Newt said...

Oh, your doctor sounds fantastic! Congrats on the plan, and on TTC again soon!