Recurrent Miscarriage Testing, trials and tribulations...Part 7!

[squizita]

Hi all, carrying on from part 6. All kinicker-checkers, blood-testers, clinic-attenders and finger-crossers welcome. Nothing but love and crossed fingers...

Morning!

Spider I'm so sorry you find yourself here and have to go thru' the horridness at 13wks. Really tough and I know no words will really be of comfort, other than the cliched 'it does get easier' - hugs.

Picardy I don't know anything about translocation but at least the specialists are all sounding quite positive if you can mentally go to battle with ttc again.

Sorry I haven't name checked everyone but hope you're doing ok.

AFM going back for my 2nd follow up appt at St Mary's next Weds and excited but terrified as to what they'll say - on 1 hand I want there to be a prob so they can sort it and we can be more positive if I get pg again on the otherhand I don't want there to be a prob as I don't really want to be pumped full of drugs.... stupid I know!

Hi everyone! Back again - mum is OK, it was a routine (as in non-emergency) op and she is recovering well, home this weekend they think. Very impressed with her local hospital; clean as a whistle and state of the art. Of course, government think it's too expensive for the poor area it's located in so want to close it (bit of Ben Elton sarcastic politics there).

Hope I don't forget anyone.. here goes...

Baking thanks for your kind words for my mum. Bestival sounded a lovely break for you. Hope the wait for those results isn't too tough.

Picardy Again I hope the test results aren't too long and that they bring some clarity and help you make your choice with peace of mind. As Baking mentioned, is it a 50-50 thing or more complex do you know?

Welcome Lancashire sorry you find yourself in this boat. Liverpool seems to be one of the best centres so at least you know you're in good hands. Best of luck with your tests.

Purplefrog - Hope that pesky AF comes soon. I'm right in the middle of mine, 2nd after my last MC and my mind says "good" but my aches and pains say "oh yeah, we forgot about this bit!"

Coffee - best of luck with TTC. Sending lots of fecund vibes!

JBird - welcome, as ever it's so sad when people find their way here. :( Your history sounds like mine, 3 losses and one which is complex/drags on. It's just so bloody awful when you're in the middle of it. Also Spiderlady my heart goes out to you. Sending you both strength wishes through this vile time, and wishing you all the best with tests and success in the future.

Polka best of luck at St Mary's! I'll miss you there by 1 day. Know exactly what you mean about wanting answers but also NOT wanting a condition involving loads of scary treatment. What a dilemma. :/ Still, at least we live in a time and place where these conditions are test-able.

Justonemoretime Glad the day out with your sister went OK. Some people are weird treating pregnant ladies like public property, glad that didn't spoil the day. Let us know how the acupuncture etc' goes! A friend of mine (having IVF) warned me off one of my local places; the woman knew so little about AF, bizarrely, that instead of writing down 26 day cycle, she wrote down that the woman has her AF on the 26th of each month!?! It was a shopfront place in a shopping centre though, I am wary of them. I'd rather have a clinic in a house or medical centre, which of course is totally illogical.

School awaiting news of mini school. :)

...as for me, had a bit of a wobble this morning. Friend of mine completely unexpectedly announced she was pg. Lovely lady, but whenever I hear someone I know is pg, I get these horrible phobia-like thoughts of "what if" i.e. what if she has a miscarriage, molar, ectopic etc', what if something happens and I'm there, what if..?. Of course I'm v sure she's had scans and is far enough along to rule some of those conditions out, and I'm being irrational - but I can only describe it as a small dose of the fear I get when I have a BFP. But as it's not me, there's no hope of my own future DC to balance it out, just the anxiety. And of course I can't vocalise this in the 'real world' as I'd look like a nutter and scare a poor pregnant woman half to death. So just 'fessing up my insanity here.

FFS now my work life is being turned upside down as well! They are famously bad at communicating but this takes the biscuit. Until about a week ago we were a 6.5 vet mixed practice (I'm the 0.5) then our longest serving vet retired with 2 weeks notice to the rest of the staff and was replaced with a temporary new grad. Now one of the partners is retiring in 2 weeks, not being replaced, and they are selling the large animal side of the business (maybe 30% of the workload) so we'll be down to 4.5 vets and just small animals. Doesn't affect me all that much as I only do smallies anyway, but 3 of those 4.5 have been doing largely farm work. I'm worried that I'm going to be made redundant as at the moment we have 3.5 equivalents doing the small animal work, and part of my "my family will have to be deemed complete" plan was to pick up some more hours at work in preparation for DS2 going to school next year.
I just need one area of my life to be ticking along nicely, I can't cope with it all going tits up.
Sorry, massively off topic rant!

