Yesterday Hana called me around noon. Her voice sounded excited, but she was whispering, as if she'd just gotten away with stealing candy or something. She was at the hospital, where she is on OB rounds as a third year resident.
"Hey, so I was on my lunch break and found an ultrasound technician," she began, "I asked her to do a vaginal ultrasound to count my follicles."
"So...?" I responded.
Hana giggled. "I was on my lunch break and just dropped my pants so this woman could see what was up there."
"Yes. I know how these things go," I replied, realizing that to her, this was the equivalent of a banker borrowing some cash from the bank.
"She said there were a lot of follicles!"
The Antral Follicle Count is done through vaginal ultrasound and basically counts the number of follicles, which is where each egg is housed, at their resting stage early in the menstrual cycle. The higher the number, the better. More follicles means more eggs means higher IVF success rate because there is more to work with. This is my biggest problem. An average count for someone my age is between 16-30 follicles. I started with 6 and got up to 9 with acupuncture.
"How many is a lot?" I asked.
"I don't know, we had to rush. Didn't have time to do a full count but she said it looked like there were many in each ovary. We should be fine," Hana said. Clearly feeling like she just got away with stealing candy, enjoying the few very specific perks of working in a hospital.
She was excited. I was relieved. I think since I've fallen head first into this nightmare, my sister has been worried that maybe there was some genetic issue that would affect her too. I think she's be afraid that maybe she wouldn't be able to help me, and I know she really wants to.
Her blood tests should be coming in soon, and now we know that she has follicles. At least with her body, each piece of information we are getting so far seem to be moving us towards our goal rather than farther away from it.
Comments