Running tests while temporarily TTA?

[ShelbyMay]

DH and I are temporarily TTA (for at least 3 months) because of my job situation. My annual gyn. appointment is in October. We'll be at 7 months of TTC, 1.5 months of TTA, and 13 months of charting and off BCP.

It takes forever to get in to see my doctor, so I want to see if there's anything proactive we can do at my visit next month. Are there tests that she can run even though we're TTA? I plan on bringing all of my charts in with me.

[Scooter]

First you shoudl contact your insurance and find out how much if any IF diagnosis & testing, or treatment, is covered. If it is covered, you'll probably have to wait until 12mos of TTC. If it's not covered, and you've been charting so long, there's no reason to postpone getting the IF workup done.

She could do all the beginning tests while you're TTA, the cd3 bloodwork, 7dpo bloodwork, and the semen analysis. Those don't affect fertility and TTA/TTC doesn't affect them. My Dr also ran tests for STDs, even though there was no reason for me to be worried about that, because that is just another very common IF cause they want to rule out. That can easily be done with your regular pap, I can't even remember if it was just from the same swab or what.

You could even do the HSG if you wanted. The problem with that one though is fertility is increased during the 3-6 mos after it, so you probably wouldn't want to spend that time TTA!

Those are the 1st tests a Dr will do anyway, and after that you can either do more, based on your specific issues, or else you can move on to treatment or a specialist (or both).

[ShelbyMay]

Thanks for the info! My insurance doesn't cover a darn thing when it comes to infertility. I'm hoping maybe my doctor can bill some of the tests under a different "diagnosis" -- I do have irregular cycles, so maybe it could be that instead?