Because of my history, when I last wrote that we were gearing up for a baby, after treating the endometritis, I fully expected to be back on the blog writing within a month, hoping that the treatment would allow for a healthy and long gestation. July came and passed, and I wasn't too disappointed when we didn't fall pregnant. We knew the timing may have been off because of when we met with my doctor and got the “go-ahead” to conceive. it was a close window. Although I was still a bit surprised.
I actually was so sure that we would be pregnant, because in the past it always happened right away, that I started to have some pretty bad anxiety. I would suddenly remember that I might be pregnant that month, and my arms and legs would literally go numb. It was like a “going into shock” kind of response. I think it's just that fear manifesting itself physically, the flashbacks that I have from losing 7 different babies. You feel like once you're pregnant, there's no way off the roller coaster ride. You're at the top of the hill, and there's no escape other than to follow the path straight down. I talked to my counselor about it, and worked through it the best I could. It's almost impossible not to feel like loss is inevitable. And if I was pregnant, I knew it wouldn't be possible for me to just not love a baby to avoid getting my heart broken. I bond right from the start.
I felt like I had equal and opposite fears. Fear one being that I will never have another healthy baby and will need to give up for sanity's sake. (But we only want one more. And I'm only 29. So really the question is, how long can I push it until I have some sort of mental lapse?)
My opposing fear is that I do have a third child, and have no idea how I could keep my job, or how we will manage. But I try to trust in God to work out that part. It always has so far.
I felt like I had equal and opposite fears. Fear one being that I will never have another healthy baby and will need to give up for sanity's sake. (But we only want one more. And I'm only 29. So really the question is, how long can I push it until I have some sort of mental lapse?)
My opposing fear is that I do have a third child, and have no idea how I could keep my job, or how we will manage. But I try to trust in God to work out that part. It always has so far.
So as I said, July passed and we were set on August being the month for good news. Halfway through the month I stopped my medications for migraines, sleep, and anxiety. And started supplementing hormones. Which honestly is so difficult. Hormones make you crazy anyway, but without taking medication I have an extremely hard time sleeping, dealing with migraines, and not having panic attacks. And yes I know there are many natural remedies. I do the best I can with those. I go to counseling; I practice breathing and relaxation. But nothing works as well as normal medication to manage my struggles. Have you ever tried just breathing through a migraine? It doesn't work very well. Fear of hurting an unknown, unborn baby keeps me from doing a lot of things that help me. Hot baths, caffeine, etc. I have more anxiety than is normal for me when we are trying to conceive, but after all, after every loss I've had, the doctors discussed what I did or didn't do early in the pregnancy. So I have to start working to preserve a pregnancy before it even exists.
August passed. and I was still not pregnant. At that point it felt, weird. But it would be silly of me to be worried after only trying a few months. September rolled around and I started ovulation tests to see if I was ovulating early or late or something. Using the digital tests I got days and days of high readings, but never a peak read. I did my best keeping track of everything, and held out hope that it would be the month. I didn't want to wait too long after the antibiotic treatment to conceive- worried that the endometritis could come back, or flare up. Just when I was feeling fairly confident that September was our month, I started my period 4 days EARLY. For the first time ever in my life. I started to worry. That seemed like a luteal phase defect. Why was I not getting pregnant, for the first time ever? Why was my cycle irregular for the first time ever? I confirmed with the fertility clinic that the supplementary progesterone I was taking 2 out of every 4 weeks would not be interfering with my cycle.
So October, our 4th month trying, I started temping. Doing basal body temperatures is a lot of work when you combine it with taking LH tests twice a day mid-cycle, supplementing hormones morning and night, and taking a vitamin regimen. And stopping all your helpful meds. My BBT cycle looked accurate, up until the time of ovulation, it started slowly rising and then dropping all over the place. I couldn't see any confirmation of a healthy ovulation. Granted, I wasn't sure if my temps were accurate since I toss and turn at night, can't take them at exactly the same time every morning because of work, etc. But I called the fertility clinic to see if they wanted to do an ultrasound to check for a cyst, or to confirm if ovulation actually happened.
I spoke with the nurse and she told me they don't rely on temping, because they have blood tests and hormone readings they can rely on. I'm hoping my BBT chart just isn't reliable. If I did an ultrasound mid-cycle, they wouldn't be able to tell if it was just the corpus luteum, or a different problem-causing cyst. So I was told if my current cycle didn’t take, I could get an ultrasound on cycle day 2 or 3, to see if I have a cyst. Then again on day 12 to see if there's an egg there, to see if I'm even ovulating. Fortunately, I'm already on progesterone, which is how they treat a luteal phase defect anyway. Of course it's better and more accurate to have the ultrasound done at the fertility clinic, but my insurance doesn't cover it there. So I'll need to do outpatient imaging at the hospital and hopefully it's good enough to tell them the info they need.
As the month came to an end, and my BBTs were soaring and dropping everywhere, I talked to some of the ladies in my support group. They suggested I get a laparoscopy for silent endometriosis, which makes it hard to get and stay pregnant. At this point I believe I basically have every diagnosis. One lady said she would lose 4-5 babies between every live birth, and finally doing IUIs somehow was much better, and brought her a couple healthy babies. But I could never afford a laparoscopy or IUI right now. There's no way.
