Recurrent miscarriage support, tests, treatments and trying again.

[Monten]

Buckle up, the threads move like lightening! Tea, sympathy, information, support and combined wisdom to guide you through the maze of testing and treatment for recurrent miscarriage. Newbies always most welcome.

Please start with the traditional recap of your stats.

Thanks for the welcome and the kindness & understanding in the last thread. I doubt I'll be on here that often, but I hope it's ok to chip in now and then.....

It breaks my heart to read all your sad stories. Really hoping you all get your take home baby....

Me: 36 DH: 38
DS: 2

Ectopic 7 weeks 2010
Chemical 4.3 weeks 2011
DS born Feb 2013
Miscarriage 5.2 weeks March 2014
Chemical 4.3 weeks November 2014
Chemical 4.3 weeks April 2015 (For this one, I was on clomid, aspirin, progesterone and fragmin to treat an ovulation problem and Factor V Leiden blood clotting issue)

More big hugs MrsD really hope it's nothing, but I know you must be petrified. I hope someone's pm'd you the email addy, afraid I don't know it, but found this via Google search [email protected].

I'm sorry mrsd I didn't see your post before I posted.

It's so awful to see blood and of course you will worry, but there is also a good chance things will be fine. I bled 4 times in the first 12 weeks with my ds. There was even some bright red blood. It was all ok in the end. Really hoping for a good outcome for you x

Sorry for the typos.
Me - 40
Dh - 49
1 ds 21 months
Mc 1 - june 14, 6 weeks, natural mc.
Mc 2 - october 14, 7 weeks, natural mc
Mc 3 - february 15, 11 weeks, heartbeat seen at 6 weeks, died 7 weeks. Natural mc. Was on 75mg of asprin from bfp, progesterone from 7 weeks (too late).

Referred to rmc unit at Leeds, under prof walker. Still waiting for most blood result but thyroid and gestational diabetes came back ok. Prescribed progesterone from next bfp and hcg injections. Am also going to ask for heparin. Considering Coventry but still waiting for 2nd af, so wont be ready for Coventry for another month. I am so so so lucky to have my ds, and it wasnt really my fault i had him at 39 (dh took convincing) but, man, i wish i'd started earlier now. I've always seemef to get pg so easily, but suspect that's part of the problem now...

Freckle story of my life. I wish I'd met DP earlier so I could've started earlier and maybe at least I'd have been successful

Hi girls this will be very me me me but I'm so bloody confused! But first handholding mrsd so hoping the spotting is nothing x

Anyhoo had my appointment and, while the chromosome tests on the baby (a boy) were inconclusive as the cells wouldn't grow, visually the baby looked abnormal. His brain hasn't grown properly and other features were inconsistent with the preg continuing. Basically a shitty old egg. From this point my mcs became all about my age!

She said it was a chromosome problem and I'd been unlucky. Two early losses, one abnormality and probably my next would be fine. As I've carried two babies to 12 weeks or more she wasn't worried about my ability to carry a baby.

I asked about the pattern of my early losses as they are identical and she said they just sounded like pgs that never got going! Surely that's a bloody problem right there!

I asked about Coventry protocol of prog and hep and she said it was only really a way of allowing pgs to continue which really shouldn't and as I've had this abnormality that would be very risky.

She also pooh poohed her own colleagues use of hcg in early pg, saying it wasn't proven in women over 40 and again only allowed dodgy embryos to grow longer than they should.

She has prescribed high dose folic acid and baby aspirin to be taken till 12 weeks. They will scan at 6 weeks (too late for my early losses) and if I get to almost 12 weeks I must be scanned early in the fetal med unit not ordinary scan unit due again to mc3 abnormalities.

Back in 6 weeks for blood test results. Also had bloods taken for TABLET trial which she said couldn't hurt.

Went to acupuncture tonight and my lovely lady held her head in her hands when I said it was age. She knows of Prof Quenby and thinks I should consider going there. She doesn't believe prog, hep or hcg allow abnormal embryos to grow and mentioned another consultant at a different clinic in Leeds who holds Prof Q very highly if the RMC wouldn't follow the protocol. To be fair the doc today didn't say she wouldnt, just that she thought it was pointless at my age.

Dh and I have now had a row about Cov as he just thinks wait for the blood results and listen to this doc as she is the professional and get ttc straightaway, while I still have going to Cov on my agenda. OMFG! I fucking hate being so bloody old and I hate recurrent miscarriage even bloody more!!! What do I do?!!

Sorry for the super long post. I'll try to read back and catch up now!

Minnie sounds very similar to my consult. I know shitty old eggs are a bastard but at least it's a reason. I know I was rather glad the baby wasn't viable in time as it stopped me beating myself up about my body ending the pregnancy. It's a shock though and I was certainly reeling from it for a good few days. Big hugs xxx

Oh Minnie massive hugs.

I actually don't know what to suggest. If you feel Coventry is the best thing to do, do you think your DH will come round?

