Friday, May 20, 2011

Miscarriages Suck!

So apparently I've decided to just go through my entire infertility history in a countdown to the result next week.

Fun!

My ectopic pregnancy was diagnosed in April of 2009.  In September 2009, after I had recovered, my doctor ran a test called a hysterosalpingogram to take a look at my tubes.  During an "HSG" test, the doctor puts dye into your uterus that runs out the fallopian tubes.  Then they use an x-ray to look at everything. 

This test hurts like a bitch.  Like the worst period cramp you've ever had.  At least it doesn't last very long.

The test showed that I had some minor scarring in my right fallopian tube.  It could have been there all along and caused the ectopic pregnancy, or it could have been fine and then scarred during the ectopic pregnancy.  There's no way to know.  Whatever the cause, I now had an significantly increased risk of having a future ectopic pregnancy.  Boo.  (There are lots of different risk factors for ectopic pregnancies--pelvic inflammatory disease, intrauterine device use, exposure to DES, tubal surgery, intrauterine surgery, smoking, tubal ligation, etc.  I had none of them.)

So husband and I started trying to conceive again, but this time with the realization that it's not always so easy to get pregnant.  Enter ovulation prediction kits and "baby making sex" (shudder).

By January, we still had not gotten pregnant.  I was feeling pretty down about it.  After taking yet another negative pregnancy test at the end of the month, I allowed myself to cry a little bit.  But I had "pregnancy symptoms" (that I now recognized from the ectopic--including super duper sore boobs) and the period that followed was strange and light so I took another test a couple of days later.  Positive.  But the bleeding continued and got heavier.

I was diagnosed as having a “threatened miscarriage” on January 26, when I was less than 20 days post ovulation.  The doctor said about half of women who have heavy bleeding go on to have miscarriages, but as long as your cervix remains closed you still have hope.

My cervix did not remain closed and I did have a miscarriage.  It was a super early miscarriage--if I hadn't been monitoring my fertility / period timing like a hawk and if I had not been familiar with pregnancy symptoms I probably would not have noticed.  My HCG numbers fell pretty quickly, which was good. 

                        HCG
01/26/2010      34
01/28/2010      64
01/30/2010      41
02/03/2010      31
02/26/2010      1

Miscarriages suck.  At least mine was an early one, I knew it might not be a viable pregnancy even when I got the positive pregnancy result, and I did not have to go into the doctor's office to have anything further resolved.

Tomorrow let's talk about luteal phase defects!  Yay!!

No comments:

Post a Comment