IVF Update: Our Next Test - HSG

Thursday afternoon we're traveling to the Dr.'s office, or rather the hospital adjacent, for my wife to have a hysterosalpingogram, or HSG test. Basically, the doctor will inject a contrast dye into her uterus through her cervix and take some x-rays as it goes through her fallopian tubes. If everything is normal, we'll see a clean triangle-ish shape of her uterus, the lines of her tubes, and a couple wispy plumes of dye coming out of them into her abdominal cavity. It can reveal some things that can cause infertility, such as tubal blockages (not so much of an issue for IVF since we're bypassing the tubes altogether,) uterine polyps, adhesions, etc. She's already had a sonohysterogram (saline & ultrasound instead of dye and x-ray) which is said to be better for detecting polyps and fibroids and nothing was found, so we're not expecting those.

What we do next will hopefully be informed by the results of this test. To be honest, we're not sure what our next move will be if we find nothing wrong. At that point we'd be left with abnormal embryos or just dumb luck as the cause of the failures so far. I guess we would move ahead with the transfer of the two embryos we have frozen, if they survive the thawing. (Chances are at least one will, though.)

I'm kind of hoping something is found that can be easily fixed. We may be no better off, really, than we would be if nothing was found, but at least we'd be better off than we had been.

At this point we have to accept that the odds are against us. We have two frozen embryos, but also two failed IVF cycles with three and four embryos transferred respectively, and in a couple months' time we'll both be forty. I really hope this works. I think we can afford one more try after this, financially. Will we be able to put ourselves through it again emotionally. I think I can - I'm sad and frustrated, but also a bit psychologically numbed by it all. It's much harder for my wife, though, which is really the worst part of it for me, and I'm not sure she could handle another. Fortunately, a cycle with frozen embryos is much less involved and taxing for a woman since she doesn't have to go through the hyperstimulation and all it entails, so maybe that will be the break we need. Here's hoping.