I came upon this blog post because it had linked to me. There was some good detective work done here, with some interesting observations revealed. I sort of felt like I did when I was reading the DaVinci Files.

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I don’t know if this is even real or fake, but it looks real enough to bring tears to my eyes. I wonder if my own dogs would sacrifice for each other in this way.

It took 400 cases for the courts to recognize this abuse.

Here are some explanations of the categories used on this blog:

FERTILITY STRATEGIES: Posts on how to logically approach the problem, choose the right decisions and take the right actions.

INSIDE VIEW: An inside glimpse of this reproductive endocrinologist’s daily work life

LIFE AND HAPPINESS: Bits and pieces from my personal life, my philosophies and beliefs, including political views

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: A mixed bag of reader questions

FERTILITY NEWS: News stories about fertility-related issues

REAL STORIES: Real cases from patients who have generously agreed to share their stories

UNCATEGORIZED: Anything that doesn’t neatly fall into any of the above categories

Click here for episode 1

Irene had started her injections on day 3 of her cycle. After five days of injections, it brought us to day 8 and she was here for her ultrasound. This is what we saw:

RIGHT OVARY: (14×13) (15×14) (13×13)
LEFT OVARY: (16×14)

Lining = 8mm Triple Layer

This was a great stimulation. There were enough follicles to give a good chance of pregnancy, but not so many that we needed to be concerned about quadruplets. The follicles were not quite ripe yet, but they were close. I continued her on the same dose and brought her back after two more days.

This is what we saw:

RIGHT OVARY: (16×16) (17×16) (13×13)
LEFT OVARY: (21×18)

Lining = 8mm Triple Layer

It was a tossup whether to trigger the ovulation today or to wait one more day. I decided to go ahead and trigger and bring her back two days later for the insemination. In general, for first time patients, I trigger at around 5PM in anticipation of ovulation in the morning two days later.

Irene came back two days later and had her insemination. She was started on progesterone supplementation.

Twelve days later, she came for her pregnancy test. It was positive! Her hCG level was 88 IU/L !

For most first time pregnant women, this would be a great moment of joy. For Irene who had four miscarriages in four pregnancies, this was the beginning of the scary time.

As planned, she was started on daily injections of heparin.

Click here for episode 8.

I’ve always taken issue with the lie that the poor or middle class pay more taxes than the wealthy. This article summarizes it nicely. Money is just a way for society to keep tabs on how much people are working to contribute to the world. In general, the people with the money are the ones who are making things and providing services that people want. People want these goods and services and because of that, they choose to pay the providers of such goods and services, thereby making them wealthy. I agree with the notion that politicians like to rile up the voting public and have a scapegoat to rail against. And one group against whom it is politically acceptable to direct the venom are the wealthy/productive people.

Compared to doctors, lawyers donate 7.5 times as much to politicians in order to extract political favors. It’s no wonder the rules of the game in this country are stacked way in favor of lawyers. The next time you need a doctor or lawyer, you can judge for yourself if this difference is fair and ethical or not. For a detailed account, check out this excellent blog post.

If you believe that runaway lawsuit abuse in the United States does not affect the average citizen, take a moment to read about what’s happening in Brooklyn. A hospital has decided to shut down their OB department and stop delivering babies. Why? Just ask yourself. If you ran a hospital, how long could you continue to operate when you had to pay $8.8 million per year just to buy malpractice insurance to protect yourself from unscrupulous lawsuits? Actually, the $8.8 million is the malpractice insurance for OB alone and just a part of the total $22 million in annual medical malpractice costs. In this zero sum situation, doctors and hospitals lose money, while patients with bad outcomes and their lawyers gain money. The average patient is the big loser through higher costs passed down from the health care providers and more importantly, through lack of access to medical care, as in this case.

Lawyer will throw out the argument that it’s not their greed that is the root of the problem. Rather, they argue that it is actual medical malpractice that is the culprit. Well, then if that’s truly the case, then they should be happy each time a hospital closes or a doctor quits practicing, because it must be that only the bad hospitals and the bad doctors are affected. Somehow, I don’t think so.

Click here for episode 1

Caroline and Darryl have come a long way. After several IUI cycles, they are pregnant. But they realize that it is a never-ending journey. After discovering that they had twins, they found out that this good news was short-lived. On the previous ultrasound, it was discovered that one of the twins had stopped growing and was without fetal heart motion. This is sometimes known as the Vanishing Twin Syndrome.

The good news is that Caroline’s pregnancy went on without further incident and she went on to delivery a beautiful baby girl.

Here is her final prenatal ultrasound:

I’m currently just a beginner with video editing so look for improved quality in future video clips and audio clips, as I learn more!