Bye bye fat October 11, 2008

You’ve been around long enough.  I was happy (mostly) to welcome you for the babies, but most of you arrived after the babies left.  Enough of your free ride around the greatest sites and sounds of Minneapolis.  You’ll have to find a home somewhere else, you big, dumb fat globs.  Because today I am finally getting back to the gym.  The old house is on the market and priority number one is holding on to that small sliver of sanity I have left, but kickin’ you to the curb is a very close second.  

So today I am 153.  Heaviest I’ve ever been.  Before starting this journey to get pregnant and stay pregnant 17 months ago, I was in the low 130s.  Twenty pounds isn’t good on a 5′2″ gal who has curves naturally.  My goal is to get and stay in the 140s in October and the rest will kinda depend on the treatment plan.  If we have a couple of months before trying again and don’t have to hit the fertility meds, I’d love to be back in the 130s by the time I get pregnant again.  God, would I love that.

Update:

Rode bike about 10 miles back and forth to the gym, due to losing membership card on the way and making the trip twice.  Then did interval setting on elliptical for 442 calories.  Woo hoo!

Happy first date-iversary to us! October 10, 2008

Four years ago, I finished a 6 hour drive back from my hometown and was famished.  No food in the house.  What’s a single gal to do?  Go call the neighbor guy who has a crush on her to see if he wants to grab dinner, of course!  (Ok, I called at least 6 friends first who weren’t home or interested…..)

And that is how it all began.  Here we are four years later, many pounds heavier, with hearts that have been through the wringer.  Or is it ringer?  I really don’t know what a w/ringer is or what that means.  But anyway, we are going to celebrate by grabbing dinner at that same neighborhood bar where it all began.  I’ll probably kiss him this time though.

I don’t have enough happy posts.

The whirlwind begins October 9, 2008

My period started today, 33 days after my d&c.  Usually I’m around 29 days, so it was a little late, but not much.  It isn’t like there is ever an instant where I can forget about my babies, but seeing blood brings up too much.  Whether it was hoping to be pregnant or wanting to stay pregnant, I haven’t wanted to see it for 17 months now.  The irony is I’ll probably be longing for these days once menopause hits.  It is complicated being a woman, isn’t it?

So now that I’m 38 and gradually advanced from temping to checking my cervix regularly, the diva cup doesn’t seem so bad.  So I got one a few months back.  For those who don’t know anything about it, it is a cup you insert instead of tampons.  There is no fancy applicator.  It’s a bit messier to get into and out of place.  But I gotta say, BRAVO.  I go all day at work without having to deal.  I’ve gone bike riding with it.  It is pretty darn awesome.  And now that I’m dealing with that emotional first period after a miscarriage, it is nice to only have to see blood a few times a day rather than every few hours.

At least there is some good news with my period.  This means it is time for poking and prodding galore!  So now I go in for another day 3 FSH/estaditrol (I cannot remember the spelling for the life of me) on Friday, a sonohistogram and f/u thyroid test next Thurs and THE BIG WRAP UP on the 24th.  I’m still not feeling particularly confident that all these tests will give us an answer that will lead to having a baby.  At this point, I’d rather someone says it’s not happening for us than to keep trying and failing.  I don’t know that I can go through another miscarriage.

I was googling karotypes for mosaicism last night and found an interesting article for medical practitioners on how to treat women with multiple miscarriages.  It talked about the typical tests, but also focused on the emotional aspects.  One comment struck me.  It was along the lines of “the more attached the woman felt to the baby, the more difficult the loss will be.”  It was like a veil was lifted from my eyes.  That is why I still consider the second loss the big one.  I was nervous, but I believed I was in the majority of women with miscarriages.  One seemed like a really shitty right of passage.  But the second one going to 11 weeks, with my boobs getting bigger, an u/s with a heartbeat and all, that was a keeper.  It was heart breaking.  Since then, I’ve had my guard up with the other two.  Maybe it was a defense mechanism of preparing myself for the worst, but a part of me never thought they were going to make it.  That isn’t to say that the 3rd and 4th losses weren’t dreadfully sad…it just wasn’t that gut wrenching, heart shattered into a million pieces kind of sad.  And I think it is because I didn’t feel as strong of a connection.  I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

So here I am waiting yet again.  But it isn’t necessarily the tests I’m waiting on or the diagnosis or treatment plan.  I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It is remarkable how much I’ve changed in the last year.  Unfortunately, I can’t think of a way I’ve changed for the better.  But I have a very dear friend who is just starting down the path of trying to conceive after years of endometriosis.  She has had such challenges just to get to this point!  So as she was starting, she didn’t want to temp and chart and use opks….she didn’t want to be in this lousy club.  Nobody does, but I tried to encourage her by telling her how fascinating it is to learn that about your body and that it will provide insight.  Now she just had her third month of no pregnancy and her OB is already talking about sending her to an RE next month if she’s not pregnant.  Wow–an RE 4 months in?!?!  She is so darn lucky!  But that is from my perspective and next week will be a year since my first loss.  I’ve had a long time to work through the emotions of “failing” at sustaining a pregnancy.  She’s just at the beginning of that process.  I try to just listen and provide my opinion or experience only when asked and she can’t possibly be where I’m at, but I want to shout from the rooftops what good news it is that her doc is being so proactive and she’s that much closer to getting her baby.  It is such a long, solitary path we all take.

