A Year and a Half Later

Sometimes I forget I'm supposed to update here too.  Whoops.

In case you only read here and not the other disaster of a blog I "write," here's the scoop.  We don't have anything they can point to as the cause for losing our babies.  I have a minor chromosomal disorder (the MTHFR gene) but it doesn't appear to be affecting me at all because I have the heterozygous (or some huge word I don't understand) anomoly not the homozygous.  Yeah, I heard blah blah blah as well.  Basically it COULD someday affect my ability to absorb B12 and cause blood clots but as far as they can tell all my levels are completely normal and wouldn't be affecting the babies.  The doctor has me taking a baby aspirin every day, just in case I have an undetected clotting disorder.  He also prescribed a special prenatal pill with extra Folic Acid to see if that helps.  Also, as soon as we get a positive pregnancy test he'll put me on progesterone shots, just in case there's something undetected going on there. 

People keep telling me I should be relieved that there's nothing wrong.  People might need to can it.  If there was something wrong I would have something to blame.  I would have something to fix.  Right now my plan is to just keep trying and cross my fingers that we don't lose another baby.  Fun, right?  But it is what it is so we've  been trying.  For five months.  And I'm not pregnant.  Logically I realize my body probably needs the break but SERIOUSLY?  After getting pregnant without thinking about it, and now that I at least have something to try to help out...nothing  I am SO FRUSTRATED.

In the midst of all of this I lost my job.  Well I didn't LOSE it but I not longer HAVE it. It's a long, involved story which I probably won't ever share but the bottom line is that I was too stressed out and I needed to not be there.  I took a month off to relax and then Matt and I evaluated the budget and decided that unless we wanted a drastic life change, I should be working.  So I found the best solution for me and I'm doing some consulting for a while.  It has the chance to turn into a full time job but we'll see how it goes and if that's what I want to do.

Of course during all of this the due date for the last baby came and went.  It was, as I expected, a hard day.  I think I'm still in shock.  I can't believe that it's been almost six months since the miscarriage and I'm still not pregnant.  I've passed all three of my due dates now.  I'm ten months past my first due date. I should have a ten month old.  I guess that I'm almost relieved that there aren't any other missed dates looming in front of me, though.  Those are the HARDEST days among a ton of really hard days in the year and a half that's passed since the first positive pregnancy test.

As usual, it seems everyone around me is pregnant.  Everywhere I go.  Everyone I talk to.  Everyone I associate with on Facebook.  Of course that's an exaggeration but SERIOUSLY.  I might need to find a way to be Mormon without having to associate with all these procreating Mormons.  I pray every day  to be happy for them, really I do.  Sometimes it really works and I'm SO HAPPY for people.  Other times  I'm so broken-hearted that stepping outside of my hurt feels like the hardest thing I've ever been asked to do.  I can't find the place where any of this feels OK or fair or even remotely right.  I think I'm getting closer to it, which is a good place to be.  At least I'm not stuck in the mud.  I'm trudging slowly through it to wherever it is that I can understand.

PSYCHE!

Remember that one time, when I had a really invasive ultrasound with dye and iodine and saline dripping from everywhere?  And the resulting picture of my uterus resembled a butterfly instead of a triangle?  And we figured that was the cause of my multiple miscarriages and figured there was surgery and/or in-vitro fertilization in my future?

JUST KIDDING.  That was all a funny joke.

Turns out I don’t have any sort of uterine anomaly whatsoever.  Rather than my uterus dipping down in the middle to form a heart, it in fact bows UPWARD slightly.

HAHAHAHAHAH.  Ahem.

This news is good for many reasons.  I don’t need a surgery.  I won’t ever get an answer of “your uterus won’t allow you to ever carry a child.”  We probably don’t need in-vitro.

However, a part of me is frustrated because it means that I STILL DON’T KNOW WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME. 

We have a big pow-wow consultation with our fertility specialist next Monday to go over all of the results.  That includes my elebenteen hundred blood tests telling everything from hormone levels – before, during and after menstruation, genetic mutations, to possible clotting/coagulation disorders.  We’ll also go over the analysis of Matt’s, um, boys, as well as the complete results of my MRI and all my ultrasounds.

