Pregnancy #8: The backstory

So how did this happen?

Chalk it up to a relaxing vacation in Central America and the timing being "rightish." I was not testing for ovulation. In general, we try every month at approximately the right time, but I don't go to any great lengths to test and track my cycles or ovulation. I tend to think that the fertility ship has sailed for us, although I have kept a corner of my mind open...my cycles are still 28ish days apart, I generally feel the pinch of ovulation, and, hey, you never know, right?


How far along am I?

I'm not exactly sure. I thought my period was probably due on Sunday. When it didn't come, I tested Monday morning and got a negative on an HPT. Despite feeling "pregnant," strange tugging and cramping, corpus luteum pain, notable breast tenderness, dizziness, I told myself that I wasn't pregnant. Every time I noticed some other twinge and had the thought that I know my body, and my body was telling me it was pregnant, I told myself, Well, you obviously don't know it as well as you think you do, because you tested negative. When my period still hadn't arrived by Wednesday, I tested again, thinking I'd get a negative and need to go to the doctor to figure out what it meant to have no period and not be pregnant...but well, the hpt was positive. So I'm guessing the timing of Wednesday's beta fell somewhere between 15 dpo and 17dpo. So getting back an HCG of 106 is low. But maybe not terribly low, according to betabase.info. Hard to tell in natural pregnancy land. The doubling will be the bigger factor.


Where are we at now?

We are cautiously excited. But I tend to think of my uterus as a place where good embryos go to die. Plus, I'm 43, so my population-based chance of a chromosomal issue in any given pregnancy is 1 in 33. I've had a lot of chromosomal losses anyway, even when I was younger. So there's a significant chance this may not be a chromosomally normal embryo. But then again, it could be. Two years ago, we had Magpie, but that was with pre-testing, and then a whole cocktail of things going on from prior to transfer through to delivery, including IVIG, lovenox, prednisone, etc.

When I talked to my OB this morning, she poo pooed me requesting lovenox (I knew enough to not even suggest the other medications). So I called the Miscarriage Wizard reproductive immunologist guy I saw when I was carrying Magpie. I really don't like this guy very much, don't totally trust him. But I thought he'd agree that at least while we are trying to get an implantation going, we probably need some help. We have a history of six losses. One of them a documented chromosomally normal male. Until we get out of the starting gate, I feel I'd be stupid not to try to replicate what worked to get Magpie to term, despite all of my misgivings about the lack of evidence, unclear mechanisms of action, etc. But Dr. Miscarriage Wizard also poo pooed me on the phone. "Oh, these immune things often improve after a successful pregnancy! Let's do some blood work first!" (Um...it will take over a week to get natural killer cell results back...and the baby will be dead by then probably, but ok...). He did agree to prescribe some prednisone, so I started that last night.

Amazingly, Will is similarly minded to me in thinking if we do nothing, the embryo is doomed (He also agrees might not be a good embryo anyway, but also that you never know...). As of last night, I'm taking baby aspirin, pepcid, claritin, extra folic acid, and fish oil, plus the just prescribed prednisone, which were all recommended by the Denver clinic and others as part of a benign cocktail that they use with recurrent miscarriers.

In addition to the beta blood draw tomorrow, I'm having immune bloods drawn this afternoon for the Miscarriage Wizard, and I'll be seeing him tomorrow in his office. Perhaps he will suggest a single IVIG treatment or decide to add lovenox once he sees me and I remind him of the string of losses. I hate the way IVIG makes me feel. And it's really expensive. The lovenox is merely annoying. On the other hand, there is also the reality that I have a beautiful little girl dancing in my living room. Would she be here without the IVIG and lovenox? I don't know. It seems like maybe a "better safe than sorry" situation.

I'm cautiously excited. And, yes, I'm also somewhat anxious. But I think I'll feel a whole lot better if I believe we're doing what we can to give this situation a chance to succeed.

OK, let's be honest, I'll feel a whole lot better 9 months from now if there's a second baby in my arms.

I'm not the cliche, urban legend yet, right? Oh, God, maybe I am.

Mo

PS - someone mentioned thinking of my sister on a prior post. She is pregnant again right now too! She's about 8 weeks along, with heartbeat and measuring on track, and also cautiously optimistic. I am very, very hopeful for her.

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