Is the world too messed up??? October 7, 2008

Things are a-changin’ out there and some days I wonder if I should bring a child into this world.  We abuse the planet and it can’t sustain the growth rate forever.  Resources are finite.  Not to mention the ways we abuse one another….

Today was one of those days.  I guess my mood matches this gloomy weather.

Blood letting commences September 26, 2008

Today was the first appointment with the RE.  This was at the University of Minnesota and, although they did not have their stats broken out by RPL patients vs not, he did share that there is a 50-50% chance on being able to diagnose what is causing the recurrent miscarriages.  For the 50% that do not receive a diagnosis, 2/3 have a child without medical intervention.  For the 50% they can explain, they are able to successfully treat 90%.  Huh.  Now that I add that up, that means 43% need to pursue other options to create a family.

So he explained that there are 6 categories of causes.  One he discarded right away–underlying medical conditions such as diabetes.  He felt patients already present with that, so it wasn’t of concern.  The remaining causes were genetics, structural, hormonal, antibodies and blood clotting.  In this area, he felt they all shared equally at 20% of the causes.  (Some areas with high pollution or genetic backgrounds may have stronger tendencies to one or another.)  Here is a basic description of each:

Genetic–this involves karotyping of the parents to look for abnormalities

Structural–this would be a problem with the shape or tissue of the uterus

Hormonal–this is the basic hormones needed to sustain a healthy pregnancy

Antibodies–there are various antibodies in your system that can see the baby as an invader, similar to having an organ transplanted

Blood clotting–this can cause problems in the placenta

Since we’ve already had a karotype of the two of us that came back fine and Turner’s is seen as a genetic fluke, he said we’d hold off on additional testing specific to genetics at this time.  He changed his mind when I said my biological mother went through menopause by 40.  He said menopause can demonstrate problems with the x chromosome and we should do the additional testing now to look for mosaicism.  With the basic karotype, they look at a few cells for abnormalities.  With mosaicism, most of your cells can be fine, but some show abnormalities, so they then have to look at several hundred cells.  It is much more detailed and costly to run the test, but the treatment may include PGD with IVF.

Other than that, his main areas of concern were hormonal and antibodies.  I’ve had some abnormal thyroid results, but repeated tests have shown I have antibodies that attack my thyroid, but it is fine overall.  He wants to re-run tests on both of those.  There were also some antibodies that have not been tested before.

He didn’t get into treatment for most things and will discuss as results come back.  I gave 11 vials of blood today and the plebotomist (sp?) said I may have set a record for the most vials at once.  Not sure how I feel about that.  I like his drive to get to the bottom of this, but does that mean I’m a dire case???  

He also did an ultrasound today.  The good news is that everything looks fine and there are no remnants from the last pregnancy.  Additional good news is that I’m about to ovulate any moment.  Earlier this week I had a couple days of high temps (ovulation confirming temps for me) and I was a little worried about our timing.  Although there is an evil part of my brain that says to get pregnant, I really could not deal with that right now.  Off to buy some more sponges.

Next steps:

• Call on first day of period
• Schedule day 3 testing
• Schedule sonohistogram from day 6-12
• Schedule appt two weeks after period to discuss test results and treatments

I’m a little hopeful.  Just a little though.  It seems like I’ve been tested so much already and it hasn’t actually proven anything.  But he’s an expert.  Maybe he’ll find something the OB hasn’t found yet.

As far as the environment in the office, everyone was so sweet and it was great not seeing all those pregnant bellies!  I did find myself looking out of the corner of my eye and wondering why everyone else was there?  What heartache had they had?  Were any early pregnant?  Scared?  Did they have hope?  And that guy here by himself, I bet I know what he was there for….

I wonder if people do that at jail too–look around wondering what they did to get there.

Scrambled eggs=fried brain? September 23, 2008

I don’t know if my eggs are scrambled, but something feels mixed up after this many miscarriages.  And now it is affecting my brain.  All I can think about is sex.  Ok, I also think about food, the dog, work and houses.  But after months of not wanting anything to do with sex, now I WANT it and I think there is some sick, twisted part of my brain that is egging me on….”come on, just get pregnant again.  You know you can.  You can be pregnant all the time!”  

Seriously.  What the hell is wrong with me?!?  

