CD5: Follistim Day 3 Response (1st Ultrasound Monitor)

Written by Arpee on June 8, 2008 – 9:54 pm -

From St Davids Main, we drove to the Texas Fertility Center for an ultrasound monitor. I’m dreading it a bit since it will not be Dr Hansard who will be in. Instead, one of the male doctors, Dr Silverberg, will be the one on call/duty. I’m not really a fan of male doctors in obstetrics, gynecology or reproductive endocrinology but in this case, I have no choice, don’t I?

Guess who is in the clinic? The man and the child at St Davids Main. Aha… they must be the family of the lady before me back at St Davids lab. That made me feel more normal - someone else was trying to beat the clock at the labs and at the same time, someone else dragged the whole family to the lab!

Dr Silverberg was in casual Saturday clothes - loose shorts and shirt - looking like he’s ready to enjoy his weekend as soon as he is done being subjected to a parade of ovaries. A well-dressed female resident (I think!) was there as well. Dr Silverberg described to the resident what he was doing - doing an overview scan before going to the follicle to make measurements.

Dr Silverberg said that I was responding as expected to the Follistim. These are his measurements of the endometrial lining and the follicles in the ovaries:

Endometrial Lining = 8.3
Right Ovary = 10, 9, 7, 7 mm
Left Ovary = 10, 8 mm

The measurements sounded good to ordinary, non-medically fluent me. In the 2 previous clomid cycles I went through, the maximum that my follicles were growing to was 8mm. So, greater than 8 sounded good. I remembered Dr Hansard saying though that she’d like to see some of the follicles grow to about 20mm. She said she will show you what “big” is when we get there!

I asked Dr Silverberg how many eggs they would like to see grow bigger. He said “two”. And he said that he’ll continue with the same dosage as the first 3 - 150, 100, 100 Follistim.

Then he asked me how old I was. I said I was 40 and both Dr Silverberg and the resident looked a bit incredulous. They said I don’t look like 40 and instead more like early 30’s. Ehem…ehem…

And then he said… in that case, we’ll need 3 follicles and he changed the dosage a bit to 150, 150, 100 Follistim. Hmmm… age does matter.

I insisted that Al come with me for the ultrasound because I wanted him to see the follicles, too. He said he did not realize that the follicles would be that big. Well, wait until he sees “big” follicles.

Lastly, the 2 ladies after me at St Davids Main lab? They were there at the Texas Fertility Center as well, after me. So that makes 4 of us on a Saturday.

COST: $216 ($180 + 20% more for weekends and holidays)