Baking When it rains, it pours.... Lots of things going on at your work all of a sudden! Any reason that so many are leaving suddenly? Or is it just bad timing?
How long will it take for them to realise that there might be too many of them just doing small animals, do you think?
I don't really have any bright ideas to contribute to this, sorry, but I know all too well that this is the last thing that you need now!

Thanks everyone for the welcome.

I'm still a bit in denial, I think, I can't believe how normally I'm currently functioning. But it's so easy to stick my head in the sand at the moment, as I still have no visible 'proof' that my pregnancy is not viable. Still no bleeding, and only some very minor and intermittent cramping, nothing that would have normally alarmed me. I thought that I saw some red when I wiped this morning, but nothing has come of that.
I worried that it might take a loooonnnnggg time to kick off. Having done both the long drawn-out wait and the short and straightforward one, I know which one I prefer! I bet that the EPU won't do anything if I still don't bleed by the time I go for my next scan on Tuesday

Baking - sorry to hear this. I wish I could say 'It'll be all right in the end' (although I'm sure it will - but we know better than to use platitudes like that), but hang in there, hopefully you will be OK with work.

JBrd sorry it's taking so long to get a resolution/begin your recovers. I had to wait over a week for my ERPC last time (I had had a couple of nasty ones due to having a slightly heart shaped uterus so I insisted on having it done with ultrasound guidance) it was the best thing for my recovery but it was pretty nasty going around for a week expecting to start bleeding at any moment, knowing things had gone wrong. Awful situation you find yourself in.

Polka good luck with St Mary's. I will be following your progress and have everything crossed for you. Hope whatever they say is helpful, easy, practical and gets you somewhere.

Hope everyone is doing OK?

I had a wobble yesterday :( Hanging in there, though.

Sorry everyone for ranting off topic. It's just made me realise how fragile my "being ok" with all of this is. Have been unable to sleep and obsessing about everything. Straw - camel - back.
I know others on the thread have got much worse to deal with and are not whining, so I apologise.

Jbrd it sounds like you've gone into numb/ coping mode until the physical bit is over with. Maybe we develop more robust coping mechanisms as the losses mount up I hope you get clarity and action on Tuesday. Completely agree with you that dragging it out makes it worse.

Polka and squiz good luck for your appointments

I got the letter for my 12 week scan today
This is so awful.

Bless you :(

sorry Jbrd that must have been a real knife in the guts

oh no, Jbrd

Loads of sympathy, Baking I really get that at this time it is especially destabilising for other areas of life to wobble too, iyswim. It's Another Thing You Don't Need. I'm currently on a fixed-term contract (maternity cover ) in an otherwise lovely job and may be asked to extend, for reasons that would mean I would be a complete bitch to turn it down, but won't know until possibly the very last minute and as my alternative is going freelance I may end up either acquiring a load of work and not being able to honour it or not being extended and ending up in a panic for work

Will be thinking of you, squiz and polka. Hope the appts go well.

Re the odds associated with translocation, from the geneticist's explanation it appears to be a 50/50 thing essentially (although my particular stats are 5:2 in favour of mc ) but she didn't say that explicitly and I suppose a lot will depend on the actual karyotypes. I am impatient for the results - I find this whole learning to live with a particular status of things and then something else coming along to change the perspective one way or another very wearing. Would rather have all the blows at once iyswim.

Hope you're OK, justonemore - and everyone.

I'm with you on the trickle feeding if information, Picardy very wearing. When you say your stats are 5:2 do you mean that's been your experience so far, but she's saying you have a 50% chance of each embryo being healthy?
If so that's v similar to my experience - it's hard to take on board being told a subsequent pregnancy has a 70% chance of success when actually IME it has a 66% chance of failure. Dr Q said untreated, more like 40% success, which seems more realistic.
Hope you don't have to wait too long for karyotypes to come back. DH's was back in about 4 weeks, mine took ages.

