Monday, January 26, 2009

Monday's Connections Abound

Welcome to today's edition of Connections Abound. The point to Lost and Found is to level the support playing field. When LFCA works correctly, the newest blogger with the smallest readership can receive the same level of support as the oldest blogger with the largest readership. Anyone can submit news to LFCA by clicking here.

Lost and Found is open to anyone in the
infertility, pregnancy loss, adoption, pregnancy-and-parenting after infertility, assisted conception, living child-free after infertility or loss community (as well as anyone I inadvertently missed on that list). Please support the list as well as anyone posting announcements below.

Connections Abound

MISCELLANEOUS NEWS
New
  • Kirtsy'd Pick O' the Day: Please vote for this one from Building Heavenly Bridges. The author muses on why we honor people on their birthday rather than their deathday. She asks: "why memorialize the first day of his life, instead of his last?" How do you vote? Simply by clicking on the words "this one" above and then clicking on the post's title. Why the Kirtsy'd Pick O' the Day? Click on that link in the header navigation bar above for the story. And send me stuff!
  • Computer Help: A Somewhat Ordinary Life's (long time IF blogger, now invite-only) hard drive died. She has been going through a lot lately and the cost of retrieving files (namely, pictures) from the hard drive will be costly. Can anyone volunteer their services to help her, especially if you could walk her through the steps of retrieving the files? Please leave a comment below if you can help.
  • Question: A blogless person asked me a question and I've never heard of this before--taking Prometrium BEFORE ovulation. She has checked with her doctor 4 times with this and the instructions remain the same. "After I miscarried in September my Dr has put me on prometrium to try and stop the spotting. I tried 200mg Prometrium starting on day 13. I know I didn' t ovulate until the 16th but the dr told me to start that day so I followed the directions. Still spotting. Now I have been told to take Clomid 100mg days 5-9 and Prometrium starting day 12. I know that is before I would ovulate now, based on temp charting and OPK. Could taking the Prometrium too soon in my cycle prevent me from ovulating? I have called my Dr. four times to double check this and the answer I got through her nurse, was that the progesterone would get my uterine lining prepared before I ovulated. But everything that I have read has said increased progesterone before ovulation could cause you to not ovulate." Has anyone else ever heard of this? Please leave answers in the comment section below since the questioner is blogless.
  • Question: Cara from Building Heavenly Bridges is holding a conversation about either building on the IF Common Thread idea or starting a new similar project for those experiencing stillbirth or neonatal death. Please click over to join the conversation.
Old
  • Online Shower: Leah is organizing an online group gift for JJ of Reproductive Jeans. If you'd like to contribute, click over to the Baby Gift site and read how you can participate. This message will be up until the 30th which is the closing date for contributing.
  • Fundraiser: Alexa (who is a March of Dimes ambassador this year) is raising money for the March of Dimes. Help her reach her goal of $5000.
  • Creme de la Creme: The Creme de la Creme list was posted. I continue to add to it daily and update the date/time link on the right sidebar whenever there has been a change.
  • Bridges continues to post and it continues to be an amazing resource for insight into a multitude of worlds. And I'm not just saying that because I work on it.
  • If you notice another loading slow down or receive error messages for Stirrup Queens or Lost and Found, please let me know. Now I'm nervous every time I add anything to the side bar!
NEW BLOGS (started in December 2008 or January 2009)
BIRTHDAYS AND ANNIVERSARIES (celebrate your birthday or blogoversary with the community. Send me date at any point and I'll post them on the correct day)
LOSS REMEMBRANCES (send in the dates of loss anniversaries and I will post them on the correct day)
  • None Today.
LOSS ANNOUNCEMENTS
  • None Today.
MISCELLANEOUS SUPPORT AND CELEBRATIONS (scary scans, anxious waits, OHSS, and a host of other reasons why these bloggers could use some additional support right now. Also, celebratory retrievals, transfers, and other good news)
  • Our Family Beginnings is dashing about after receiving news that they'd been selected to adopt a baby due any day! It looks like the placement will happen early this week.
  • Guera at Portraits in Sepia had a laparotomy to remove ovarian cysts and as much endometriosis as possible and will be off work for 6 weeks. Go keep her company.
  • Diary of an Infertile Mad Woman transfered 3 embryos, would like some extra prayers that at least one of them sticks.
  • Ashley had her 4th IUI on Saturday.
  • After converting her IUI to IVF, Stacey had her retrieval Saturday. 6 eggs were retrieved.
  • Musings of the Barren had an IUI this weekend and is now in the wait. Go wish her luck!
  • Mrs. Higrens found out Sunday that her FSH levels are indicating ovarian issues at 32. While the RE wants to test levels again before making a final diagnosis, this has come as a bit of a shock. If anyone out there has had similar issues and gone on to successful IUI or IVF she'd love to hear your stories (and any other encouragement you can provide).
BEDREST BABES: on bedrest following infertility or loss and needing support. Drop in on them and keep them company.
  • Dee remains on bedrest after Pprom at 13 weeks. She is now 24 weeks and has been moved to the hospital for bedrest for the remainder of the pregnancy.
  • Elana had the cerclage and is now at home on modified bed rest.
  • Heather is on bedrest for the foreseeable future after having a cerclage put in. Sweetpea is still doing great!
  • Ange is back home after being in the hospital after some bleeding. She is on bedrest for the time being.
  • JJ is on bed rest for the remainder of her pregnancy.
PREGNANCY ANNOUNCEMENTS AND NEWS
BIRTH AND ADOPTION ANNOUNCEMENTS
  • Two Shorten the Road gave birth to a girl, Lexie, on January 20th. Go over and wish her congratulations.
  • Annabelle is almost here! Chasing China received her referral from China after a very long wait. Go over and celebrate with her at her new blog, Annabelle Arriving.
Read and Support

10 comments:

JuliaS said...

