Amazing video

I know this video has made the rounds on the internet, but some of you may not have seen it. It is Kellie Coffey "I would die for that" Warning this is a tear jerker. (That's for you Devon)

This is why I want to have babies with you

Ok, I am going to embarass Rich some more. He is going to hate it that I have found blogger & know how to post pics. Isn't Rich the cutest baby? The fat rolls are so adorable. The funny thing is I have a picture of me in that same shirt when I was little & I don't look anything like that. I am older than him so I just look more mature :-) Happy Birthday Rich!

Blogaversary Celebration

This is the cake I bought to celebrate Melissa's blogaversary. It was sugar free and pretty good and I stayed on my low carb diet (sort of).

Ugh-a-chart

Big geek that I am, and fascinated as I was at the whole take your temperature thing and know what is going on with a process so complex as ovulation and either implantation or prepare yourself for another cycle, there needs to be a better way. Or maybe a different time of day for this temperature charting ritual. As most of you readers will know, whether it be superstition or fact or somewhere in between, the non spontaneous timing, restriction of activities, restriction of positions, and post-activity upside down bow to the god of gravity makes baby making seem more like a chore than fun after a while. But the temperature charting goes killing the mood in the morning too. See, there's no invading the thermal protection zone for fear of a false temperature reading. And after entering the thermal protection zone and being forced to retreat, the moment is lost and I am not too excited about returning when the coast is clear. So, if you are looking for a way to make money, find a midday measurement, something you can do at work would be good, that correlates to the status of a cycle. Actually the more I think about that idea, the more I like it. Who can start a research movement to come up with ways to chart, etc, during work? The more impact you can make on the employers, the more motivation they will have to provide benefits. Not to mention I get to invade the thermal protection zone.

Ugh-a-versary

While Rich & I had a fabulous wedding anniversary weekend complete with fantastic dinner and a picnic in the mist yesterday, I also had a not too pleasant anniversary yesterday.

I have been keeping track & chart my temperatures of some type for 3 FULL years. Very depressing.

Oh well, I will be back later with a picture of our cake for Mel's blogaversary. I have decided it is time to de-lurk in the big IF community.

Happy Anniversary Early

Rich,

The past 7 years have been the best ever. We have had our ups & downs, but I can't imagine having this much fun with anyone else. I love you!!

The picture is for a little reminiscing for us. Please be kind if you comment, it has been 7 years and a lot of pounds added on for me. Rich you still look hot!!!

I heart Dr. B

I promise we are almost out of background posts. This I think will be the last one. Don’t quote me on that though.

We went to see Dr. B for an update & to talk about the next step. I am going to say it again even though it is in the title, I heart Dr. B. Don’t want to say love as someone else may get jealous. He is the nicest & kindest Dr ever. He always takes his time & explains everything to us. He showed me all the blood results & said that the test were for Lupus. Ok, time for a freak out. He said that you have to have so many blood signs & so many physical signs. So I don’t have any physical symptoms so no lupus. He is very happy with the 30 lb weight loss I have done & cut one of my meds in half because I was starting to have blood sugar drops too much. I am hoping to be off of it in the next few months & just be down to the one diabetic drug. I told him that his suggestion or insistence on the low-carb diet & exercise finally did it. The loss of Autumn kicked my butt into gear to finally do something about all the extra weight I carry around. So I told him about the LEEP surgery. He was not very happy about it was my impression. He asked me if it was because of an abnormal pap. So I didn’t volunteer the 3 month wait Dr. T stated. Dr. B said as far as he was concerned whenever Dr. T said we could start, uhm . . . getting it on, we could start treatments again. Say what??? He said since it sounded like every thing was superficial & he would closely watch my cervix length we could go ahead. We were so excited to say the least. He went over the Heparin stuff & got the nurse to schedule the training for us the next week. He said I will have more blood work done the first 3 weeks as any problems with Heparin usually pop up in that time. I will also have Ultrasounds at 6,7,8,10 & 12 weeks. At that point I would go back to Dr. T.