Crap of consultant to blame your age. That's just the easy lazy answer

Shit isn't it sebs being old!

brummie yes I think Dh will come around. He just thinks I listen to too many people and I should just listen to the one instead of confusing the issue. I just feel like I have to have another MC before this consultant will consider other options. And I'm another who wishes I'd met Dh ten years earlier!

Minnie, sorry your appointment was so frustrating and sorry about the results.
fwiw, (you know what I'm going to say), I'd still go to Coventry. I've done what feels like a tour of top RMC and gynae consultants (local, uclh, St Marys and Coventry), and found the support from Coventry the most sensible, rational and empirically supported. The others seemed to be too old school (suggesting things I know have been superseded by new research - aspirin for 'just in case', 'it can't hurt' use) or very specialised in an area that didn't affect my particular circumstances, so written off as 'bad luck' because I didn't fit into their field if expertise. Maybe Coventry just happened to be the best fit for me. Maybe this time it has been 'good luck'. I can't tell you what's best for you, but I'd say its worth a try. I used to say to myself, its a fight worth fighting; it is a matter of life and death for someone not yet conceived.
Sorry, that all got a bit epic!!!

minnie massive hugs.

Mrsd sorry you have the worry of spotting. Hope all is ok. I'm another who had bleeding early on, and quite a lot of it, from 8 through to 10 weeks. I'm 31 weeks along nearly now! X

Thing is Minnie in this case the Coventry protocol really wouldn't have made any difference, so your Consultant was correct that it may have prolonged the pregnancy. They were so correct in saying that your body and my body had all the correct hormones to get the foetus to 12 weeks. That really is a very positive thing. The harder thing is to find a good egg and get the thing to fertilise and implant. That's going to be really tricky bit and I'm not sure I can do it.

Minnie, I agree with Just, if your DP will change his mind. Some docs specialise in different reasons for miscarriage - NK cells, clotting, immune system etc.
And the consultants don't always get it right - they contradict each other regularly.
Think it's ok to listen to more than one person if it means you can make an informed decision.

Mrs D... I know that feeling very well, I've also never had a positive ending after spotting in early pregnancy. However I have had spotting later on which has been fine. And I know of many more people who've had spotting/heavier bleeding in early pregnancy and it's been fine. Don't give up hope yet. So sorry you have to go through this worry though.

Flen and everyone else who mentioned Headspace, thank you, I will look into it.

True, but its not just the right egg. New research suggests its the egg/lining combo that sets off the chain reaction that either rejects or selects. Poor eggs would be much less likely to get to that stage, so if an egg did take in the right lining, it would, itself, stand a much greater chance of success.

Hey there minnie**, i wish you'd seen proff walker! I know i don't have the results from any fetal matter, but he hardly mentioned my age. There are plenty of women having children at 40 now. Age is a factor, it is part of tge answer, but to place it all on age is too easy. And at least she seemed open, if disparaging to Coventry protocal? X

Hi ladies.. Just adding me...

I'm 32, hubbie 34.
DS is nearly 3.
MMC July 14, 12 wk scan no HB, baby about 9 wks.
MC Oct 14, 9.5 wks, big hematoma ended pregnancy after 2 wks nonstop bleeding...

Slipped disc in Nov 14 put the ki-bosh on ttc, but just got a bfp and have checked 3 times just to be sure! Totally a nervous wreck, feeling v pregnant symptoms and worried I've conceived too close to recovering from the slipped disc... Hey ho, not complaining, just bricking it! X

Congrats Erica.

Do you know the thing that worries me a bit about the Coventry protocol re using Prog and Hep to make the lining more fussy is that my lining is already really very fussy. I'm scared it's going to leave me in a position where I won't fall pregnant at all, good egg or bad.

Apparently all fertilised eggs are imperfect to a greater or lesser extent. The job of the lining is to surround the whole thing and work out whether it can succeed or not. if it can, it triggers the hormones to tell your body to prepare for pregnancy; if its not, no signal, that one is rejected and you never know it happened, AF arrives etc. So, if the lining doesn't do its job right, you either accept eggs that, in time, prove too chaotic and those lead to mcs or disabilities etc, or are too picky and reject even ones that could survive. IMHO, when I conceived my turner's baby, I was taking mini aspirin and so disrupted the fine tuning.
Yes, eggs are increasingly likely to be chaotic as we age, but also, the selection process is less efficient. This selection process is where Coventry specialise. Hope that explanation helps?

Also, ivf with PGD (preimplatation genetic diagnosis) costs about £3000 on top of regular ivf. I looked into it, but it was way out of our league, financially.

I just assumed that when I got AF the egg had slipped out into the uterus unfertilised and kind of disappeared. I had no idea that some eggs implant but are deemed too damaged, so you just get your period as normal.

I guess that explains MC2 where it implanted enough to produce a small amount of HCG so my body started pumping out Progesterone even though it didn't really ever get going.

This is definitely your lucky thread Monten, I can just tell.
Me: 34, DH: 32, 1NMC, 2xMMC, currently pg