On the mend

Hi to all...I've missed you! My lap/hysteroscopy was on Friday afternoon and I am nearly back to 100%, if not for my favorite AF that seems to have arrived this morning. Good thing I still have some pretty awesome pain meds if the cramps get too bad! I'm still off from work, although I contemplated going back today--but I quickly decided another day on the sofa wouldn't hurt. I really had a great recovery from my surgery--no nausea or vomiting, pretty good pain control with my med cocktail, only some fairly strong fatigue by the end of both Saturday and Sunday. My parents brought everything for Easter dinner to our house and cooked here (which was so nice) but I was still drained by the end of the day. So it is back to work tomorrow...uugghh.

Okay...the good stuff: my lap was a tremendous success. In fact, it was like hitting the information jackpot and the potential prize just might be a pregnancy someday in my future. I have my follow up with Dr. L sometime next week (still have to schedule it) but he spent a lot of time with DH and my parents after surgery reviewing all the juicy details. It appears I have several main issues that he was able to fix. First, my left ovary (the good one) was tethered to my pelvic wall. He detached it. Next, my left tube (the good one) was connected via a large adhesion across my pelvis to my right tube (which barely exists). This adhesion was pulling my left tube down and away from my ovary, so it was virtually impossible for an ovulated egg to get into the tube. They were just too far apart. Also, this adhesion had run itself over and under a part of my bowel, which Dr. L said he is amazed I've never had a bowel obstruction because it really could have been bad if I ever did. He clipped this adhesion, now no more problem. As for the right side, I do have a streak ovary (which means it started to develop when I was in utero, but never actually did develop). This is interesting because most women with this congenital anomaly are also missing the kidney on that side. We don't know about mine because when I had my MRI done, they didn't say one way or the other (and weren't probably looking for a kidney at that time). I am guessing I will need another MRI to determine my kidney status--no big deal, but probably a good thing to know for the future. Lastly, and this I have to get more explanation from Dr. L on, but it appears I have a "horned uterus." He used this term so I don't know if it is unicornuate or bicornuate (I'm thinking uni, based on his description to DH) and said he was virtually convinced I'd end up preggo on my own and need to immediately be in the care of a high-risk OB due to my "horned uterus" and the risk of miscarriage and/or ectopic pregnancy. I'd most likely deliver via c-section and be on bed rest with a cerclage also. But I would get pregnant.

In fact, he said he'd start trying next month. He said that there would have been no chance of pregnancy due to the adhesions on my ovary and that my tube was tethered away from the ovary itself. An eggie could have just not gotten into the tube as it was tied up like that. I guess my mom asked about my egg quality, given the history of our IVF embryos, and he said he really believes my quality is fine--it is the meds and taking the eggs out of me and manipulating them in the lab that impacted our embryo quality. I do have a fewer number of eggs, but it shouldn't impact us for several years or even until I'm closer to 40.

Dr. L did remove a couple spots of stage 1 endo from my ovary but he said that was by far the least of our worries and what they found. So there it is...the laprascopic jackpot.

More on this later, of course, but I want to know how it's possible for me to have a uni- or bicornuate uterus and not know this until now. I've had 2 HSGs with normal shape inside on the X-ray (not counting a blocked right tube), 3 IVFs, countless US, AN MRI! and it took having surgery to find this. I plan to ask him if it's possible for the inside to be shaped normally while the outside isn't or really is it just a small abnormality that it got missed until now? Anyone have any thoughts on this?

For now, back to watching movies, enjoying my coffee, and working on our home study.