Dr. B is recommending a new treatment plan for us; Femara & Repronex together. Last time I was on 12 days of Repronex. This time will be 5 days of Femara, then 5 days of Repronex. They have had very good success with this protocol & it is cheaper for us. Femara is covered by insurance & I would have to get fewer vials of Repronex out of pocket. Although I will be on 2 vials a day instead of 1 this time. I think that is what he was trying to do was save us some money as we have been at this for a long time. We joke that we could have bought a new Ford Focus at this point with the money we have spent. Rich & I were so excited and decided to wait for one normal AF (Aunt Flo) after the LEEP & then start in July. Two months earlier than we originally planned for. As I was going to work after this appointment the song "I’m so excited" by the pointer sisters came on. (Yes I am a big dork & still a huge fan of 80s music) I was jamming to it & was looking forward to going forward with treatments in a few weeks instead of months.

So fast forward to yesterday & my counselor appt. I realize that I am scared to do this again. I am afraid it will work & I will get pregnant again. I am afraid to be at the point of analyzing every thing & so scared all the time. I am afraid that pregnancy will consume me. I am afraid of another loss. I don’t know if I could survive that again. I am afraid I will never hold my own live baby. Ugh! I need to be positive, but it is so hard sometimes. I know we don’t have to start next month, but we aren’t getting any younger. Oh if only I could see into the future & know what to do.

LEEP of faith

That last post was so hard for me to put out there. It was a hard decision to figure out if we would tell everyone what we named our daughter. But I finally figured that I put everything else out there, why not the name too. Rich came up with the name when he didn’t even really believe in it. It just fit & we have never looked back since.

Well me being the brilliant person that I am decided to have my annual fun appt done less than 2 wks after the D&C. I was over due, so I figured why not. I had stopped bleeding, or so I thought at the time. I had my annual scheduled for January, but since I had one last pregnancy & that went bad I decided not to have one again. So there were able to get me in quickly. The nurse was so nice, she was worried when it wasn’t an OB appt. They knew I was pregnant. The most fun part was waiting for the Dr. In the room next to me was a 16 yr old girl w/ her mom. They took us back together. I got to hear her babies heartbeat thru the paper thin walls. Well that was all it took to let the flood gates go again. Dr. T has been a pretty good doctor up to this point, but he started getting on my nerves at this appt. He kept telling me I was still young & it would happen for me. You now what? That is not something you want to hear less than 2 wks after a loss. Actually you never want to hear it, but especially not from the Dr. He knows everything we have been thru. He acted upset that Dr. B was doing testing. I just wanted out of there so I was like ok, ok, let me out of here.

Fast forward 3 weeks later. I get a call from the nurse. I know that can’t be good. They never call unless there is a problem. She tells me I had an abnormal PAP with AGUS cells. Dr. T wants to do a colposcopy. Of course, as usual I go into research mode. And you know what I find, cervical cancer. I have to call Rich & tell him. Now I hardly ever call him from work so the past few times have all been bad news. I think he now dreads me calling him from work. So of course I freak out & cry. Rich is stunned & by the end of the short conversation, I am reassuring him that everything is ok. Something in my gut tells me it is because of the miscarriage & it was just too soon. But I agree to the colposcopy. 2 weeks later I have that & the biopsy is done at the same time. Dr. T wants to do a LEEP procedure because he didn’t get a good look at things since I was awake. OK, fine. Better safe then sorry. Here is the kicker - 3 months until we can try again. That sucks!!!! I was not happy about that. That is the part I was most upset about. Cancer, whatever, we will get through it. Not trying, can’t handle it.

So I call them for my results & my surgery date after waiting a few more days then they said. Biopsy negative, but Dr. T still wants to do the LEEP to make sure. I do not want it done, I want to start trying again. I know in my heart nothing is wrong, it is because of the miscarriage. But my head is being sensible & says to do it. Better to find out now then when I am pregnant & have to have it done.

LEEP day comes & I don’t tell many people. I don’t even tell my mom. I don’t want the hassle & the pity. Rich & I are cracking up in pre-op. People probably think we were crazy. It was a lot different than my other surgeries for sure. Neither of us were worried, we just wanted to get things over with so we could start the countdown to trying again. I really didn’t think he would find anything & even told Rich I was going to tell him not to do it if he didn’t find any spots. I was joking with all the nurses about being allergic to surgery & not knowing my birth date. I asked for one of the printed caps since mine was boring. Every time I have surgery it is at lunchtime. So I get to smell donatos pizza going back because once again I haven’t eaten. I am told I will be under IV sedation just like the past 2 times. I get to the OR & everything goes as it should I assume. I wake up in recovery with a sore throat & extremely groggy. The nurse tells me I have to stay there for ½ hour after I get off oxygen due to the general anesthesia. I argue with her & say I just had IV sedation. Then she looks at my chart & tells me no. Then I tell her my throat is sore. There was my duh moment!! Anyway she offers me a pain pill, which I take, but I have to eat something with it. She has crackers & water or pop. Well I had been doing low carb for 2 months then so crackers were not low-carb friendly. I thought to myself or maybe out loud "screw it I am hungry & in pain".

