Recurrent Miscarriage - when to give up?

[Ela00]

Hello and sorry for anyone else who has experienced the nightmare of recurrent loss.
I have no children and have had 4 early losses in the last 12 months:
April 2022 MMC stopped developing at 6 weeks
July 2022 natural miscarriage at 5+6 weeks
Sep 2022 chemical pregnancy 4+2 weeks
Feb 2023 chemical preg 4 weeks

Between the two chemical pregnancies my partner and I had every type of blood test that I think is possible, and all came back normal. Including the less common ones - Karotype, NK cells, Sperm DNA. I am 33 (almost 34) and my partner is 32, so not too old to assume it must be age.
Even though all our tests were normal, for the last chemical preg I was taking baby aspirin, prednisone and progesterone.

Does anyone have any wisdom / advice / experience?
I don't want to spend all my 30s in a cycle of trying and loss but at the same time it's really hard to make a decision to stop trying too.

TIA x

@NutsandPuffs thanks so much for sharing your story and update, and huge congratulations!
Can I ask how come you went on Prednisone? Did you have tests for NK cells?

@Odile13 thank you for sharing, that is encouraging to hear you didn’t make any changes. One thing that I go back on forth on is what and how much medication to try.

Thank you x

i don’t actually remember being tested for NK cells and I no longer have access to my test results. I think my fertility doctor just figured prednisone likely won’t do any harm and may do some good so no harm in trying. She knew I was borderline desperate and willing to try anything! It tasted foul so I took it inside a capsule. No apparent adverse side effects though.

Hi OP, very sorry to hear you are going through this. Your post really resonated for me. I thought I would tell you my journey to hopefully give you some
hope that it can happen for you. I wish when I was going through it all I had spoken more to others who were / had gone through the same thing.

I suffered secondary infertility after having my first child, and had 4 miscarriages across 18 months when trying for a second. It was soul destroying. I could see all my friends around me having children and pregnancy seemed so easy for them. After my third miscarriage I was referred to the recurrent miscarriage clinic at St Mary’s hospital, run by Professor Lesley Regan and she conducted lots of tests which came back as normal apart from one borderline. She advised me to take aspirin and high dose folic acid. After going onto her regime, I suffered my fourth early loss, and then had a fifth successful pregnancy, who is currently sleeping and snoring next to me at 4 months old.

in terms of how long to keep trying, there is no right or wrong answer to that, you have to do what is best for you. But for me, I don’t think I ever really considered giving up, even though each loss was so hard. After my third loss I started therapy for my mental health and that did really help me keep going. I saw a counsellor who specialised in miscarrages. One thing that kept me going was that I was lucky in that I could get pregnant easily (it was just keeping them I found hard) so I felt like if I tried enough times eventually one would stick. Also, professor Regan gave me hope as she said that as long as I was still having my period, it meant I could have a baby (I was trying at the age of 37-39 so a bit older than you).

I hope my story gives you some hope for the future.

@Mickeyturtle thank you so much for sharing your story. I am so sorry for the losses your experienced but so glad to read of your happy ending.
do you mind me asking if you were advised to take aspirin before BFP or when you got a positive test?
This thread has given me hope to try again 🙏🏻

@Ela00 I was advised to start taking aspirin as soon as I got my positive and took up till 35 weeks.

Hi OP, I’m so so sorry to hear about all your losses. Miscarriages are so awful. Sorry also for this mega long post.

Our story: we have one child age 3, had one early miscarriage before our child, and have been TTC number 2 for almost two years. In that time we’ve had two miscarriages and one chemical pregnancy.

I’m currently doing something a friend recommended. She had eight (!) miscarriages, she then tried doxycycline and this resulted in a successful pregnancy (baby is well and a few months old). This is copied and pasted from her message to me a while ago when she explained it all.

“I’d recommend googling ‘chronic endometritis’ - NB not the same as ‘endometriosis’ as that’s an easy mistake to make! It’s basically a chronic infection of the womb that can be symptom free but is known to cause infertility/recurrent miscarriage. Some people think it could affect huge numbers of women. I think it’s definitely worth thinking about for anyone who has experienced multiple losses, particularly in the early stages of preg. No idea why they don’t consider it in routine checks/assessments for those who’ve had recurrent miscarriages. Anyway, there is a small evidence base for using the common antibiotic doxycycline to treat CE. This is at a slightly higher dosage and duration than would typically be used for acute infections or anti-malarial treatment - you can find out the specifics via Google! I think it was 2wks of taking it but I don’t remember the dosage. I know someone whose GP was willing to prescribe it (and that is an option at their discretion per the BNF they use for prescribing) and I would of course urge anyone to be careful, do your own reading and try and see if your GP will prescribe it… but my GP, in consultation with the recurrent miscarriage consultant, refused it. So I just purchased it from an online travel clinic, saying I was using it as an anti malarial for a trip to Africa (had to figure out how many tablets I needed so that the pretend trip was the right length to get enough!). Anyway, I took the drugs (important NOT to get preg while on them, so I think they recommend you take them once period has started) and the next time I fell preg (maybe the following month) things just progressed fine. After 8 miscarriages in a row!!! So I do think it worked for me. Wouldn’t want to promise anyone else, of course, but I wish someone had known and told me before all that heartache. Oh, also would recommend looking up the CERM trial which is being run by Prof Siobhan Quenby at Coventry uni. Basically a big RCT seeing if they can evidence this as a routine treatment option for recurrent miscarriage”.

