The visit with the doctor went well today. He showed me his drawings of what he discovered. Not only was there endometriosis on my ovaries, he also found something on my uterus. I asked him if I needed to worry about the endometriosis, and he said that for a year there should be no problems and gave me some statistic about 30% of it coming back. I didn't quite understand, but didn't feel it was worth my time to ask more about it.

He said that both my tubes spilled the dye, so now I can be sure that both tubes are open. If the right one did have stuff in it, it is now flushed away. He said that with me not being aware, they can put more pressure through your tubes.

The doctor's suggestion was what he told my husband. We'll be trying on our own for 4 months. During the fourth month I'll call the clinic and they will teach me about taking the FSH shots. We will try the shots with IUI's 2 or 3 times. He thinks we have a chance since I'm ovulating, we have dealt with our individual problems as well as we can, and since my husband and I are young. He took a look at my husband's numbers again and still thought it was worth a try to do the IUIs. I found out a little bit about my husband's counts from our four previous IUIs. All I knew was the counts after the sperm washing. The count that was the best was 8.6 million per mL, I think, with 47% motility. I told the doctor the time with the best count was the time we had abstained for the shortest time. He said that two days is probably the best timing for us, since it gives us the highest counts and the highest motility.

What was most interesting to me was the large volume. I have never been told the volume from any of my husband's analyses, but I figured it must be pretty large, due to what I already knew about the counts and personal "leakage" experience (I think you know what I mean). Anyway, the volume ranged from 6 to 8.5 milliliters. Average volume is 2 to 5 milliliters. Of course it would be better if there was less volume and a higher concentration, but there's nothing we can really do about it. It's hard for me to believe that my husband had a total count around 70 million for that one IUI. With the poor morphology (shape and appearance) (2% in one analysis - 14% is normal) the count after washing was only 4.9 million.

If we are unsuccessful with the IUIs, our next step would be IVF. The doctor was telling me that since we are still young (I guess 28 is still young) he suggests that we wait a year before going on to IVF. I still don't know about doing IVF. If we did decide to do IVF, would I want to wait another year? Would I want to experience another year of heartbreak? What about adoption. Would we want to wait a year before beginning that process? I don't know. I don't think I really want to think about it now. I really pray that I get pregnant in the next 6 or 7 months. By then we will have been trying for four years, and the doctor says after 5 years without getting pregnant your chances are very low of having a baby. He said it wasn't impossible, but unlikely. However, God can do anything. He said the part about God too.

My heart is asking for a baby, Lord. Is that too much to ask?