Tests for Progesterone Issues and Polyps

So my new doctor wants to figure out why I've had 2 miscarriages.  I appreciate this immensely and am so glad to be finding reasons for losing the baby so I no longer have to stress whether it was the coffee I drank before I knew or the hot dogs, because who knew you can't have hot dogs!

First, she wanted to check my progesterone level. You do this by getting blood work done so many days after you ovulate. Only after you miscarry, you have no way of knowing when your next ovulation or period will be because according to my Dr. the miscarriage does not count as a period.

So we had to buy a Clear Blue Easy ovulation predictor kit at the not so low price of $55 and I had to pee on a test strip every morning for weeks and wait for the smiley face to show up telling me I was having a LH surge.  (As a side note, it's not that easy to aim at 5 am when you're half asleep!) Once that happened, I had to call the Dr's office and they told me which day to come for blood work.  Turns out my progesterone level WAS low.  It was 9 and she wanted it to be 15.  That's not terribly low though she said.  When we get the green light to try again, I'll have to take progesterone supplements once I ovulate and stay on them until like day 33 of my cycle when I'll take a HPT and if it's negative, I'll stop the supplements and have a period.

Because my period sometimes starts before I'm supposed to, even when I was on BC, she wanted to check for uterine polyps. This was a fun one. You have to go for internal ultrasound while you're on your period - somewhere between days 6-10 of your cycle I think.

The Dr. called the other night around 8 pm - never a good sign when the Dr. calls that late.  She had just read my entire chart and the U/S results.  The U/S results showed a mass the size of a nickel consistent with a polyp.  She said I had 2 choices - exploratory surgery where they dilate your cervix and go in with a scope to see what it is and if it is a polyp, remove it OR wait until I have a period again and repeat the ultra sound.  You know I chose the ultra sound... Ha!  Theory is that there's a chance that the mass could be "remnants of the miscarriage" and the next period would flush it out if so. Even so, it's strange to think you have a mass of some sort lurking inside your body.

So now we wait.  Such a strange thing to go from TTC and aiming for that 5 day window to trying to completely avoid each other for a 7 day window just to be safe.  And everybody says you're most fertile after a miscarriage, but we're missing that window all together. 

And still - no one knows.  And those that do know, they don't ask.  It's hard and I think about it a lot more than I let on, even to my husband.