Finally some real answers, and hopefully a solution

First of all, thanks to my husband for that accurate and oh so technical explanation to my problem. I'm sure everyone understood exactly what he was talking about. Gotta love him! Anyway, my appointment the other day went better than I expected it to. Way back when we were originally doing all those tests my doctor told me I had 2 problems. The first was the protein C deficiency and the 2nd was the MTHFR mutation. Those are the reasons she sent me to the hematologist. Well, the hematologist repeated the tests and told me I was normal after all.  I was pretty upset about it and that's when we decided to forget about baby stuff for a while. Since the hematologist told me I was normal last time I fully expected to go in and have the doctor tell me there wasn't much else she could test for. However, it turns out the hematologist's office was pretty misleading. Apparently when they told me I was normal they just meant I don't actually have a protein C deficiency. My doctor has explained that incorrect result as not a lab error but my hormone imbalance from the miscarriage. However, I do still have that mutation and it is my problem. This mutation doesn't cause me problems in my daily life, just if I'm pregnant. The good news is there is a solution and my doctor is pretty confident it will work. The plan is this, when we start trying to conceive I have to take a prenatal vitamin plus an additional 6 folic acid supplements every day. My body doesn't absorb folic acid very well, so I have to take it in massive doses to make sure the fetus absorbs enough. Then, once I get a positive pregnancy test I have to call the doctor as soon as possible to get a confirmatory blood test done. Once the positive blood test comes back then I have to start daily injections of a blood thinner. This mutation I have causes tiny blood clots to form in the developing placenta and they block its formation. This is why development stopped so early with the previous 2 pregnancies. The placenta couldn't form, so the fetus couldn't form either. I have to do the injections everyday throughout the entire pregnancy. Overall I think it seems like a pretty simple solution and I have high hopes that this will work. Now all we have to do is start trying. I don't know when it will happen. I have put it all on Darren. I am ready now, but I don't know what he wants to do. He just keeps going on about how November/December birthdays suck. I don't want to put it off just because of that. We will see what happens. We also have to remember that whatever my due date is we need to subtract a couple of weeks. My doctor says that because of the blood thinner I will have to be induced 2 to 3 weeks before my due date anyway. She says that the blood thinners can actually cause problems with the placenta at the very end so they want to get the baby out as soon as it is safe to do so. If we started trying right away, based on my cycle, I would be due around the 3rd week of November, but if I were to deliver early it would put me right at the end of October or first week of November, and there is nothing wrong with that. I guess I will just get to the end of my pill pack every month and ask Darren if he wants me to stop or start a new pack. Hopefully it won't be too long. There really isn't any reason to wait now.

November and December Birthdays suck

Kelli went to the doctor today. The results are in. I don't know the technical details....I will leave that up for Kelli to post. The short of what she told me is she has a blood clotting issue which will only be a problem when she is pregnant. In order to correct the issue she will need mega folic acid pills and a shot of something in the stomach...everyday she is preggo. Yeah.

Unless we get preggo in the next week we aren't going to try until April/May at the earliest. Why? I don't like November/December birthdays. People with birthdays in those months get a huge shaft. Family and friends aren't around due to the holidays. If someone has a birthday within a week of Christmas then they get a Birthday/Christmas gift sent in the mail. Boo. Thus either we get instata preggo or hold off until a November/December birthday can be avoided.

Hmmm and to all those with birthdays in November/December or kids who have a birthday in November/December.....have fun with all that.

Going back to the doctor

Several months ago Darren and I decided we were going to stop trying for a baby for a while and just have a good rest of the year.  We weren't even going to talk about it until after our trip to Disney World in January.  It's been a really good year for us.  We have traveled a lot and have had a lot of fun.  Well, now the year is about over and our trip to Disney World is 3 weeks away.  I have been thinking a lot lately about trying again, and I decided to go ahead and bring it up with Darren.  I definitely wanted to go back to the doctor first since we kind of left all the testing up in the air.  I know it can take a while to get an appointment, so I wanted to get that ball rolling now.  Darren and I didn't really discuss much.  I just told him I wanted to think about it again and I want to go to the doctor.  He agreed so I went ahead and made an appointment.  As I suspected they didn't have an opening until February 3rd anyway.  It's actually perfect timing for me.  We will have been back from our trip for a couple of weeks and I will be ready to do what I need to get things figured out.  We will see what happens.  In the meantime, the nurse said she will give my file to the doctor and if there is any test she wants to run before my appointment they will let me know.  I will update again after my appointment, but that is where things stand as of now.

