Recovering from Mirena

- by Kim

I got to the fertility clinic yesterday morning, nice and early around 7:30 a.m, which was cutting it a little close for me to get to work on time for 8:00. I was a bundle of nerves waiting for my turn, in anticipation of what the news would be. Janelle and I texted till it was time for me to go in, which was so nice, because even though I was sitting there on my own amongst all these other couples, I felt that I had my support there too.

First was the ultrasound, where for the first time, I'm pretty sure I was able to make out where my uterus was, among all the other black and grey smudges on the screen. I thought, this must be an improvement since last time.  Before I said anything, the doctor quickly remarked that the "appearance" of my uterus is much better. Uterus overheard, and bashfully replied: "thanks...I've been working out."

heh-hmmm....

He said that my ovaries are "quiet", which is just what they want to see, but my lining was still only at 4 mm. It was day 12 of my cycle, so ideally the lining should be thickening up in preparation to support an embryo. I felt like it was deja-vu; as this is how it started in August when we cancelled the cycle.

We're not totally out yet though, as the doctor said that we are still in the "early" days, so there's still some time to play around with the hormone dosage to see if we can get up to where we need to be. My bloodwork came back fine, and so as of last night they have doubled my estrogen, and I'm now taking 4 mg of Estrace twice a day. I go back on Saturday morning to see if this will make any difference in the lining.

Initially, when I first left the clinic I was feeling a little bummed and disappointed, and wondered what the heck was going on with my body. The doctor mentioned that he thought that my uterus might just need a little bit more time to heal from having had the IUD. I didn't really understand what exactly that meant, but thanks to a quiet day at work and some Google time, I found out a ton of information that made me feel quite a bit better.

I had an Mirena IUD, which is different than the traditional ones in that it releases hormones into your body to help prevent pregnancy. What I didn't realize is that one of the hormones released is specifically designed to keep the uterine lining thin, so that if fertilization were to happen, the embryo would not be able to implant; hence birth control. I found so many different sites/blogs/forums where all these women wrote about their experiences and difficulties with conception and IVF post Mirena removal, and it looks like it's quite common for it to take 3-6 months for everything to get back on track. Not to say that this is what happens with everyone. Everyone is different. I went to the actual Mirena website, and they claim is that normal cycles and fertility will return within 12 months of removal. Ahhhh........relief. Finally there may be a reason for what's been going on.

It's amazing how instantly I felt better seeing this information. I found it so reassuring, and was suddenly more forgiving of the uterus that I had previously been cursing. It gave me a new sense of calm, in that I realized if it's not a go this time, that's ok. We'll get there when we're ready, and if it takes a little longer than we'd initially hoped, it will be alright.

So now we'll just see what happens Saturday. At the moment I'm trying not to worry too much about it. We're doing all we can, and we'll just see if now is our right time. What's meant to be will happen when it's meant to.