I took prometrium for LPD (low progesterone in the 2 week wait part of the cycle) My doc (who specialized in recurrent loss) always said not to take it sooner than 4 days PAST ovulation or it could hinder implantation. I also noticed that so long as I was on prometrium (or progesterone at all) my periods would not come. I am no expert - but my experience with it and the advice from my doc was such that I would believe progesterone could delay as well as put off ovulation (a lot of the minipills are progestin only pills)as well as potentially mess up implantation if ovulation did occur. From what I understand - progesterone is produced by the corpus luteum cyst AFTER ovulation. Now, Clomid does dummy up your progesterone levels in the first half of your cycle causing your body to produce more estrogen in response - however, you don't take clomid past day 9 and you are usually expected to ovulate about 7 days following the last pill.

HTH - and good wishes to her!

Anonymous said...

For me prometrium always induced ovulation. I would have a wonky long cycle and then take prometrium to induce af and instead of af showing up a few days after stopping (like its supposed to) it wouldn't show up until 14-15 days later. I remember my RE saying that it can have an ovulatory effect on people so its not unheard of.

Niki said...

YES!! Do not take any form of progesterone before ovulation as it will stop you from ovulating! How annoying! Any class in reproductive biology will tell you that progesterone doesn't peak until after ovulation. Also, an ob/gyn should know that progesterone inhibits ovulation because this is what most bcp contain that prevent pregnancy (by preventing o). I'm annoyed by this ignorance and hope that this nonblogger can find a knowledgeable RE to treat her properly.

Courtney said...

My RE had me start prog supps 6-7 days after ovulation. I've heard of REs starting progesterone around 4 dpo, but definitely NOT before ovulation. Like others have said, it could easily delay ovulation or cause you not to ovulate at all. My advice to your reader would be to chart her temp and to only start progesterone after at least 4 high temps. It also sounds to me like it might be time to see a specialist like a RE who is much more familiar with reproductive health.

Dan & Hillary said...

Progesterone is in bcp's because it does hinder ovulation. Need to wait until after O to use.

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Aurelia said...

I think the nurse got the message wrong. Really. Very very odd.

Any cycle I ever took prometrium or progesterone on too close to ovulation, was a bust. It prevented the LH surge. Now---it might work for you, but I would only do that if you were being monitored with bloods and US.

If you are still spotting, then it's better to take baby aspirin and then start prometrium a few days past ovulation, and double up the dose. I did 200 mg in the am and 200 mg in the pm but intravaginally. (If you take it orally it not only doesn't work for maintaining a luteal phase but it doubles as a sleeping pill. Seriously)

As for the Doc--I am worried that he would put you on clomid without doing any monitoring of your cycle. It dries up cervical mucus so you'll have no idea when you ovulate. Or you might super ovulate and end up with lots of multiples which can be dangerous.

Ask for monitoring, like bloods and US to make sure you ovulate on it, and then ask about method of taking prometrium and how much. Even if he still tells you to take it before ovulation, don't.

gwinne said...

FWIW, my first RE had me take progesterone--both oral and vaginal--as early as 1dpo. I conceived twice. *But* both RE's I've worked with this go around said progesterone prior to 36-48 hrs post-IUI/ovulation acts as a contraceptive.

In Due Time said...

Tell Ordinary to email me.

Julia said...

Progesterone in mini-pills (and IMs shots, and in IUDs) is not there to prevent ovulation. It is there to mess with the lining to put it out of synch with the age of any possible embryo and thus to prevent implantation. When made by the body, progesterone itself is not a signal for ovulation-- it is a marker of it. I.e. LH spike should trigger ovulation, which should then result in the corpus luteum making progesterone. There are times when LH doesn't trigger ovulation, so while the OP kits test for LH as an indicator for a good time to have intercourse, only a progesterone test later on in the cycle can indicate whether ovulation occured.

Now, I have no idea about using progesterone before ovulation. I can see an argument for doing it in conjunction with chlomide because of what chlomide does to the lining (i.e. make back the loss of what would've been gained in the absence of chlomide), but I can also see a legitimate concern about getting the timing wrong and having the mini-pill effect. Any way to talk to the doctor directly?

Here's a paper I found:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19079963
it talks about monitoring endometrial thickness and finding a thickness range predictive of success. So the question may be whether the early onset progesterone protocol is likely to hit the window of good characteristics of the endometrium or overshoot it.