Fertility Treatment

After I graduated from college with my teaching degree Tim and I thought it was a great time to get serious about seeking out a new form of fertility treatment.  After many trials that resulted in failure, the doctors finally said that I needed the expertise of a Reproductive Endocrinologist.  This meant that I would be referred to a civilian physician instead of an OB-GYN from the Naval Hospital in Pensacola, Florida.  We were referred to Dr. Koulianos from The Center of Reproductive Medicine in Mobile, Alabama.

Our first meeting with Dr. Koulianos was great.  Dr. "K" was the first doctor that showed genuine care and concern in meeting our desires to become parents and gave us hope.  We went into this meeting expecting the cost of treatment to be quite large but we knew that God would guide us as we made these financial decisions.  He provides for his children and to our surprise that day in Dr. K's office, his treatment plan was covered by our health insurance with the exception of co-payments on prescriptions!

The treatment consisted of constant monitoring of blood work and ultrasounds two to three times a week.  These were to follow hormone levels and follicular growth while I routinely gave myself injections that would cause follicular stimulation.

The first cycle of treatment was primarily to see how my body would respond to the new fertility drugs but ended up canceling the treatment cycle because I was not responding correctly.  The dosage needed to be adjusted properly for my body and this information was gathered in all the tests in the first cycle.  The second cycle I was able to complete but the timing was not quite right yet and received a negative pregnancy result.  Upon starting our third cycle of treatment I had to be cleared of any problems.  They needed to make sure there were no cysts present.  During my ultrasound a large black spot filled the screen and I knew that this was not what we wanted to see.  It turned out to be a cyst twice the size of my left ovary.  Dr. K thought it would be best to put me on birth control and let nature take its course and see if the cyst would be absorbed.  This delayed us for a month and once I was cleared we started our third cycle of treatment which was successful!