The 5:2 is my tally of mcs to live births. Not impossible with a genuine 50/50 situation but rather on the unlucky side - but then again I may also have lost healthy babies due to the clotting situation. Geneticist hasn't committed herself to figures (she may when the results are back obv), but from her explanation of how the whole cell division thing works it looks like a fairly balanced probability iyswim.

Hi ladies, I hope all the regular posters are well?

Hello newbies, sorry you are here and for your losses.

Sorry I haven't been around. We have moved so been without the internet. All settled in and we have internet again...yay!

Just thought I would check in and say hi. I will try to catch up as I am way behind.

I have my appointment soon, I am so nervous. I don't know if I am more scared they will find a problem or that they won't.

I have once again this ovulated really early in my cycle. The last time I did I did get pregnant but I lost the baby. Not sure why I keep ovulating early tbh. I think my hormones are just so all over the place. I am still having lots of blood in my egg white cm before I ovulate. I don't get why so am assuming it is once again hormonal. My last couple of periods have been weird and I do think it is a progesterone issue but time will tell.

Junebug - hi! Without internet time is always frustrating! I remember when all we had to worry about was a new landline (still, with mobiles that problem is diminished so it balances out). When I was ovulating late, someone recommended a high dose b bit complex for weird cycles and ovulations. It seems to have slowly got my cycle back to normal (although admittedly that could just have been my body after the last dragged out mc). Maybe worth a try?

B vitamin, even. Autocorrect!

HI June Hope your appointment brings some clarity. Personally I'm firmly on the side of hoping for a diagnosis so at least you know what you are dealing with, but it will be what it will be. If you do end up with an unknown cause, then at least you can take some comfort in being in the group with better success rates subsequent pregnancies or like me you can refuse to accept it and pursue more testing
How long until your appointment?

I'm ovulation early Squiz, I ovulated cd11 which early for me as I usually ovulate on cd14/15 then have 12-14 luteal phase, it's normally 13 days. So I will have an early AF this month too.

I think if it comes back as normal I will get my blood tested for NKC as my local private hospital offers the test for around £200. We shall see.

It's only St Mary's that does the TEG test isn't it?

Talking of tests... Mine tomorrow! 1st thing in the morning ... Have already checked the route about 15 times, keep thinking we'll be late and refused entry!

Quick question: Do they take blood from just you or DH as well at the initial appointment at St Mary's? I have put my name down for a last minute cancellation if one should come up in an attempt to get my appointment during the summer holidays (new job in September, no sick pay entitlement, not got to know people yet so would like to avoid too much time off straight away). Only problem is that DH can't quite be as flexible as I can (although he would do his best). He's already had his karyotypes done (was clear) so if that's the only test they'd do on him I'd be happy to go on my own. Do you think they'd think I was a time waster if I went alone? Just keen to get the ball rolling, as it were...

Hope all those will appointments have had positive times, and best wishes to everyone else.

Justone Karyotype was the only test my DH had though they did ask about his family history (for congenital problems etc) though this was not at St Mary's. I'm sure it would still be worthwhile going alone if you need to.
squiz good luck tomorrow.

I had a chat with my boss about the work situation today and feel a bit better about it. I'm going to offer my services as communications manager as they are so crap at it.
I was welling up reading a thank-you card from a client today which said " took a little of me with her when she went, but she left an awful lot more of herself with me" I thought that was a lovely way to think about how a loss can affect you but maybe I'm just a soppy mare
We had friends round yesterday and had a cuddle with their lovely baby son who has Down's syndrome. Managed to field a few questions about when we're having another one with aplomb, so must be feeling a bit better.
Impatient to get my results though, still a fortnight or so to wait.....

Glad to hear work situation is a little better, Baking.

JustOne on our appointment letter it says both of us but they just refer to one (so I assume karyotype) test for the bloke, and the rest for the lady.

This is it ladies! C section was planned for later this week but waters broke so baby School born by emergency caesarian 3 hours ago :) he is perfect.. All 9lb of him!

Can't thank you all enough for your support over the last nine months (and before). I mean it when I say I hope and pray your journeys end happily.

X

Omg school that is amazing congratulations I am so glad you are both ok 9 lbs wow that is such a amazing weight exactly the same as my ds big big hugs to you and baby take care xxxxxxxxx

Congratulations School! I hope the struggles you have had to get there add an extra sweetness to the arrival of baby School.

Congratulations School, that's amazing news! Well done! :)