Finding a Place to Begin

There are days when I just wish I could go back to the beginning. That amazing place where trying to conceive a baby had magic and innoncence. Instead I'm here, stuck in sadness and I don't know how to get out of it. No innocence, no magic, just questions and fears.

I had accepted that we would probably need help in order to carry to term. I just didn't think it would be this extreme. Or at least it seems that way to me right now. It could be worse. They could tell us flat out that we can't have children. But they haven't. So there's the first glimmer of hope.

I saw my Dr yesterday to discuss my little theory about my screwed up cycles. As we sat down he asked if I had heard the results from the emryonic testing. I explained that we hadn't and were waiting for our Dec.18th appt with my OB to review them. Well, to my surprise, he had just gotten the report this week.

We miscarried a chromosomally abnormal baby boy. He had two trisomys (3 chromosomes instead of two) of Chromosomes 7 & 14. From what my doctor was telling me, both of these trisomys are rarer. And the fact that I had two at once at my age (I just turned 25 in Sept) is apparently cause for concern. My doctor is very thorough but never an alarmist. For him to be concerned enough to tell me that there may be genetic issue with my husband and I that could be serious, well, it got me freaked out.

So we're going for testing; and lots of it. Everything you can think of. We're being referred to a genetic counsellor to have both of us tested, I need a full gynecological and hormonal workup etc etc etc. All of this to find out if Ryan and I can have children together. At 25 years old, this possible reality hurts so much I can barely breathe when I think about it.

But there is another glimmer of hope. While we didn't get into my luteal phase issues too much, he did say that my charts will be very helpful to the specialists. I'm still pretty convinced that it's all related. I'm trying to focus really hard on that potential issue as there's a part of me that doesn't believe it's bad genes for the two of us. But I don't think it was simply just bad luck either. Low progesterone still can explain everything. If you really think about it, you can see where the problem would be.

With my last pg, I had a very clear implantion dip in temps on 10DPO and implantation spotting the next day. This is pretty much on the late edge of implantation but not necessarily a probelm. But maybe it is if your homone levels are too low. If progesterone wasn't being produced in the right quantites, then besides the obvious effects on the uterine lining, the embryo would be getting the nutrients it needed. As cells are dividing, this lack of nutrients could very well have caused something to go wrong. In my case, two somethings. I'm no doctor, but this is my theory and one I'll definitely be asking about.

So there is hope. It's the only hope I have left right now, so I'm clinging to it like my life depends on it; for me, for my husband and for our child-to-be.