Pills, Pills, Pills

My doctor's appointment last week went well.  I talked with the doctor for a while and got some questions answered.  I have been taking an over the counter prenatal vitamin up to this point.  I haven't filled the prescription yet because we weren't going to start trying for at least 2 more months.  I hadn't started taking the folic acid supplements yet either.  My doctor really wanted me to start taking those now so my system is completely prepared for when I do get pregnant.  She also wants me to keep taking a baby aspirin daily to help keep my blood thinned out.  I can take the aspirin all the way throughout my pregnancy as there is absolutely no risk to the baby.  In addition, they did a routine iron test and I am now anemic.  My doctor thinks its a dietary problem.  I very rarely eat beef or any other meat for that matter.  She told me to take an iron supplement and eat more beef.  So, now I am on a pill regimen.  Every morning I take 1 baby aspirin, 1 iron supplement, 1 prenatal vitamin which is really 2 pills because it has a DHA pill too, and 1 folic acid pill.  Then, every evening I take a second folic acid pill.  I have a really hard time remembering to take pills so I keep them in the bathroom so its really obvious.  Plus, Darren has set up reminders in my phone so I can't forget.  The evening pill is the hardest to remember, so the reminder is really nice.  We are making a conscious effort to add extra meat to our diets too.  Its not that I'm a vegetarian, its just that I'm lazy.  Meat products take more effort to prepare than lean pockets and easy mac.  I am trying really hard to be as healthy as possible.  I have also quit caffeine again and I am exercising most days.  Its my goal to do everything possible to make this next try at pregnancy easy and successful.  My doctor is very confident that this next time will go very well, and I trust her judgement.  I really couldn't ask for a better doctor for my situation.

Another Doctor's Appointment

I am going back to my doctor on Tuesday.  This time its just for my annual appointment though.  It's definitely one of my least favorite things to do, but I have a bunch of questions I'm looking forward to getting answered.  I wrote them all down so I won't forget.  I have 2 more months of birth control pills after this and then I am pretty sure we are going to start trying again.  It all depends on Darren of course.  That really bothers me, but what can I do?  Its one of the most important decisions a person can ever make and we both have to be on board with it.  I have been really frustrated this past month with Darren wanting to wait more.  I feel like I've waited long enough and now that we have an answer and a plan of action I want to just go ahead and try again.  I don't agree with waiting more, but I have come to accept it.  Darren can have the control on this one, to an extent.  Like I said before, I only have 2 months of pills left and I will not be getting a refill prescription this week.  Hopefully we will be on the same page with things by then.  If we were to try in May it would put my due date at the middle of February, but the baby would most likely be born at the very end of January.  We will see how it goes.  I guess there isn't much else to say until then so this page will continue to be infrequently updated.  I hope to eventually have lots to say though!

Screw odds

I like being in control. I'm not a control freak....but I understand those that are. I have a hard time riding as a passenger in a car. Kelli knows this and rarely drives me around. When she does she puts on "Darren blockers" and blocks out my random comments on her driving. Ever since I started flying I can hardly control myself when I sit in the back as a passenger. I want to be the one in the cockpit with all the information possible and the ability to control things.

This whole egg & sperm magic trick...many call conception and the resulting offspring....many call a baby....is something I have absolutely zero control over. Well I have control over the initial delivery.....but after that....I am a passenger. For 9 months I will be a passenger in the back of the baby flight. So many things can go wrong. Even after thousands of years of humans making humans...accidents and problems arise everyday. I don't deal with odds. The odds are higher that one will die slipping in the shower than in a plane crash...but ya know what...I am in control every time I shower and most of the time I fly.

I deal with stress very well. Flying through turbulence,rain and lightening will barely cause a change in my heart rate. I've got two months to work on figuring out how to deal with not being in control whatsoever for 9 months.

Too bad science hasn't perfected the insta-baby....or the science used in the movie GATTACCA.

There are lots of people like me!

I have been doing some internet research over the last couple of days and I found a lot of great stuff. It turns out this is a more common problem than I thought and there are a lot of people with successful pregnancy stories. My doctor's prescription is a common treatment and should work just fine. I am confident about it now. I even found a forum for people like me, www.mthfrforum.com. Its proven very helpful so far.

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.