I can’t control ALL these factors. Every year I feel like we get two new diagnoses. So far we’ve dealt with Leiden factor V, MTHFR, folate problems, low progesterone, Hashimotos, DNA fragmentation, endometritis, and now possibly a luteal phase defect? Or maybe just late ovulation? It’s so overwhelming. How do people have babies on accident?!
When my period hadn’t shown up today, I took a HPT and was very surprised to see a barely there faint line. I kept thinking I was imagining it, but every time I looked I could see it right away. I was worried though, that it was so faint, that maybe I got a test with a bad “evap line” which is where the test looks positive but it’s just because it was wet and then dried, leaving a shadow more than colored dye.
Well I wanted to know if it was real. I showed a few friends online and everyone saw a line worth going and testing. So my clinic ordered a beta HCG, TSH, and progesterone level.
I was gutted when the HCG came back at 2. Anything less than 5 is considered negative. But I still felt in limbo. In 2014 I had a beta come back as 2.2, that 3 or 4 days later was in the mid 80s where it was obvious I was actually pregnant. But after my loss this March, my beta gradually went down back to 2 as they monitored the completion of the miscarriage, so I could see that result still being negative too. After a few hours, my progesterone came back at only 7.6, despite two supplements a day. So I know it won’t be long before my cycle starts again. And we will move on to doing the ultrasounds to see if we can figure out what is going on.
I don’t know why suddenly I’m not getting pregnant for the first time ever. Now don’t get me wrong, I know 4 months is NOTHING when it comes to actual infertility, and I’m not trying to be insensitive to that. But also understand, we’ve been trying to have a houseful of babies since we first started trying in 2010 after we got married. That’s been a long time. And we did have Jack right away, followed by our losses starting the following year. I’ve been dealing with my personalized version of infertility my entire 20s. 9 pregnancies later, and I have an 8 year old and a 2 (almost 3) year old. We will never have a houseful of babies like we imagined. We are changed people, and want one more before we call it quits on our own terms. God willing.
It’s been a hard day. But mostly I was upset to find that my thyroid has been slowly declining this year. After my number today, I probably need to go on a higher dose of thyroid meds. Maybe that’s why I’ve felt like crap lately.
I can’t control ALL these factors. Every year I feel like we get two new diagnoses. So far we’ve dealt with Leiden factor V, MTHFR, folate problems, low progesterone, Hashimotos, DNA fragmentation, endometritis, and now possibly a luteal phase defect? Or maybe just late ovulation? It’s so overwhelming. How do people have babies on accident?!
When my period hadn’t shown up today, I took a HPT and was very surprised to see a barely there faint line. I kept thinking I was imagining it, but every time I looked I could see it right away. I was worried though, that it was so faint, that maybe I got a test with a bad “evap line” which is where the test looks positive but it’s just because it was wet and then dried, leaving a shadow more than colored dye.
Well I wanted to know if it was real. I showed a few friends online and everyone saw a line worth going and testing. So my clinic ordered a beta HCG, TSH, and progesterone level.
I was gutted when the HCG came back at 2. Anything less than 5 is considered negative. But I still felt in limbo. In 2014 I had a beta come back as 2.2, that 3 or 4 days later was in the mid 80s where it was obvious I was actually pregnant. But after my loss this March, my beta gradually went down back to 2 as they monitored the completion of the miscarriage, so I could see that result still being negative too. After a few hours, my progesterone came back at only 7.6, despite two supplements a day. So I know it won’t be long before my cycle starts again. And we will move on to doing the ultrasounds to see if we can figure out what is going on.
I don’t know why suddenly I’m not getting pregnant for the first time ever. Now don’t get me wrong, I know 4 months is NOTHING when it comes to actual infertility, and I’m not trying to be insensitive to that. But also understand, we’ve been trying to have a houseful of babies since we first started trying in 2010 after we got married. That’s been a long time. And we did have Jack right away, followed by our losses starting the following year. I’ve been dealing with my personalized version of infertility my entire 20s. 9 pregnancies later, and I have an 8 year old and a 2 (almost 3) year old. We will never have a houseful of babies like we imagined. We are changed people, and want one more before we call it quits on our own terms. God willing.
It’s been a hard day. But mostly I was upset to find that my thyroid has been slowly declining this year. After my number today, I probably need to go on a higher dose of thyroid meds. Maybe that’s why I’ve felt like crap lately.
My arms ache to hold a new baby of my own. To complete our family. I don’t know why we’ve needed to have and treat so many different problems. I just hope we can overcome them one last time, and complete our family as our own choice instead of medical issues forcing that. I’m still learning that we really don’t have any control. It’s hard to completely relinquish that control, to give it all to God and say “I’ve done literally everything a person can do, for years, trying to prepare mentally and physically so a baby could survive. It’s not my choice if, or when we get pregnant, or if the baby will live or not.” I try to prepare myself for His answer, even though it has been “no” so many times, and 7 times He’s taken them back. I’ve also miraculously been blessed with two healthy children- so I’m not ready to give up yet. I look at my children and I know it's possible. I work in the hospital and go into the rooms of all these newborn babes, and think how simple and easy it seems. So painful- I’m just so worn out.
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| Jack, age 8. Aidia, age 2 |