I get to post-op & I am so tired. I get a little emotional because Rich tells me Dr. T told him he took some places off my cervix. I really & truly thought there would be nothing there for him to find. Dr. T told Rich he expected it to come back as something, probably not cancer, but not totally normal either. I just want to go home because it is noisy there & people are snoring. I can’t sleep if people are snoring, just ask Rich :-) I think we stopped for something to eat on the way home.

My surgery was on a Tuesday, so I wait until the next Thursday to call for my results since they didn’t call me. Is anyone else seeing a trend here? Guess what the results were? Totally normal. My third female surgery in less than 1.5 yrs was totally unnecessary. When will I learn to trust my gut?

Results and Answers

I just want to thank everyone again for being so supportive of our blog. Rich & I are such private people & don’t really share what is going on, so this is a huge step for us. It is so great to do this though & talk about it out in the open. It feels like we are more validated now & maybe more people will understand what we IFers go through. I am so glad I decided to open up & talk about my angels and the rough path we have been on. My therapist will be so proud of me for writing this all down & talking to people about everything we have been through. She always tells me she is shocked we never talk about it & most people had no idea what was going on.

So after the D&C we were just waiting on results from all the testing. Testing was done on the baby for any chromosome abnormalities. Dr. B also wanted to have testing done on Rich & I. Rich had his chromosomes tested. I had my chromosomes tested along with anti-bodies & blood testing. Dr. B seemed to think it was an immune disorder that was rejecting the babies. Turns out he was right, he is a smart guy.

Rich had 1 vial of blood taken, I had 8!!!!! Luckily they had warned me beforehand to eat & drink before giving all the blood. Besides the fact we had to wait 1.5 hrs before they even got to us. We went later thinking all of the fasting people would go first, no such luck. Anyway these were done about 1 month after the miscarriage.

So now we are at the point we are just waiting for results. Waiting & waiting so more. I feel like that is all we ever do sometimes and I get impatient & tired of it. But this time we just wanted some answers hopefully that would explain what was happening to us. I actually wanted something to be wrong with me, that could easily be fixed, that would explain the losses. I got my wish.

Rich & I are normal chromosome wise. I have anti-phospholipid syndrome. Big words for a blood clotting disorder. Dr. B personally called to tell me the results. He said that since I had three factors elevated; platelet, protime & clotting time I will be on Heparin shots twice a day throughout any pregnancies. Since I had three out of whack, I will be on it the entire time. We just recently saw the results in black & white and many of the results were very elevated. Dr. B said that with the syndrome I have natural killer cells attacked the babies as foreign, kind of like with an organ transplant that is rejected. He said there is an 80-90% of losing babies without Heparin & with Heparin I have a 70-80% of carrying to term, same as anyone else. Yes!!!!! Finally an answer and an explanation for the losses. It wasn’t just a freak thing or just a chromosome abnormality.

So, prior to the blood results we had gotten the results of the baby sent off for testing. That was probably about 2 weeks after the D&C. Rich & I had discussed if we wanted to know the sex of the baby since I knew we would be able to do that. Rich didn’t want to know, but I did. He thought that would make this angel more special than the first one. We just didn’t have that choice at that time. In the end, I chickened out & decided I didn’t want to know. I thought it would make it harder if I knew & if we never had a boy or girl later would I feel worse. Dr. B decided differently. He told me before I got the chance to say anything. Chromosome normal girl. I now have found out that sometimes they can test the mother’s tissue instead of the baby’s but in my gut I think that the results are right. Besides we have to go with the information we have right now. We should be having a daughter in September. Instead we have an angel in heaven looking out for us with her brother or sister. We have an angel in heaven named Autumn.

