Mentor Update

First off let me just say my mentor seems like a really great person. I was told that neither one of these patients he hooked me up with ever had success, but the one I met with already had a child. I will have to admit I was slightly confused and a little shocked that I was told by the doctor that neither ever had a success before. And beyond that I was told the one that I met with never even had a miscarriage, she had absolutely no successes. I am sure he was just getting patients mixed up but I am sure I had a quick holy shit look on my face.

So here were the recommendations...

1. For PCOS patients, drilling before IVF to try and ward off OHSS(great but I don't have PCOS)

2. Taking the eggs early and not trying to wait for the smaller ones to catch up. This is what my RE did with both of his major problem patients. They didn't get as many mature eggs, but the ones that were mature were better quality.(I only stim for 7 days as it is so this wouldn't be an option)

3. Starting ganirlex early in your cycle...as in day 2 or 3 so you can stim longer and hopefully get better quality. This would be ideal for women like me who only stim for 7 days which most REs don't feel is long enough to get a quality, mature egg.

4.Coasting at the end of stimming as the belief is that some women's ovaries just can't handle all of the stimming and that ruins the quality of the eggs retrieved.

5.Taking dex or even better a Prednisone taper pack before and during IVF. (we already did this)

6.Taking cipro or another strong antibiotic before IVF. The thought on this and the dex is that it will clean you out of any infections that the zpack wouldn't. (we did this also)

In regards to the diet and lifestyle changes my mentor suggested that I read Fertility Foods. Don't bother with it as I can sum it up in one sentence...weight training and a low GI diet to keep your blood sugar level though out the day. My mentor followed this a bit too much in my opinion, the book says nothing about cutting out all carbs but that is what she did.

I picked up Jillian Michael's new book, Mastering your Metabolism(and rebalancing your hormones) yesterday and it does a much better job of explaining insulin resistance, why you should keep your blood sugar level, how you do it. There is also a chapter on all of your hormones, what will happen if they are out of whack and what foods you can eat to readjust. She gives PCOS a decent amount of space and states medications that be the answer if you diet and exercise don't work which I loved(I can't stand the people who claim diet can change everything). Also, I wouldn't even call it a diet as there is no calorie/carb/fat counting involved. I highly recommend reading this book.

Both books stress that weight training is more important for women than cardio.

So I am feeling pretty eh about the whole thing. While these suggestions may help a lot of women who had similar problems(lots of quality eggs, no pregnancy) but I fail to see how I can work any of those in to help me.

What I am excited about is the whole nutrition/exercise aspect. I am way heavier on the cardio then I am on the weight training so it will be interesting in the next month or two to see if my hormones start to balance out at all.