Ask Our Doctors – Archive
Our Medical Directors are outstanding physicians that you will find to be very personable and compassionate, who take care to ensure that you have the most cutting-edge fertility treatments at your disposal. This is your outlet to ask your questions to the doctors.
Hi Dr. Sher,
My husband and I did IUI on September 20th. I was on Gonal F and had two beautiful follicles, one was 23 and the other was 24. I used the trigger shot to release the follies for IUI. When I had my first beta HCG test on 14 days post IUI (Oct. 4), my number was 130. Then today (two days later), it was only 196. I did have some bright red spotting on on Oct 4 but I did miss my Progesterone the night before and the morning of 10/4. The spotting only showed up when I wiped. I have since been faithfully using the progesterone and all bleeding/spotting has stopped.
Question:
1. Do you think my cycle is viable? My doctor will do another hcg blood test on Monday, Oct 10 but I am so nervous.
2. Do you think initially two follies implanted and then one was not viable (hence the bleeding) and the slow rising HCG numbers two days later?
3. Have you seen patients who have slow to rise HCG numbers go on to have viable pregnancies?
This whole thing has me so stressed and concerned and it’s hard to wait until Monday until my third hcg test, Any thoughts would be appreciated.
1. Do you think my cycle is viable? My doctor will do another hcg blood test on Monday, Oct 10 but I am so nervous.
A: It is hard to say with confidence, The rise is slow. Thenext beta hCG will be more revealing.
2. Do you think initially two follies implanted and then one was not viable (hence the bleeding) and the slow rising HCG numbers two days later?
A: That is a distinct possibility
3. Have you seen patients who have slow to rise HCG numbers go on to have viable pregnancies?
A: Yes I have
Good luck!
Geoff Sher
Hi Dr. Sher,
I’m currently on Medrol (4mg twice daily), Estrace twice per day, and progesterone oil 1cc 2x per day. My doctor says I will continue all meds until 12 weeks, I’m currently 9.5. I’m worried about getting cut off of these medications so quickly – what are your thoughts? Isn’t it better to stay on them throughout the whole pregnancy since they’ve helped thus far? What happens when I get off Medrol specifically if they were killing the NK cells? And, what if the placenta doesn’t take over for the progesterone? Is this something you’d monitor regularly to make sure prog. levels are where they need to be?
The Medrol is a steroid and should be tailed off over 2 weeks starting around 8 weeks of pregnancy.
Geoff Sher
Hi Dr. Sher,
I’m so confused why most fertility doctors, even the top in the industry, wait for failure to run certain tests. After each failure, it seems there are more tests to run. Why not test for everything before having individuals and couples invest financially, emotionally, and their time?
My second question, is about balanced translocation. My husband was recently diagnosed with this. His #6 and #7 chromosome swap. For our next cycle, we will do this special CCS testing to be sure the embryos we transfer are normal, and don’t have the “mixed” chromosome”. (I’m not sure if I’m explaining that correctly). What are our chances of having a successful pregnancy??
Thank you in advance,
Elyse
I agree that “planning the trip before taking the ride” is what is optimal.
If an unbalanced translocation can be excluded in the embryo through PGS, the embryo should be well capable of propagating a viable pregnancy.
Good luck!
Geoff Sher
Hi Dr Sher,
Is ERA test recommended after the first FET cycle failure with PGS and PGD tested embryo, normal TSH level with synthyroid usage and good uterine lining of more than 10mm on day 10? Transfer was t afternoon, so it boiled down to 4.5 days of progesterone at the time of transfer. Is naturallyhatching/hatched blastocyst better than expanding/expanded blastocyst. We would appreciate your feedback
The hatched or hatching or an expanded blastocysts are all equally good.
I do not use ERA. I do not believe it to be that helpful.
Geoff Sher
Dear Dr.Sher,
Sorry, I missed mentioning salutation in my previous comment/question/concern. I was bit tensed and just copy pasted the content and did not even looked at the question/concern again.
I had my NT scan on 5th Oct 2016, and my LMP was 10 July 2016. they have given me report as follows. Doctor said everything is normal, but I am worried to see the word “risk” in the report. Please have a look at the below info and please let me know if anything I have to be worry about:
Maternal DOB: 13-Aug 1984
CRL: 7.1 CMS
NT: 1.86 mm
Fetus: 1
Report: Based on maternal age, previous obestric history. fetal CRL, NT, and FHR the calculated risk of fetus having:
Trisomy 21:1 in 1667
trisomy 18:1 in 5000
Trisomy 13:1 in 10000
(Calculated based on FMF Formula)
I concur with your doctor’s opinion. Thew word risk does not suggest that your pregnancy is at increased risk. It is being used as a yardstick,…that’s all in my opinion.
Good luck!
Geoff Sher