Sweet Kiddos

I got to spend the last 2 nights with one of my coworkers, and since we've been friends for a while she invited me to stay at her family's house outside of Boston.

She has 2 sons, ages 3 and 6, who are just adorable bundles of energy. I always think it's so cute to see how kids can be shy at first, because you're a stranger, but after a few hours of hanging out with them will be snuggled up with you by the end of the night. The boys seemed to have endless energy- jumping in the pool over and over, racing each other back and forth around the house to fetch toys, and bouncing up and down on the sofa. To me, it was adorable, but I'm sure for them dealing with it every day is a handful!!

I am grateful I got to spend time with them and it makes me very much look forward to the day when Jacob and I will hopefully have our own rascals running around.

Guest Blog- Rachel

My college roommate, Rachel, is a brilliant doctor, wife, and mother of two beautiful boys and graciously agreed to let me post what she sent to me in response to the blog:

I know I have told you about the miscarriage that we had between Liam and Rowan and I know that having one is nothing like having three, but over the course of that year (of trying, miscarrying, and trying again), I could definitely relate to some of the sentiments that you shared.  

We started trying for #2 in June 2011....After four months I was pregnant.  We went to Florida on a trip at 7 weeks, just before the first doctors appt.  I FELT so pregnant and was very cavalier about telling ALL my family and friends down there that we were expecting again....Only to be so deeply disappointed and devastated when there as no heartbeat at our appt a few weeks later.  Christmas that year was tough so say the least.

We started trying again as soon as we could.  In my residency program of 15, it seemed everyone else was trying to get pregnant too.  Tracy (due June 2012....a few weeks before I *would* have been due....a constant, painful reminder), Siri (due Oct 2012), Emily( due Jan 2013), Lixia (due Feb 2013), Julie (May 2013).  It took until July 2012 to conceive again and I swear those months of trying, wondering, stressing were among the longest of my life.  These women were all my friends but I was too bitter and jealous to listen to them talk about their pregnancies.  Unlike Facebook, I couldn't avoid them and seeing them all pregnant and happy everyday at work was like a slap in the face ;( 

During those months of trying I did all I could to help increase my odds of conceiving....I read WAY too many blogs/websites.  Sex was no longer fun but was a chore.  I went for weekly acupuncture (which was an expensive form of torture, BTW, and didn't help) and took weird herbal supplements given to me by a sketchy Chinese herbalist.  I also had a hystersosalpingogram (which was normal) and was prepared to go on fertility meds (if nothing happened by Sept 2012).  

During this time it was very helpful to me to hear stories of others who had gone through something similar and to know that I was not alone.  

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Thank you for sharing Rachel!

Specialist Update

So right off the bat, I have to admit that I had a bit of a meltdown (as Jacob can confirm) leaving the Dr's office yesterday. It wasn't that there was any bad news per se, just more that there are still a lot of questions out there and I think I wanted there to be some "aha!" moment with a big answer.

The summary is that we are going to do several more tests to explore what to do next:

- genetic screening of Jaocb and myself, to hopefully rule out that we have translocations occuring

- repeat blood work for me- I had some questionable results in anticardiolipids, which could have just been that the levels were still elevated from being pregnant. If not normal next time, would mean blood thinner treatment

- TPO antibodies- will also be repeated since they were very elevated, but thyroid function is normal, so no clear path of treatment there. He thinks that this would affect implantation if anything, so if it was causing issues I likely wouldn't have had pregnancies get to 9 and 11 weeks previously

- saline ultrasound- will have this in a week or 2 to make sure my uterine cavity looks normal

- elevated AMH levels- this is an indicator of egg reserves- my number came back high, which is good and bad- the good is that it means I generally will get pregnant easily, the bad is that I have so many eggs that it may be throwing off the ratio of good:bad eggs and make it harder for us to get a "normal" embryo

So- it will be about a month until we have all the testing done and results back, and then, barring any really new info, will be up to us to decide if we want to go the more invasive route, which would mean doing IVF to do preimplantation genetic screening of the embryos, or if we want to "roll the dice" one more time, probably with some low level drugs in there too, and see what happens.

As of now, I'm fairly inclined to go with more intervention at this point. I feel like my tolerance for another miscarriage right now is low.

Stay tuned.......

Pee

Did the title get your attention?

I just had to share because I couldn't believe this- I was sitting in one of the delta sky clubs the other day on my way home and there was a lady with a small white dog. The dog is on a leash but is searching around, sniffing- looking like he is searching for a "spot". The woman is not paying any attention as he squats down and proceeds to make a nice little pee puddle on the carpet. Really?!

