18 - Base Line Ultrasound (June 18th, 2008)

After our break, I had the baseline ultrasound. NO CAFFEINE FOR 72 HOURS PRIOR TO THIS TEST. This ultrasound was painless (does not require the use of a speculum). I had my husband come into the room with me. They were checking two things with this ultrasound:

-They were checking to see how many resting follicles I had. These are your potential eggs for that particular month (the exact number of resting follicles varies slightly each month). I had about 17-18 total. I guess for my age, this is a pretty reasonable number. This means that, with the fertility drugs, they have the potential to retrieve 17-18 eggs. The coolest thing was that this was Day 9 of my cycle and you could clearly see the one egg that was maturing to be released for this cycle (via my right ovary) - it was A LOT bigger than the resting follicles. Ahhh....the magic of the human body.

-The second thing that they were testing was blood flow to the uterus (hence the no caffeine rule). My blood flow looked normal. They said that if blood flow looks weak, they may suggest acupuncture following implantation. There is no hard core scientific evidence that acupuncture following the procedure is a solution to weak blood flow to the uterus, but there are some general studies that suggest that it can be helpful. There are no studies that indicate that acupuncture is harmful. I may do it anyway when the time comes...