Ask Dr Ruth

DJDC Seeks Volunteers For Upcoming Events

In addition to "Downtown Chatter," generously provided you by The Post-Journal, and in an effort to keep everyone further up to date on downtown activities, DJDC now hosts the "Town Square" every Friday afternoon from 12:30 to 3 p.m. This show is on WJTN 1240 on your AM dial, and is hosted by John Siggins, and originates from the new Dr. Lillian V. Ney Renaissance Center. This is a call-in or talk show and the general public can call in and ask questions, give an opinion or just plain chit chat. DJDC is generally represented on this show so you have the opportunity to call and ask questions about what is happening downtown. There are generally representatives from other Jamestown organizations and attractions that will be on the show periodically, and they will be discussing their respective activities and, of course, be available for questions.

This last week we decided to do something a little different and fun for, at least, part of the summer. We decided that every Friday we would have "Hat of the Day" and invite everyone to wear a different hat on each Friday. The significance of this is we have so many people who are "wearing so many different hats" in their work that we thought it would be fun to simply wear a different actual hat every Friday. We will let you know what hat to wear through our Monday Mail. Okay so this next Friday, July 1 the hat of the day will be a Derby - let's see how many people will be wearing a Derby - everyone is invited to wear a hat of this type. This could be fun.

We, at DJDC, are completing plans for a very busy summer. We are now actively recruiting volunteers to assist us during the 2011 summer events. We thought we would provide you with events that will be held and duties with each one. Help from volunteers is greatly appreciated.

On July 29 and 30 we will be holding "Taste of Jamestown." This takes about 40 volunteers over the two-day period. Duties would be setup, selling food/beverage tickets, selling 50/50 tickets and taking pictures. Aug. 19 brings us "Thunder In The Streets." We will need approximately 20 volunteers to help with this. Volunteer work required would be event setup, registration/check-in, selling tickets, parking bikes and taking pictures. Right along with this is Downtown Cruisin' and this also takes about 20 volunteers. Work required is event setup, registration/check-in, selling tickets, parking cars, running children contests and once again taking pictures.

Another great event we are having is the Babe Ruth World Series and we hold a special parade for this on Aug. 20. Work required is decorating floats for each of the participating teams (this is a great opportunity for local organizations to take an entire unit), collecting the decorations when the parade is finished, assist in the parade lineup, and provide information and directions for all the visitors that attend this event.

Ask Dr Ruth « SEED: Sperm, Egg and Embryo Donors

Dear Dr Ruth

Anne

There are a lot of ideas and not a lot of certainties about low ovarian reserve. I would love someone to do the research project, which would have to involve a large number of women being tracked over probably 20 years to get any meaningful results. But at a time when no one has done this work, I shall just have to explain our hunches. I need to go back a bit and talk through some biology: when a woman is born she has a large number of immature eggs in small pools of fluid, called follicles, in each of her ovaries. By the time she has reached her menarche (when her periods start) she has already lost a lot of her eggs. At the start of each period after that a number of follicles start ripening.

In a natural cycle, one follicle gets ahead of the others and is called the dominant follicle. The other follicles shrivel away and only one (or sometimes two) continue to mature and pop to release an egg.

If a woman is having an IVF cycle the drug treatment keeps all those follicles destined for one cycle going on to maturity, so that several mature eggs can be harvested. Since only some of those mature eggs will fertilise and go on to form embryos, the doctors will want there to be a good number of follicles and hence eggs in each cycle, particularly if they want to give the eggs to someone else (egg donation).

We have some ways of trying to work out whether a woman is likely to produce sufficient eggs to be an egg donor. We can do scans of her ovaries. If her ovaries are small, or if there are only a few follicles visible, she is unlikely to produce many eggs. We can test her blood and AMH is one of two blood tests that we use to predict how ovaries are likely to respond.

If your blood test shows that you are unlikely to respond well to drugs a clinic will not want to start you off on treatment. First of all it would be hard for you to have all the drugs and then have little response and secondly it would be disappointing for the woman you are hoping to donate to. So you would be discouraged from donating.

Your other question is what does it mean in terms of your chances of having children. This is a difficult one. I suspect there are lots of women who if tested would be shown to have low ovarian reserve but have had children without any problem. And if you have no other problem and if your partner has a normal sperm count it’s possible that you will not have any problems either. Another scenario is that you may be a bit slower at getting pregnant than your friends but do get there in the end.

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