But it gets better. I don't think she even knew that he had peed, but another minute later the dog searches around again and then squats down to poop! Thankfully she actually noticed this one and scoops it up with a pee pad.

I've traveled a lot for a few years but I guess there is always something crazy to see that i haven't seen before!

Some answers, more questions

So we got one more piece of information in what is becoming our puzzle. The genetic results of the tissue from my last miscarriage came back, and there was a chromosomal abnormality called trisomy 3. In certain cases, but now with chromosome 3, an extra copy of a chromosome can still result in a live baby, although usually not without effects (an extra copy of a chromosome is what causes Down syndrome). So, in the words of my OB, that last pregnancy was simply not meant to be. So. While that is reassuring in a way in that it gives us a very specific answer for that pregnancy we do not have the same information for the previous two and will have to wait and see if the blood tests come back with anything that would be more answers.

The biggest question would be if the blood tests come back normal, would it mean that we have simply been incredibly unlucky in getting random genetic issues in all three of the previous pregnancies? I know it is certainly possible but would have a hard time believing that three in a row could all happen to have issues.

Stay tuned......

The Longest Shortest Time

I am stealing the name of this post from a site that one of my dear college friends sent me a link to. She specifically sent me a link to this podcast:

http://longestshortesttime.com/2014/02/05/podcast-23-the-longest-longest-time/

For anyone who is interested in listening, I would say a few things:

- first, I think it was a very well done piece

- But, it is fairly long (over 30 min) and I found it a bit disheartening for someone in my position

Why disheartening? Because it follows the story of a woman and her husband who tried to have kids for over 10 years, through miscarriage, IUI, IVF, trying to adopt, FINALLY becoming successful at having a child through a surrogate.

I can't even imagine waiting that long. But at the same time, I can easily see how it could happen. You go down one treatment path and it takes a few months, only to go down the next one. At one point she had a miscarriage at 20 weeks. That's 5 months in folks.

Don't get me wrong- I'm not trying to say it's a race, and I will be the first to admit that I am a very impatient person. But I would have an extremely hard time having my entire 30s go by childless. It's something I don't even want to think about at this point, which is why I think that listening was hard for me.

I certainly don't know how things are going to pan out for Jacob and I, but I would imaging reaching a point, in the not too distant future, where we will do whatever it takes- fertility, domestic adoption, international adoption- to have a child. I know we have ideas of which of those we would prefer, but at some point I think my desire to be a mom will override anything else.

Thanks again to my friend for the link!

Dr Update 8.12.14

I went to my regular OB yesterday for a check in and to get blood work done in advance of going to see the specialist next week. One thing I haven't mentioned yet is that I really like my OB, Lea Mahoney with West End Obgyn. She has been so kind to me and I trust her when I ask "if you were in my shoes, what would you do at this point?" She gave us her recommendation for a specialist which we went with (to be seen how that goes!).

Anyway, she has gotten in touch with the specialist to see what labs he would want to see initially, and has talked to him a bit about my history. From their preliminary discussion, he said that he suspects one of the clotting disorders is what has been affecting the pregnancies. We'll see if he's right when the labs come back next week.....but in the meantime, it got Jacob and I talking about how in a way we would kick ourselves if some simple blood tests would have been able to tell us what was wrong, and we could have saved this year of heartache. But, hindsight is 20/20, right? I really don't want to dwell on what we could have/ should have done any differently.

Here is the list of labs for those of you medically inclined:

AMH

Prolactin, TSH, TPO Antibodies

Lupus Anticoag, Anticardiolipin Ab, Type 2 anti-beta glycoprotein

Throws me back to my BME/ Biology days......glad those are behind me! :)

Throwback

I wrote this a while back, when I had just found out I was pregnant for the third time (obviously I've written on here about how that ended up):

My husband and I are pretty typical 31 year olds- went to college, worked a bit, went to grad school (me) got married, went to grad school (him) and always thought that when we got more "settled" then it would be the perfect time to have a baby. Apparently life had slightly different plans for us.

I went off the pill in April 2013, after about 10 years of being on it pretty much continuously. It had always worked well for me. We decided we were ready to start "trying" and we were so excited to get pregnant quickly, in June. We were on top of the world in June; we had just bought our first house, my husband signed a contract for a good job once he graduated in December, and I was pregnant. We told close family members, but primarily waited until I went to the doctor at around 8 weeks and we could see a heartbeat to tell more friends and family. 

