Thursday, May 04, 2006

More Odds

My Dad had to be at the hospital this morning at 6am. I got up to call them at 5:30 this morning but they didn't have their phone on! So I haven't talked to Mom yet and of course I forgot to ask what hospital they were at. So I have no idea what's going on. Talk about not being in control!

Anyway, Josefina had some good questions in response to yesterday's post so I thought I would try to answer them. I always figure if one person asks a question, there's more that have the same question that don't ask.

So.... a septum: A normal uterus is rather dome-shaped at the top. With a septated uterus, the two halves of the uterus do not form properly and instead end up looking somewhat heart shaped with tissue hanging down in the middle. There are varying degrees; some women have what is basically 2 uterii because the two halves don't come together at all. For others, it's a relatively minor condition where there's just a small amount of tissue hanging down. But the tissue doesn't have a good blood supply and if an embryo implants there, there's not a whole lot to grow on.

Now, about odds. I'm no expert and have nothing to back up these numbers; they're just numbers I have heard and stored away throughout my journey. I think any given woman in any given cycle has like a 20% chance of conceiving. But if you take all the cycles together for long enough (I think like a year), then the average woman has something like an 85% chance of conceiving sometime in that time frame. It goes down a bit with age but it's somewhere around there.

Yesterday, I found this page that shows some odds of different types of uterine abnormalities. Just like the 85% chance of conceiving over a certain time-frame, these are the odds of conceiving over a certain timeframe with a uterine problem. For a septate, this chart says 25% chance although other sources I read said no higher than 10%. If you get it fixed, the chances go back up to the range of an average woman.

Hope that clears things up. Probably more than you ever wanted to know about uterine abnormalties! I've gotta run now and get ready to go to the Y but if anyone has anymore questions, let me know. Thanks for all the support about my Dad. I will post as soon as I find something out!

2 comments:

Michele C said...

Thank you for the clarification. I had no idea what a septum was (other than a nasal deviated septum).

It must make you feel good to know there is something correctable that could be the cause of your previous miscarriage.

I have always felt that unexplainable things are much worse. Now, you can deal with it.

I am sorry that they found a problem and you will have to indergo a corrective procedure, but all in all good news in my book.

Josefina said...

Thanks a lot K for your explanation. Yes, it's good you discovered that, but it's strange they hadn't discovered it sooner.
Anyway, I though the statistics where like you said because if not it shouldn't be a condition to worry about.
Well, I'm so glad your father apparently has no cancer, (I know this was in the next post!), I think you've been through a lot lately and you've been very strong!!!!
Good luck with the uterus fixing, I'm sure once that's ok, you'll get pregnant really fast!!!