Post-operative follow-up visit

Well, I am in good spirits today!

Yesterday I hadn't gotten my reminder phone call from the doctor's office, so I called to ask them if they still had me on the schedule. I am glad I called, because they did not have a record of my appointment. It made me briefly question myself, because I was kind of drugged at the time I made the appointment, but I am almost positive that I did! I even had the time written down. Anyway, they were very nice and worked things out to get us in today.

We had to wait over an hour once we arrived. I was (again) so impressed with Dr. Dunn's office staff. They kept coming in giving us status updates. Dr. Dunn got pulled out for a moment to do an IVF transfer and it had thrown his day off a bit. It was no big deal.

I was really happy with our meeting. Dr. Dunn gave us 24 pictures that were taken during my surgery. He had some pictures of my bladder, liver, and appendix! Most of the pictures were taken inside the uterus, though (of course). I could see both fallopian tube openings, which was really neat. You could tell a huge difference between the right and left sides of my uterus. There was actually some healthy lining on the right side, whereas the left side was completely white (scar tissue). So we are just hoping the estrogen is doing its job and helping that healthy portion spread to the rest of the cavity.

I asked him if it was even a remote possibility that we wouldn't have to do another surgery. He said that it is possible, but it's also very possible that we will need to go in once more. But for now at least I have a small bit of hope that this first surgery did the trick.

I was also curious if I would be put on progesterone once I completed the 4 weeks on estrogen. He said that he is not planning on prescribing anything to bring on a cycle. He said that he prefers to wait and let my body realize that it's time to ovulate again on its own. He said that will take around 2-4 weeks once I stop the estrogen. This means that I can expect a period again in approximately 4-6 weeks. Once I do get a period, we are hoping to see some heavier flow. That would be a good sign that the lining is rebuilding and has more to shed. I am supposed to call him on the first day of my next cycle to schedule the SHG. I hadn't realized that we would wait for a period first, so we will not be doing the test in 2 weeks. It will probably be sometime in January before my period will return. So the waiting continues.

Dr. Dunn's parting words to us were very encouraging. He said that when you first go into a situation like this, you try to be very realistic. He does not like to create false hope for couples. But he said that at this point, he is now comfortable saying that he is very optimistic. We may need another surgery - but he thinks the final outcome is going to be not only a good enough uterine cavity to conceive, but a uterine cavity that is very close to being completely normal.

At this point, I think that is the best possible news we can get. The only thing that would make it better is if we don't have to go through another surgery in January.