Still on the fence

We are still on the fence about having a kid. The car has been purchased...well leased. Some money has been set aside. We will visit the issue again late January/early February. Soo....till then check out our other blogs!

The Elephant in the corner

So I've been a bit quiet lately. The topic of having a baby hasn't been discussed much between Kelli and I. We both just agreed to get through 2008 and maybe try again in 2009. It's been more than a year since this site started. Plans were that this site would be around for just one year and then we would have a site similar to Eric and Angela. Obviously that didn't happen. The first miscarriage was upsetting. The second was devastating. We went to the doctor looking for answers....and none were given. Trying again isn't out of the question.....but I'm not positive I want to try again. I am pretty sure Kelli does. Whenever she is around our nieces she does seem quite happy to play with them and just being around them. Me..they are fun until they cry or poop.

So yeah...there will be infrequent updates on this site for the duration of 2008. Feel free to check out our other blogs at www.stillageek.com and www.richmo32.com.

Back to Square One

Well, my results came back from the blood tests at the hematologist and I am apparently completely normal.  I don't have a deficiency at all.  This means a few things.  1) I am completely normal and healthy, 2) LabCorp is a bunch of f#%$ ups and they screwed up my tests 3) I have no clue what to do next.  They were going to contact my gynecologist today and give her the results.  I will wait a day or two to see if she calls me.  If not then I will call her and see if there are any more tests to do.  I am really conflicted about this.  On the one hand its great that I don't have any problems, but on the other hand now I have absolutely no answers to the reason for my miscarriages.  It was nice to believe there was a fixable reason and now there is just uncertainty again.  There is a possibility that I will not find an answer.  I'm not sure what we will do then.  I am inclined to try one more time anyway and just see what happens.  It could be that I just had 2 miscarriages for various reasons and the next time will be fine.  I would hate to go through a miscarriage again though.  I'm going to try not to think about it for a few days and hopefully I will feel better if I can talk with my doctor.  This has been a very frustrating experience and I am very unhappy at the moment.

My Trip to the Hematologist

I finally had my appointment on Friday, but it turned out to be much less productive than I had hoped.  First, the hematologist does not believe my test results.  He explained to me that a person with a typical protein C deficiency would show numbers in the 40-50% range, while normal is over 70%.  My number is less than 1%.  He thinks that is an impossible number and I would most likely be dead if that were true.  He thinks I may really have the deficiency, but someone screwed up the test.  So, they went ahead and drew more blood to redo the test.  The hematologist office is also an oncology office (that's for cancer patients if you weren't sure).  They do the blood draws right in the office.  It was really nice to just walk to another room to get my blood drawn, and it was also really nice to have a real expert draw my blood.  This guy spends all day drawing blood from cancer patients who have difficult veins, so I was very easy in contrast.  It was the best blood draw experience I have had in a long time.  Anyway, the results should be back by the middle of next week.  If I really do have the deficiency then there is no treatment needed currently.  I am perfectly healthy, so I don't need medication or anything.  If I get pregnant I will just do the heparin shots, and I should be fine.  Of course, if his test results come back normal then the first results were really screwed up and I don't have a protein C deficiency after all.  I would be really upset if that's the case, first because LabCorp really f'd up and who knows if they ever get results right.  All my results could be wrong.  Second, if the results are actually normal then I don't have an answer for these miscarriages after all and I am back to square one.  I really liked knowing there was an answer, and I have no clue what we are going to do if this comes back normal.  I'm sure my ob/gyn has some other stuff she might want to test, but I don't know.  If there isn't anything else to test for I'm not sure what we will do.  I don't want to give up on this, but I'm terrified of having another miscarriage.  I'm not going to think about it right now.  I will just wait and see what the results say.  I'm really getting tired of the waiting game though.  My patience has a limit.