Blood work Part #1

So today was the first day of RPL (Recurring pregnancy loss) testing. The nurse told me this is what was on the test list:

Lupus Anticoagulant Antibodies
Anticardiolipin Antibodies
PT and PTT (Prothrombin Time & Activated Partial Thromboplastin Time)
Factor V Leidein

They'll know the results by the end of today!! Talk about one fast lab. I didn't expect the results to be here for another few weeks. They told me to call back around 4 pm and they'll get back to me by the end of the day, so hopefully I'll know more soon. There is still some I want to get done, so I'll be talking to her about them once I make an appointment to see her.

This is what I'd also like to get done, some not really RPL related:

Insulin/Blood sugar test
Vitamin deficiencies
Anti-phospholipid Antibodies
MTHFR Gene Mutation
Thyroid Panel
Karotyping Parents

And possibly, not sure 100% about:
Protein C
Protein S Deficiency
Prothrombin Gene Mutation
Antithrombin III Deficiency

I'm not sure what Dr. Q will approve. These will be things I ask to have done and I am going to probably not take no for an answer. I figure if I change my insurance to Standard I want to get all blood work and tests done before I switch so they're not more out of pocket expenses. At least I could go to her for infertility, for the most part. She can give clomid, can check follicles in my cycles to see what's going on, and all the testing but if we ever do go for IUI she cannot deal with that. In fact no one within a 30+ mile radius does that. It sucks.

Well as for my HCG on Wednesday, it was already down to 303. The same night I passed the baby and won't get into the details, but I knew what I was looking at. The doctors lied to me, but I knew they were and knew what to expect unlike what they told me. Today I passed what seems to be more placenta (was hard and stiff, not like blood) so hopefully my body is now healing. I wish I knew what to do next, besides more blood work. Guess that's all I can do.

Updated: Unfortunately didn't get to find out results since I had to go out and get groceries. Will find them out Tuesday then, since Monday is memorial day.

Just stuff *added more

You always know how life is full of irony? Well, that's my life in a nut shell. Last time I miscarried, I was told a month later in an E-mail that my SIL was pregnant and due when I should have been. Well I knew irony would catch up with me and asked my friend yesterday if she found out if she was pregnant since she was late. Well, wouldn't you know it? She's pregnant. It's awesome for her - she's tried a little over a year and has 5 year old twin girls (not due to medical intervention). It's nice for her, but irony to me. I'm glad for her, but at the same time I'm envious. Why does miscarriages bring out the jealousy in me? Any one who has had a miscarriage can see why I'm sure. Even infertility will do that. I'm happy for her, but wondering where along the line did I screw up? What did I do that makes me not deserve to be 100% happy?



Any way, once these stupid cramps are done I'd really like to start working out more and losing weight. Still need to come up with the recipes and food choices I'll eat - but I know more then anything I need to get my butt back to working out again. So I found a recumbent bike I like that's roughly $299 that we're considering getting. I also want to get a punching bag, but that might wait. The stand is roughly $130 and the punching bag it self it nearly $100. I know my DH is probably wondering if I'll stick to working out with these items, since many other pieces have been donated due to lack of excitement. I'm sure these ones will be used a ton though. He asked me realistically what my weight loss goal is. I asked him what he meant. He asked me in 6 months where I could realistically get to and I think my body would say 15-30 pounds as a realistic 6 month goal. PCOS and IR tend to make it harder so I have to also change my eating in order to succeed 100%. I'm up for trying! I need to for my health and my future babies.



Just on a side note I've thought about getting a tattoo. I wanted one with baby feat and I found a design I like and it's so appropriate. Here's the idea:







And it fits so much with the poem I found online:
These are my footprints,
so perfect and so small.
These tiny footprints
never touched the ground at all.
Not one tiny footprint,
for now I have wings.
These tiny footprints were meant
for other things.
You will hear my tiny footprints,
in the patter of the rain.
Gentle drops like angel's tears,
of joy and not from pain.
You will see my tiny footprints,
in each butterflies' lazy dance.
I'll let you know I'm with you,
if you just give me the chance.
You will see my tiny footprints,
in the rustle of the leaves.
I will whisper names into the wind,
and call each one that grieves.
Most of all, these tiny footprints,
are found on Mommy and Daddy's hearts.
'Cause even though I'm gone now,
We'll never truly part.
~Unknown


It'd be my first tattoo so I'm thinking long and hard about it, but it feels like something I want. I've thought about it for a while now and I feel it works for both my pregnancy losses and my child(ren). The blue/pink on the heart are pregnancy loss ribbon colors. I did that one my own, the rest I found online and couldn't figure where it came from.

So where do I go from here?

I know the military hospital wants to forward me to Madigan, which is an hour or more drive away and I hate the thought of that. I don't like military hospitals in general lately. I believe it's to get tested more and see if there is anything wrong with me. I'm going to look around town and see if I can find someone who does RPL tests because I hate the thought of going that far and dealing with more military doctors/nurses (bad experiences when pregnant as is and their rude comments). I've pretty much decided after the fiasco with rude comments at this military hospital while I was pregnant that I'll probably go to Standard insurance sometime and deal with some costs myself.