Hope this helps OP. I find my friend's story such a miracle - eight miscarriages and the doxycycline was the only thing different and boom she had a successful pregnancy. I've only just taken it at the beginning of the year, had some family stuff going on that got in the way of TTC and did have the chemical after taking it but I am still hopeful that it might help me too...

Fingers crossed for you OP

@DancinOnTheCeiling thank you for sharing! And actually I had also read about Doxycycline early this year and did a two week course straight after my last loss in February. Not sure yet if it will make a difference for me, but there didn't seem to be any harm trying.
Wishing you all the best for the future and hope you have your rainbow baby soon x

Thank you, wishing you lots of luck too OP x

Update Message - I just wanted to come back and update this thread for anyone who gave me advice and for anyone who is going through something similar and comes across this thread.
After another early loss at 5.5 weeks at the end of May 2023, I fell pregnant again in July and I am now 22 weeks pregnant, with everything going well so far.

There were times I felt like I should give up (hence this thread in the first place) and I wondered whether it just wasn't possible for my body to sustain a pregnancy past 6 weeks. However I am glad I kept trying, I also started seeing a counsellor after my last loss, which really helped.

I still have a while to go and obviously there are never any guarantees with pregnancy. But heading towards the 6 months pregnant mark at the end of this week has given me much hope.

So so soooo happy to hear this OP wishing you all the best and a healthy pregnancy and little baby ❤️

we have decided to give up for now but your post has given me hope that maybe it will happen some time in the future. All of my losses have been very early too so maybe there is a glimmer of hope for us too 🤞🏼

Congratulations OP!!! What wonderful news! Just keep taking things a day at a time, hold onto that hope and joy, take deep breaths and tell yourself that the chances of anything going wrong now are infinitesimal- before you know it you’ll be holding your little miracle. When are you due? 💜

Thank you @Lottie2267 @NutsandPuffs really appreciate your kind messages!

@Lottie2267 I really hope things work out for you, just so you know I stopped taking any meds except progesterone. Which I took from ovulation, before then I had only taken it from a BFP.
@NutsandPuffs I am due beginning of April 🙏🏻

That's wonderful news and you must be so pleased. We lost 5 and TTC for 7 years before we got DC1. I remember when we hit 22 weeks and we hit that first survival milestone I was completely elated! Good luck with the rest of the journey to meeting your baby! 💐

Hi OP, just wanted to give you hope to not give up. I had 6 miscarriages, 2 failed rounds of ivf and then just as I was about to start another round of ivf I found out I was pregnant naturally. My 6 month old baby is cuddling into me right now and I am currently 12 weeks pregnant with my next!! I had hit rock bottom and decided that I was going to just take a break from stressing about it all and just live my life and not let it get me down if it failed again and than BAM! I was blessed with two healthy pregnancies!! Your day will come, stress is not your friend. I am sorry that you have suffered so much but try to hang onto hope x

Nvm the above now and CONGRATULATIONS!! So happy you have had this fantastic news!

@Ela00 cobgrstulstiobs on your pregnancy, what wonderful news!

And thank you for writing this post… I’m currently in the trenches TTC child number 2… 6 pregnancies, 1 baby. It helps so much reading that people have been through similar and got their happy ending x

@Ela00 congrats op ! Can I ask what was your cause for losses and did you take any meds for your pregnancy to stick ? Xx

@Ilovebees sorry just seen you message. I’m very happy to say I gave birth to a healthy baby boy in March. After 18 months of 5 early losses we are out the other side and loving the newborn cuddles.

I took progesterone from a day after ovulation. I had my progesterone tested a few times and it never showed to be low, however my last private doctor said extra can still help with thickening the lining to make implantation more desirable.
I don’t know if that I was made the difference this time or whether the timing was just right.

Wishing you well with your ttc journey x

@DancinOnTheCeiling the information around antibiotic use is really interesting.. can I ask if it’s worked for you? X

@Ela00 congratulations, always positive to read such lovely news xx