So there we were, starting the 2nd year TTC and I had to face my greatest fear and go and see the doctor and ask him to help us since my cycles were not returning. I have always hated doctors and this was possibly the most traumatic appointment I had ever had to date. However my fears were mostly unfounded as he tried to brush me off telling me that 1 year was nothing and to come back in a further six months. This was exactly the spur I needed to start researching the way forward and low and behold I found a miriad of information that told me to go back and fight my corner to at least have my hormone levels checked. And so I put my white coat syndrome aside and went back to the doctor with all my printed research and demanded that he take me seriously and do the simple bloodtest to check my hormone levels. He obviously didn't appreciate being told how to do his job but my insistance paid dividends and by April 2003 I had back a list of hormones with corresponding values. Mike managed to convince me to hold myself back from the internet before I spoke to the doctor about the results and somehow I implemented some self control; however I did already know that many of the numbers were above average whilst others were below. Well when I got back in to see the doctor he seemed to have a very different interpretation and told me there was nothing to worry about and that I wasn't pre-menopausal as had been their fear. I was obviously relieved, especially considering I hadn't even considered that as a possibility, but I raised with him my understanding that the values didn't seem to be in the normal range. He brushed my concerns aside and told me to TTC for another 6 months and then come back if we weren't pregnant.
This was the last time I was ever to be brushed off by a doctor. I came straight home, onto the internet and within half an hour knew that none of my results were good news. My prolactin was elevated, my Lutenising Hormone (LH) and Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH) through the floor and my progesterone almost non existent; there was no way I was ovulating, my system was in hibernation! I immediately rang the surgery and made an appointment with a different doctor, this time there was going to be no white washing, I meant business.
The second GP I saw was more ready to listen, possibly due to my stronger stance on my rights and the volume of knowledge I had now acquired. He looked at my hormone levels and reviewed my findings as to their meanings and confirmed that I didn't appear to be ovulating and that would make conceiving pretty impossible. He agreed that something needed to be done to help me but that first he would want a full picture and so Mike had to get a full sperm analysis, boy was that a conversation I was looking forward to. In actual fact Mike exceeded every expectation I had and just asked me when he needed to do this and what was entailed and within 2 weeks he had made his donation and we were playing the waiting game again. Two weeks on and we had our first piece of good news that Mike was an all singing, all dancing healthy virile man, thank god that there was only one of us with a problem.
So now what? I firmly took the responsibility on my own shoulders for putting the next steps in place, well there was no blaming anyone else for the lack of a baby in our nursery to be! I went back to the doctor now more than 20 months since we started TTC (all these 2 weeks for appoinments and 2 weeks for tests and 2 weeks for analysis and 2 weeks for follow up appointments quickly add up) and he agreed that we needed to be referred to the local hospital's fertility clinic and that I could expect another 3 month wait to gte my first consultation with one of their consultants. My heart sank but what choice was there? At least we were moving forward and perhaps 2004 would be the year our baby would arrive!
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