But as for TTC? I'm still up in the air about when we'll try again. Both my husband and I are in a ton of pain right now - I feel like at this point all I should do is focus on my weight loss again. So I might post more about weight loss for a while then trying to conceive until the wounds heal more. Right now I'm going through the stages of death - without the bargaining part. Denial is hard to do when you're bleeding a ton though.

Any way, from here I don't know where to go or where we'll end up. All I know is I'm going to either buy a punching bag or a recumbent bike... or perhaps both soon. The punching bag sounds appropriate with how much anger I feel right now.

Holes in the floor of heaven

I started spotting last Sunday and this morning a gush of blood had us visiting the ER. My baby was still measuring a week behind, but there was no heart beat detected today. I'm letting nature takes it course but so emotional. I'm just spotting again. The emotional pain is overwhelming and I don't know when more physical pain will come. I don't know if or when we'll try again. We lost our second baby last year and we were due in May and to miscarry again in May when we were due on our anniversary hurts me so much. I don't want to do this again... I'm too worried to ever try again because I don't want this again.

8w0d and an unexpected ultrasound

I called the obgyn clinic this morning about my spotting issue. I wound up calling Monday morning since I spotted a good majority of Sunday. When they told me we'd wait and see I was a tad frustrated, but it's understandable no matter what they couldn't do anything about it. They told me to call back if I spotted any more so when I started spotting yesterday night I called them this morning, first thing. Less then an hour later they called and made me an appointment for 11 am, 2 1/2 hours later.



Like I told my mother today after my appointment, this child is going to give us a roller-coaster ride. This baby seems to want to give me a challenge and (s)he isn't even born yet! From the HCGs being so low, to the HCGs not ever doubling normally, to the spotting and bleeding. My husband likes to point out how this child is just showing us to keep faith more and more and that miracles happen. I know they do - but this just tops the cake.



Any way the obgyn on call checked me out. Inserted a speculum, looked around and said he only saw old blood. He then checked my cervix and it was tightly closed. So he never explained to me what could be causing the issue or perhaps he didn't know. I know he was in a rush, though, since every one seemed to page him at once. Thankfully he decided to do an ultrasound which showed a baby just hanging out and the heart beating away. I asked him if he checks the heart rate and he told me at this point it doesn't matter. I asked if he takes measurements and he said no, that the only purpose was to make sure the baby was alive and healthy. That works for me. I could tell the baby had a growth spurt this past week - (s)he looked more like a baby, you could see the little arm and leg buds clearly and (s)he didn't look like a tadpole like last week any more. The baby fitted comfortably in my sac when last week there was so much room! I am really interested to see if next week the baby is now on track because I have a feeling (s)he finally caught up.



Like every one is telling me - I need to relax. I know I need to stick my feet up more and take it easier. This baby has a mind of it's own and already it showing it's personality! I just got to go with the flow.

Nerve-wracked, again?

I know I've been on edge since finding out I was pregnant, and it's understandable since I've had two miscarriages in my lifetime. On and off I've felt better about this pregnancy, but let's face it my betas are hard to get past. I'm still nervous about the thought - am I really part of the 15% of people who do not secret HCG the same as others? I'm hoping so much and trying hard to keep faith that I could be. Seeing the baby was wonderful, that was more then I got to see both times I miscarried. It makes my heart warmer, but at the same time more scary. I love my children the moment I see the positive pregnancy test, but seeing the heartbeat makes it all more realistic. There's a baby inside of me with a heart beat. How exciting!



However Sunday had me worried. I started spotting in the morning. First it started off like brown discharge which I was calmer about - it's old blood and that's just fine. But I started spotting red later in the day. That had me nervous. Both my miscarriages started off spotting and then within hours turned to bleeding. Well, Sunday night all spotting stopped. Just to clarify I hadn't had sex for a few days so I know that it wasn't a cause. So I'm in new territory right now and not sure what to think. I called my ob/gyn's office Monday morning and proved even further they're asses when they told me they wouldn't do any betas or progesterone draws and just to wait it out until my appointment next week. Unfortunately the doctor I deal with is out of town this week so I get to deal with the jerks there this week. I know there's nothing they could do if I am miscarrying (just like they've told me every time I've miscarried), but it would have been nice if they offered to check my labs out.



So I have one week and one day until I know more. Thankfully the TCOYF gals had a lot of spotting stories like mine that turned out fine, so it helped me out. Let's just hope it's not a long week, right?



Updated 10 pm: Started spotting brown and red again tonight. Hopefully it goes away soon but I will be calling my ob/gyn office like instructed and this time not settling for nothing being done. They told me to call so if they're going to do nothing afterward then why bother? We'll see.



Updated 5/19 @ 9:30 am: The ob/gyn office got back to me when I called this morning, they have me going in at 11 am for an ultrasound.

Dear body, cut me a break...

Talk about an emotional roller-coaster! Would someone please let me off!! Well I've been dealing with beta hell (and still not stepping off this ride). I asked my doctor about my #'s and she told me, "have hope" and "keep faith." She's a lot like Aldon - he's been telling me often to have hope. It's nice having a positive doctor but I'm still feeling the worry for a few different reasons, which I'll explain.