Right now here’s what we know:

1.       I do not have a uterine anomaly including the wrong shape, pollups, fibroids or endometriosis

2.       I do not have any sort of clogging of the fallopian tubes

3.       I have plenty of maturing eggs in both ovaries (currently 12 on the right and 9 on the left!)

4.       We do not have any genetic anomalies or incompatible genetics

5.       I ovulate at the right time

6.       Boy oh boy are we able to get pregnant

The remaining possibilities for what could be wrong seem to be:

1.       I have some sort of blood clotting disorder – either it’s clots to easily or not easily enough.  This wouldn’t have affected me in my life, given that I’ve never been stabbed or bled profusely for any real reason, but with tiny baby veins and the vascular nature of everything that’s going on in forming a baby, the smallest clot  - or lack thereof, can be deadly.  The solution for this is usually some heparin and/or aspirin every day.

2.       Matt’s boys may have some sort of defect that is causing the babies to not form correctly.  This is not very likely given how far into the last pregnancy we got, but it’s still something we want to look into

3.       I might have a hormone imbalance.  Again, given the fact that I was in the second trimester last time, this is not likely.  Usually a hormone imbalance will cause the uterus to not recognize what’s going on and try to get rid of it.  It’s usually accompanied by cramping or contractions and bleeding but the baby is usually fine unless the uterus succeeds in “getting rid of it.”  This MAY have been the case with our second pregnancy given how quickly after the ultrasound with the heartbeat I started bleeding but the first and third were not like this…the baby died and the uterus didn’t do anything about it until my hormone levels dropped to the the point that the uterus knew something was wrong.

So um, we’re sort of down to clotting disorder.  If that’s what it is, I can start trying to get pregnant right away.  If that’s not what it is…I have no idea.  That’s the frustrating part.  It might be NOTHING.  We might just have the crap luck of losing three babies in a row – maybe even more. 

I’m crossing my fingers that I have a clotting disorder.  If that’s it going forward we should be just fine.  Granted, it will also be a lot frustrating if that’s it because taking a friggin’ aspirin every day would have saved us a lot of trauma.  As frustrating as that will be, I trust that all of this is happening for our family at the right time.  Whatever the answer is, it’s the right one.  I just keep having to remind myself of that.

Well Isn't That Peachy

So on Wednesday my HCG levels were at 10,000 which is good for 5-6 weeks along which is what we think/thought I am/was.  But like I said, we didn't see a baby.  So into the lab I skipped on Friday to have my levels tested to see what they were doing.

I guess HCG levels are supposed to double every 48-72 hours.

Mine went up 67% from 10,000 to 15,000.

The doctor said that he's not sure what this means.  I could be fine.  I could have reached my peak and I'm tapering off now.  I could have an eptopic pregnancy (but that's not likely because we saw the sac in the uterus where it belongs).  (Also, I'm using the word sac waaaaaaay to much.  Yuck.)

You have GOT to be kidding me.

Wednesday I have another ultrasound and we'll measure the (gulp) sac and see what's going on.  For now?  No answer.

F.

Tick Tock Tick Tock

Holy crapoly this is a wild and annoying and EMOTIONAL ride.  I've spent a lot of the last five days or so crying then recovering then crying again.  It sucks.

I'm waiting for the results of the blood test.  They should be in this afternoon but just to make things interesting, I had some spotting this morning.  That's how we started the miscarriage last time so I'm less than thrilled and even less optimistic that things are going to work out this time around.  So far it hasn't gotten worse...if anything it's lightened up from what it was but I'm still not getting any hopes up.  All things considered spotting isn't a good sign right now.

That being said, IF things are going to work out this time around and this is any indication of how this baby's personality?  I'm terrified.  I'm in for a crazy child, I can tell you that.

If it turns out I'm not pregnant anymore, Matt and I are putting in our backyard and going to Europe in the spring.  I don't care how much it costs us.  I need something to look forward to.

And so the waiting game continues.