A little bit off

I've just started back in with infertility testing again and had my CD3 yesterday. So, my panel came back normal for FSH and LH, with just a teench more estrogen than normal. I want to get my prolactin tested as I think it might be a little bit high, perhaps in a subclinical way. I've looked up hyperprolactinemia in the past and have a lot of links. Today I was looking for the relationship between estrogen and prolactin and came across some interesting things that I thought I would share along with some other facts I've picked up along the way...

• Too much or too little prolactin causes infertility
  
• Prolactin excess can be stimulated by excess estrogen (this include using fertility drugs)
  
• Prolactin has been linked to low progesterone during the luteal phase
  
• Stress can elevate prolactin levels
  
• Dopamine regulates prolactin levels
  
• Stress can deplete dopamine levels in the brain
  
• Estrogen deprivation kills dopamine cells in the brain
  
• Excess estrogen leads to dopamine depletion
  
• Low progesterone leads to excess estrogen production
  
• Excess prolactin is linked to hypothyroidism
  
• Hypothyroidism and low progesterone can sometimes be linked to excess estrogen
  

And all of this could be on a subclinical level. Are you seeing the chicken and the egg here? So, for those of you who are relatively normal body weight and are experiencing infertility without other causes, such as IR or PCOS or a blockage, this might be one option for the hormonal imbalance that is impairing your fertility. A whole lotta little things being off just a little.

I'm going to explore this theory with my doctor in the coming weeks especially since I believe I have signs of excess prolactin.

Going Back in for Testing

I just called my RE's office to set up at "What Next" appointment after talking to the nurse there for a while. We haven't used any birth control since February 2000, and then it took us two years of fairly diligent trying (2002-2004) to finally get our BFP only to have it be a blighted ovum. In spite of the delay in our return to TTC until February (so the second half of 2004 was out) I still can't help but feel like there is something else at play. I haven't had my panels done since Feb 2003 and a lot has happened since then and I'm older now too.

I'm also going to get CD3 bloodwork done since that's tomorrow and I can just make sure that hormonally everything is swimming right (at the end of AF in my last cycle I had this odd temp rise that seemed unusual to me). The nurse said it might be time to have another HSG as well, not fun but I want answers.

My partner wasn't upset by the tests but he has this idea that my fibroid was the root of all evil and I'm not convinced that it was. When you can read stories about women having pregnancies with 5 tumors the size that I had (how they do it I don't know), it just boggles my mind. He keeps telling me that we just have to have a lot of sex. We have been having a lot of sex. I have three years worth of records of the majority of times we had sex -- somedays we even did it twice and you can't mark that down as a double in the charting program I use. Maybe I should do the math for him and tell him how many sperm he has deposited over the past three years and maybe then he will understand my frustration.

He wants me to just start over like it was the beginning again and we were just coming to this place where we are TTC in our lives. I don't know about you but I can't just erase three years of stress and heartache without a lobotomy. He got all pissed with me and said "I hate when you get like this" and I just said goodbye and hung up.

If we end up pg I can tell you it will be a result of all my hard work, research, hours of commiseration with my online buds, some surgery, some tests and not just because we had a lot of sex!