Back in Tampa Labs

With my full day work up complete I still needed to complete Day 3 labs. The office I am working with insists these must be completed by their lab so I had to find a place to draw my blood, spin in down, and hand me the vials for me to mail back to Colorado! Whaaattt?? And all this had to be done on a specific day. So armed with my shipping box and instructions I was able to have the blood draw at AnyLabs.com and then the next day I had to ship the temperature controlled serum with the ice packs overnight via fedex. This was a challenge, I went to the largest fedex location in my area and they don’t take packages like mine….blood, lol. I had to drive to the main fedex location by the mall. Every step of this process is dripping in stress due to the specificity of cycle day and the fear of lost time. Every month that ticks by is sooo stressful.

I dont know why but this was tough. I think I was just so afraid I would do it wrong and cost myself another month. I also was worried the lab would have a different protocol than the office required. But I think some of these practices are ubiquitous.

Honestly, all the poking, prodding, testing, ultrasounds, and overload of information is hard. I keep thinking its harder because I dont have someone in the ring with me but I bet its hard nonetheless.

There is a lot that goes into the fertility picture but your hormones and follicle count give the doc the best idea of your likelihood of success. The purpose of day 3 labs is to look at hormone levels. I talked about AMH in previous post Link here . The other hormones can include:

FSH-Follicle Stimulating hormone. This is a hormone secreted by the pituitary in response to GnRH (gonadotropin reelaseong hormone) which is released by the hypothalamus. FSH goes to the ovaries and triggers follicle growth and eventaully ovulation. FSH works closely with LH.

LH- luteinizing hormone. LS is also secreted by the pituitary in response to GnRH. LH helps the dominant follicle of the cysle grow and be released (ovulation).

Estrogen is low at the beginning of a menstrual cycle and rises to a peak right before ovualtion and then takes a dive and a smaller, flatter peak in the second half of the cylce and falls again. Among its many roles estrogen is responsible for growing and thickening the lining of the uterus.

Progesterone is described as the calm, mama hormone. It is low in the beginning of the menstrual cycle and has a rise and peak in the second half of the cycle, after ovulation. Progesterone is responsible for maintaining the lining of the uterus. If pregnancy doesn’t occur then progesterone falls off and the lining is shed.

Day 1 of the cycle is when you start your period, ovulation is typically day 14 (midpoint) and a typical cycle is roughly 28 days.