Belinda, I'd be exactly the same way! When told to take a break from TTC there's no way I'd go back on the pill or go and start using condoms... I'd just take a break from charting and all that stuff, just focus on BDing when we want to, not when we feel we have to. I feel as though there's bugger all point in needing to actively prevent a pregnancy, and if a miracle occurs in the meantime - go with it!
Emmydee, thanks so much for the information!
Princess, I'm sending you the biggest truckload of that you can imagine!
Ktgirl, no fear! Regardless of what people have said who don't really know me, or how I think, there's no way I'm leaving this place! Except perhaps if I go away on holidays for a bit... I've gained so much support and knowledge from this forum and the wonderful people here that I'd be mad to leave! You're stuck with me for a good long time yet!
My day so far... at 11:45 I discovered that my acupuncture appointment was at 12:30... and I hadn't showered and had an hour's drive ahead of me. Threw on clothes, raced out with charts and papers everywhere and with the help of some fairly creative speed limits along the way I got there only 15 minutes late. With roadworks, rain and just generally slow traffic to deal with along the way, I thought I did ok!
My acupuncturist is pretty mad at the suggestion we do nothing for the varicocele. Her argument is that if the varicocele is causing a triple factor sperm defect (which it is) and hormone levesl are normal (which they are), then it's likely that the varicocele is the cause of the problem and the repair will improve sperm and pregnancy chances. The friend from England I mentioned earlier was left with the job of chasing articles and summarising them for me. I arrived back to an email containing 8 pages of notes regarding all these different articles we found... The short story is that the varicocele repair is NOT going to be a waste of time in our case. The report we were given that said it would be a waste of time got a right pasting in one of the articles - of the 8 studies mentioned we get down to only 2 or 3 that are relevant in our case. And those studies did find that varicocele repairs DID improve fertility and pregnancy rates. The ones that said no had peculiar groupings of people involved - men with normal SA (of course it's going to do nothing there, they are already normal!), men with subclinical varicoceles (ones that can only be detected with an ultrasound), which are so small and minor that they really aren't going to be causing a problem. The result of all this reading... my DH has a thumping great big varicocele that is obviously causing some problem as his SA is crap but his hormones are normal and his testicles appear normal on ultrasound - there's just the whacking great huge varicocele there!
Poor DH... he's going to arrive home to the news he is going to have surgery...
Oh yeah... forgot to mention that my acupuncturist says that from what she knows of me (and she's seen me weekly for quite a long time now), she's worked out that I am definitely a control freak, and agrees with me - if you can't control it, learn as much as you can about the situation. Keep charting! The unknown factor is going to cause me a lot more stress than the charting is.
So... I wonder how the FS is going to feel about me continuing to chart and us electing to actually have the varicocele repair... I guess at this point, if he's not willing to work with what we decide... then we find a new one!
Wooohoooo! The in-control BW has returned!
BW
Last edited by butterfly_warrior; December 15th, 2006 at 01:40 PM.
that you can imagine!
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