We'll start with the update! The doctor did the t/v ultrasound and she knew I was nervous about seeing nothing. She looked around a little bit, confirmed things were in the uterus and not in a wrong spot. She says, "now there is something in there!" And she showed me this little bean which was *so* tiny and we saw the little heart flickering away. She didn't determine how fast the heartbeat was, but it definitely was beating quickly. It was wonderful to see. However she measured the baby and gestational sac - both measured 6w1d.



She seemed very confident since we saw the heart beat and the baby had grown. Even with all my questions she told me to have faith, but here are my worries.

1. My HCG is still slow and slowing down more. We did a beta after the ultrasound and it still showed a slow doubling time, even slower this time at 253 hours.

2. The baby measured 6w1d and I know when I ovulated and that I should have been 7w1d.

3. I measured 5w4d exactly a week ago, but the sac/embryo only measured 4 days further this week.



I have to wait two weeks - Thursday, the 27th, for my next appointment. In the morning I'll get my blood drawn and we'll do another ultrasound that day as well. I'm worried that so much can change in two weeks, but we'll keep faith and hope any changes are for the better.

If you're going through hell, keep on going...

Today hasn't been the best day. On a scale of 1-10 I'd rate this as a negative number on my emotions. I got blood work done today @ 6w6d - 3586 mIU/mL. 6w0d I was 2288 mIU/mL. What's the doubling time? 222.12 hours.... are you kidding me? I wish I was fooling myself but it is true. I've seen no evidence any where that points to a doubling time this long being a viable pregnancy. The nurse I talked to when we were doing our consultation (all the paper work and family history) told me the # and I just died a little inside. She told me to think positive until our ultrasound in two days. Think.. positive. So all day I've been crying on and off. I just don't see anything good coming out of this. I have moments where I try to think of a good outcome, but at 7 weeks pregnant my #'s should be closer to 15,000 mIU/mL(like she pointed out after telling me to stay positive). She also had the nerve to mention something about "at least you'd be able to go further into infertility testing". What the fuck? Seriously, are you demented lady? Why does any one think that there's a positive outcome with a possible miscarriage? No less more blood work? I think I'll be having a discussion with the customer relations lady again, but to say the least I'm leaving this practice no matter the outcome. If I miscarry I'll wait until I'm pregnant again to go standard. Screw them.

Decided to import my TTC struggles from my other blog...

Decided I'd make things easier by importing the blog I made while TTC Andrew, although some of the links don't work since time changes things obviously. I'm sure someday I'll print all of these out as a memory scrapbook.

If you haven't got the memo and are wondering where I went - look at the link in my post below!! ;) Hope all is well.

The beginning of the bean - and so much stress

Let's just start by saying this week has been an emotional roller coaster ride since I got my 26 dpo beta results back. Last week, 4w5d, my beta was 422 which was good since it was a doubling time of 40.22 hours which is right on track. Well, my results a week later, 5w5d was only 1353 which is a doubling time of 99.95 hours. That worried me because there's not many people who had a doubling time of that when they were under the 6000 range. Most slower betas seem to equal a non-viable pregnancy, although I did find a handful of success stories which helped keep my sanity. Well, somewhat.



During all this fiasco I was having troubles since the nurses at the navy hospital were being rude and telling me I wasn't going to get an early ultrasound like promised, since the ob/gyn who dealt with my miscarriage didn't put it in his paper work (and his was a temporary there, so he cannot be contacted). Well thankfully after a talk to my insurance place that resides in the hospital they sent me to customer relations and I had a good long talk with the lady about the issues there. She decided to go there and have a discussion with them and got someone, who I believe is a midwife, to take care of me!! So this midwife, we'll call her L.C.S., called me and said we'd do another beta two days after the one I had done to make sure the #'s are going up.



So she called me when my results came in yesterday. My 6w beta showed my #'s were 2288 which was a doubling time of 63.33 hours, right on track!! She said when the HCG is over 1800 we can usually see something, and she had to cancel our 6w6d ultrasound so she scheduled it for today!! So I got to see the beginning of my bean today, 6w1d. My gestational sac measured 5w4d and we could see a fetal pole hiding in the corner. She told me every thing is on track, and scheduled two more ultrasounds - one for 7w1d and one for 9w1d!!



So I'm feeling a little more confident now. I'm excited to see what future ultrasounds will show. I'm still tempted to see off of tricare prime and go standard. I'd have to pay a $150 deductible every fiscal year, insurance would cost $85 a month, and I'd have a catastrophic cap of $1,000 but in the long run I'd be able to chose my ob/gyn and deliver in the hospital I want (which would be only a mile away versus 10 miles). This decision is going to take me some time, and I might not do it until I'm further along. Actually I might do it when my second trimester starts, so we'll see.



Oh, I did wind up telling my SIL :) She sent me a text one day asking if I was pregnant after I made a face-book status about how I was feeling dizzy and wound up having a migraine. I couldn't lie to her! And I'm glad I didn't - she's been keeping positive and trying to keep me thinking good thoughts while I was dealing with "beta hell". I'm so glad to have her around!