In august things changed quickly. When I went in for what was supposed to be my 12 week ultrasound there was no heartbeat. Almost immediately when the tech put the ultrasound want in and had trouble finding a fetus my heart dropped and the feeling was sickening. I was shocked; there had been no real signs or symptoms or anything being wrong. We were the unlucky 1%. (While overall miscarriage rates are listed at 20-30%, once a heartbeat is seen the rate is reported to drop to about 1%). I was shocked, called my husband to come drive me home, and went home and took a sleeping pill at 11am and crawled under the covers. I had left my doctors office telling her I would think about what I wanted to do, given the options of D & C, cytotec, or waiting for things to happen naturally. Needless to say, I did not sleep well and called at 6am to leave a message and tell them to get me scheduled for the D & C. It went fine; the next day I actually felt really good. But once all of the real feeling started to set in I couldn't help but feel crazy that it was all so much out of my control, and guilty at the same time as if it was me who had caused it to happen.

To make matters worse, our dog that we had had for 3 years, journey had run away 10 days earlier and was still missing. In fact, the reason I went alone to the doctor was that we had gotten a call that someone had spotted the dog. So. Every morning when I woke up, as soon as I was conscious, I would think "no dog. No baby". Needless to say, not a very happy way to start the day.

And yes, I want to take a minute to recognize my wallowing here, and that so many people are going through equally tough if not tougher things every day. The loss of a child, or parent, or spouse, terminal illness, infertility- all incredibly hard.

My husband and I knew that in the grand scheme of things it was ok- we were young, we had time. Although we did end up having some interesting conversations about our different takes on "ready for a baby". For me (the leaning towards type A personality) being ready meant that I was READY. I wanted a baby in 9 months. For him, being ready meant that if it happened sometime in the reasonable future his world would be good. Different expectations for sure.

So we waited the requisite month, were thankful that my period returned exactly a month after the procedure, and we were ready to try again, thinking that this time the coin toss would land on our side. I got pregnant quickly again, in November, finding out right before thanksgiving. I went to the doctor twice, at about 6 weeks and 9 weeks, both times things looking good (despite the near panic attacks I'd get driving to the doctors office). In late January I went in for the same, 12 week appointment, and this time we were going to try and find the heartbeat and just go from there. Well, you can guess the rest. No heartbeat on Doppler, go to ultrasound, no heartbeat there. D&C the following day.

I felt so betrayed by my body- how could I have no sign or feeling that something was so terribly wrong? Why was this happening to us? We wanted so much to be parents, we're ready to be good and loving parents, and yet it just wasn't happening. I couldn't help but think with bitterness about people who just get pregnant accidentally and it all goes well. I try to be a positive person, but it was incredibly hard to go to a gathering with friends (many of whom had 1 child already) and hear them talk about planning their vacation schedules around having a second, as if it's just that easy for everyone. And don't get me wrong- I am so happy for them and can see the joy that their kids bring. And I would not wish on them for anything what we've gone through. But. Hard to keep that perspective and cheerful attitude all the time. 

Side note- at least the second time we did have the dog- he was found by animal control in a fenced backyard 6 weeks after he went missing, severely underfed and missing a tooth and 2 nails but otherwise no worse for wear.

But the miscarriages certainly took a toll mentally, not to mention the physical aspects of going through about 6 months of pregnancy too. For someone who has always been a planner and felt pretty in control of life, this shook me up. I had no control, no way of knowing what was going to happen, and no real answers about why it happened.

Geep!

At the risk of this turning into a cute animal blog (not that that would be a terrible thing) I thought this story was pretty adorable:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/adorable-goat-sheep-hybrid-born-arizona-petting-zoo-video-article-1.1891976

And besides the cute animal, love the fact that it almost seems fake- the owner "didn't even know the sheep was pregnant" and "thinks an amorous goat is responsible". Hilarious.

The part about the different chromosomes is actually pretty cool though. Hope it makes you smile too!

It's journey!

Figured I should post at least one picture (even if from a while ago) of the mascot himself:

Coat (that he doesn't look thrilled about) courtesy of his grandma Judith.

Plan vs reality

A friend sent this picture to me related to a work project, but I think it does a pretty accurate job of summing up a lot of what I'm putting in the blog!

I was reminded by a friend yesterday (who has known me since I was 3) that I have always been a fairly introverted person- I tend to deal with things with working through them in my head more so than talking them out. So it was a bit scary and even a moment of almost panic yesterday to stop and think about how much I had put out there for semi-public consumption.

But the nice part is that I also feel lighter in a way, since I have gotten a lot off my chest.

And, for those of you who commented, I did not write everything on here just yesterday. I have been writing over the past few weeks here and there. Writing to me feels kind of like yoga- hard to get into at first, but then the more I do it the more I enjoy it.