Miscarriage has complicated sex.  Either I’m recuperating from a miscarriage and don’t want it because it leads to another miscarriage.  Or I do want it once the hope kicks in and I think this time it will be different due to some “voodoo medicine” like progesterone or levothyroxine.  (No offense to those using either for legitimate reasons, but mine were basically “it can’t hurt.”)  And then when I do get pregnant, hands off!  Not only am I tired, but sex leads to spotting, and then I’m a whole lotta crazy.  So it has been a year of sex being about everything BUT wanting to be with my husband.

So now I want sex.  And it is a whole different level of desperation, derangement and possibly delusion.  

Hee hee…I wonder if folks will stumble across this expecting something a little more graphic and risque?  Sorry to disappoint.

Do recurrent miscarriages due to chromosomal issues predict continued problems? September 22, 2008

That is the question foremost in my brain lately.  Now that I’ve had 4 m/c and one is confirmed as being due to chromosomes, does it mean there is a fundamental problem with the make up of our eggs or sperm?  And that to continue to pursue pregnancy will lead to continued loss or a baby with some sort of problems?

Here is a study that shows that with each m/c due to chromosomal issues, your chance of another m/c goes up by 13%.  I’ll be asking about this at our RE appointment.  http://www.ivf1.com/miscarriage-risk/

I don’t post this to scare anyone.  There are probably other studies that show different results.  I just want to be as informed as possible so we can make a smart decision on whether to pursue medical treatment, how much to do or if we just go down the path for adoption.

A baby girl September 19, 2008

We got the results from the karotype from the d&c today.  She was a girl.  I already knew that.  I felt it.  My brain told me we should have a boy for all the logical reasons (only males being born in my husband’s family), but one night I had my hand on my belly while reading a book and I got this overwhelming feeling.  It was like this huge rush went through me.  And something said to me “it’s a girl.”  I told my hubby then that I just knew.  Even today he considers it a guess, but it was bigger than that.

We also found out she had Turner’s syndrome, so I’ve been searching the web for info.  It is when the set of x chromosomes is not complete and it causes physical problems to varying degrees.  What is confusing is that babies can be born with it, so was there something else going on that caused our baby to die?  The nurse said there was nothing else on the report.  So there is lots of info on the web, but there was one site about people born with it that was helpful–turnerssyndrome.org I believe.  Apparently 1 in 2500 girls is born with it.  But (supposedly) 98% of pregnancies with this end in miscarriage.

Those are the facts I’ve found out.  But as always with miscarriage, it is the emotional side that is the hardest part.  So here is what is tough–I wasn’t expecting it to be so difficult to know what went wrong and that she was absolutely a girl.  It makes it so much more real and therefore raw.  She was my daughter.  She would have had her daddy wrapped around her finger.  She was supposed to wear pink frilly things, get cooties, giggle, have crushes on boy bands…or girl bands….whatever.  I don’t care.  But she was supposed to BE.  

But the positive things are that we know, without a doubt, that there was nothing we could have done to prevent this from happening.  I think when you have miscarriages, you tell yourself to believe it wasn’t you, but there is a part of you that still feels guilty.  It doesn’t make it hurt less to lose your baby.  It does make it easier on you to have that sense of relief.  And I wonder how we would have dealt with a child with potentially severe disorders? It sounds like it is definitely something where a woman can live a full, happy life, but may have some difficulties.  But there was the potential to have more severe problems as well.  

How would we be as parents to a child with serious problems?  Is it somehow a blessing that we’ve lost our babies, but they would have been severely handicapped in some way if they had been born?  I can’t shake the feeling that all four losses have been due to chromosomes.  Two were very early when the initial development is occurring, so I have to believe that was the cause.  Now we know this one was as well.  The stats get worse and worse as “advanced maternal age” creeps up.  Maybe we’ve missed our opportunity to have a good, healthy sperm meet a good, healthy egg.  I’d rather have someone tell me that than “keep trying and one of these times it will work.”  No more sunshine up my butt, please.  Give it too me straight.  After this past year, I’m pretty sure we can handle just about anything.

10 days post-D&C September 16, 2008

I’m super bloated, gassy and have dark clumps of tissue or blood clots in the toilet.

V crabby

Little victories September 11, 2008

I’m trying to stay positive and find some things to give me hope or make me happy.  (Although I’m certainly not happy.)

So here goes….

• My boss agreed I can work 4 days a week for awhile, which will free up time for appointments and give me more time to be away from people and pretending
• I’ve worked out the last two nights (with the other three miscarriages, my coping mechanism was wine and ice cream–neither one really helped)
• I’ve buttoned two pairs of size 10 pants the last two days
• In reality, even though I’m at work for hours upon hours, I only work for a small portion of that time.  My big, almost work related accomplishment this week has been completing an application for an MBA program.
• I’ve contacted two REs to set up appointments.  One is set up for Sept 26.  The other place hasn’t contacted me, even though I left a message Monday and emailed them yesterday.  That might make my decision pretty darn easy.
• I requested two books at the library about miscarriage so I can educate myself even more before my appointment(s) with the RE.

That’s it.