Background - Conclusion

Ok, just so everyone knows, Rich is banned from anymore posts because he made me cry reading our own blog :-) He doesn’t share his feeling easily & I was not aware of all of those thoughts. Obviously I am well aware of the engineer mentality as many of you are. This is hard on the guys too because they also have to help us emotional basket cases while trying to process their own fears & feelings. Thank you Rich:-)

So this is the conclusion of the story thus far. This has been by far the hardest part to write as it is something I still think about quite often. This was also the hardest part of the story to live through. Live through isn’t even really the right way to put it. I think survive is a better way to describe the past 5 months. It has been an emotional hell I have had to survive & work through.
February 20, 2007 was D&C day. Once again I was at the outpatient surgical wing of the same hospital. My surgery was set for 12:30 pm. No eating after midnight the night before. I thought I would be ok, since I don’t normally eat breakfast anyway, but when you have to sit & wait right next to the restaurant it is not as easy. They also give you a pager like at a restaurant that goes off when they are ready for you. I told everyone that I wished a table to eat at was waiting at the end of it. To make matters worse, everyone was delivering girl scout cookies to other people. I also got to see them bring the new mothers formula gift bags through. I was so antsy that day in the waiting room. I am sure I drove Rich & my parents crazy. They probably wish they could have taken me back & given me some sedatives earlier. They were nice enough not to eat in front of me though. I probably would have taken off their arms if they did.

They finally called me back & I had to do all the normal pre-surgery stuff. Both times I get emotional & they have Rich come back early. The nurses are always so nice though. This time it was the "this isn’t you first D&C" statement that got me. I just get a little teary eyed & emotional. Rich stayed with me thru everything, even putting the IV in which hurt like hell. They were running behind that day due to another surgery that took longer so it was a while to wait. It is so hard to wait for them to take away something you are longing for so much. Eventually my time came up & Dr. B came down to talk to us before hand. He was very nice & asked if we had any questions, then he left to go get ready.

This is the part that is so hard for me to write, but is so vivid in my mind & probably will be until the day I die. The wheeled me down the hallway into the OR. It is always so cold in there, so they gave em a couple more warm blankets. They strapped me onto the OR table & I was joking with them that I didn’t know I was going on a ride that day. I joke when I am nervous or scared. As I am laying there & ready for the surgery, they tell me there is an emergency in pathology & the anesthesiologist is there. So we are just waiting for him to show up to get started. Then it all hits me. So far I have held it together for 4 days, not really broken down at all, went to 2 birthday dinners & a hockey game without really accepting this. I think I was in shock & denial. I start tearing up a little. The nurse tells me it is ok & the anesthesiologist will be there soon. She dries the few tears for me. Then I just lay there & think of what should have been & that I shouldn’t be there again & the flood gates open. I am sobbing almost hysterically. I apologized to the nurse, but I can’t stop crying. She is holding my hand now & telling me it is ok. She says this is hard. Then Dr. B comes over and holds my other hand. He tells me it is ok to let it all out. Don’t keep it bottled up. I cannot stop crying now & am so thankful that they were there for me. The anesthesiologist finally arrives & apologizes to me for taking so long. He tells me he has all of these things to make me feel better in his pocket. At this point I am on oxygen due to the hysterical crying & I fall asleep. Next thing I know I wake up in recovery asking questions. Luckily I come out of anesthesia very quickly.

Dr. B went to talk to Rich. He told on me about the crying on the OR table. He said that he was sending the tissue off for testing. He also told Rich he really wanted to help us get pregnant & deliver a baby. I have no doubt in my mind after his compassion for caring for both of us after this miscarriage that we made the right decision for our RE. I went home soon after. Physically I was fine, but emotionally I was spiraling down deep into depression.

At my post-op appointment we met with Dr. B. He was very nice again & said that I needed to take my time & that they were there whenever we were ready to try again. I decided to be honest & tell him that I needed help. I came back to work & I can honestly say that the first week I don’t think I did much but research all the scenarios. I told him I didn’t care about anything; work, house, myself. I got up to go to work every morning & then came home to put on comfy clothes & sit in front of the TV all night. I didn’t want to go out socially or even to the grocery or shopping. I couldn’t stop thinking about this angel that I lost & what I did wrong. He gave me some counselors names & a medical "crutch" to get me through this time. The counselor & the crutch I believe saved me from a deep, longer depression. This was the lowest point in my life so far & I need lots of help to get out of it. I am just so glad I was smart & strong enough to ask for it this time.