Doctors All Around Me

Doctors All Around Me

So last week was a very busy week for me, I spent most of my week in and out of doctor offices. First off I went to acupuncture on Monday where I found myself feeling very restless. I also experienced a short bout of vertigo and was very nervous that something was wrong; however my acupuncturist assured me that it is normal if it was only for a short amount of time. I then had an appointment with a cardiologist as I have been experiencing an accelerated heartbeat when working out or just walking around my job. After the death of my father, he died of a heart condition, I have really tried to work on my overall health. I hired a personal trainer and over the course of a few months I was able to lose 12 lbs. However, while working out my trainer brought it to my attention that my heart rate was higher than what is considered normal for my age group, it can get up to the 180s-194 very easily. With her advice I decided I needed to see a cardiologist, well after our first appointment my doctor tried to write off my concerns saying that I was just out of shape. Which to me is crazy seeing as I have worked out off and on for years, so after insisting on further testing he performed a stress test. This test involved me running on a treadmill with a monitoring device attached to my chest. After looking at this test my doctor has diagnosed me with Tachycardia, a heart condition that explains my excessive heart rate as normal. Now that I know this is my new "normal" I have a list of foods that I should avoid which I am now taking seriously. So overall my doctor says that I will be fine and that with my pregnancy I will need to stop all exercise until I talk to my OBGYN. The next big appointment was my HCG beta level test and for me this was the most nerve wrecking. I went in first on Tuesday and drew my first level which came back 360.1 and then I went in on Thursday to complete the second level which came back 731.8 my levels more than doubled. With the test I am able to breathe just a little bit better, however I know I am not out of the woods yet. I am looking forward to seeing my OBGYN Friday June 7th as I really need some reassurance that my pregnancy is progressing nicely.

Egg Donor???

Egg Donor???

The week after my HSG appointment I was on cloud nine, I figured God was finally cutting me a break in regards to my fertility struggles and that things were starting to turn around. When I arrived for my appointment on April 12, 2013 I never in  a million years thought that my fertility would be nonexistent. I never thought my doctor would open with "You wont be able to give birth to a biological child." That sentence damn near stopped my heart, I couldn't believe that this is what 2.5 years of TTC would end with. After telling me about my option to use eggs from a female donor I almost cried. DH and I have always dreamed of children with my eyes and his hair, etc... and now those dreams wont come true. I was so shocked after my diagnoses that I didn't really take the time to ask questions and understand what it all meant. He stated that my AMH came back undetected meaning it was less that .16 and that the likelihood of anything being a success was slim to none. They gave me a packet on Egg donor and talked about what would happen next if I chose to go that route and ushered me out of the hospital with this new heavy burden. I have decided that even though I was given such a gloomy news I am not giving up just yet. I am now looking into alternative methods (vitamins & working out) to improve improve egg quality and give my last few eggs a fighting chance. I figure the egg donor route will always be an option, but I will only have so many years left within my peak fertility age bracket. If anyone reads this please send a prayer up for me as I embark on this new road to mommy hood.

Clear HSG Exam

Clear HSG Exam

So on Friday April 5, 2013 I went and took another HSG exam, the second exam in 2 years. I must admit I was nervous going in, because I now find myself unsure of my fertility with the DOR (diminished ovarian reserve) bomb dropped last week. I kept thinking that it all just goes down hill from here and having one or two blocked tubes seemed to be right up my ally. However, after hoping up on the exam table for approximately ten minutes and not really feeling any huge pain my doctor stated that both tubes were open. I then found myself letting out the huge breath I had been holding since the exam began. I prayed before the procedure asking God to allow for a positive outcome and I found myself praying again when it was all over thanking him for allowing things to go in our (DH and I) favor. I will meet with my RE again next Friday to go over all of the exams and come up with a definite plan in May. I'm so nervous about this appointment, because my google searches are coming back with not so positive outcomes for women who suffer from DOR.

RE Appointment

RE Appointment

Dave and I had an RE appointment on Tuesday March 26th and although I wasn't prepared for all the news that was given to us, I feel prepared and motivated moving forward. The appointment was with Dr. Kovanci at the Woman's Pavilion in Houston and overall I was impressed with his knowledge and his desire to address any of our concerns and issues.

The meeting however did begin crappy as we were informed that our patient files from the past two years had not been faxed to their office as we were told by our doctors. Files that contained Dave's SA results  and my medical workup were no where to be found, as a result we both tried to recall information that was told to us over a year ago. To make a long story short I was not a happy camper. When I doctor arrived to meet us he was trying to piece together a best and worst case scenario as we had nothing else to go on. He then took us and preformed an ultrasound and had me complete a blood test to check AMH levels.

From the ultrasound Dr. Kovanci concluded that I had a low ovarian reserve, meaning I am not producing the amount of eggs that are considered normal for my age group. At the time of my ultrasound I only had 2-3 eggs in each of my Ovaries and for a woman my age the number should be closer to 10 on each side. This news completely knocked me out, I never thought I had any issues as my gynecologist never said anything to me about it. This news was pretty upsetting as I already knew that as of now there is no way to increase the amount of eggs a woman has, we are all born with a set number at birth. Going into our appointment I expected to deal with Dave's low sperm count and motility and here I was finding out that we both have fertility issues. I guess we were lucky at all to have even been able to conceive on our own last summer.

We concluded our meeting by looking at the best and worse case scenario and a appointment for me to retake the HSG exam.

BEST CASE: He stated that we were both "young" and having a sperm issue would be fine as he believed IUI would be the solution to our problem and my low ovarian reserve would not be a factor. 

WORST CASE: HSG shows that tubes are blocked in which case we would need to move onto IVF and with our low sperm and eggs it would be very difficult for us to conceive. 

With all that shoved at me I feel I took the news pretty well, I will be taking my HSG soon and we are scheduled to sit down and plan out future examinations next Friday. I will keep you all updated.

Miscarriage Story

Miscarriage Story

I am the face of 1 in 4, as I suffered a miscarriage on August 20, 2012. Statistcally speaking 40% of all pregnancy result in a miscarriage. Believe me that number hardly makes me feel any better. I wish I could say I knew this was coming or I had thought something was wrong, but never in a million years did I think this could/would hapen to me. DH and I were so happy and excited to be carrying bean that we immediately told friends and family only to have to retract it weeks later, because our baby had stopped developing.

I went to the restroom late August 20th  and while peeing a huge clot of blood fell into the toilet, I immediately freaked out and called my husband as he was at work for the night. I knew immediately that bean was gone, i mean there was so much blood I couldn't imagine this story having a happy ending. After speaking with my DH i decided that I needed to go to the ER, my DH met me there and together we listened as our ER doctor explained that bean had stopped growing at 9 weeks even though we believed we were in week 11. I went home and stayed in bed all day refusing to go to work, I was so upset at myself and God for giving and then taking away my precious gift.  I felt like I was being punished for some deed I had forgotten I had done. I wanted answers and of course the only one I heard was "These things happen, there was nothing you could have done to prevent it." I went to see Dr. Timmins a few days later with DH and she confirmed what our ER doctor had seen, we were given a choice to take medicine or have a D&C to rid my body of the tissue. I decided that medicine would be best as I didn't want to have to go through a surgery. I took the medication on Friday August 24th and immediately had severe cramps and bleeding that got heavier each hour that passed. Eventually I passed several large clots on Saturday morning ending the pregnancy that I wanted so badly.

I wish I could say that was the end of my bleeding, but on the following Monday I decided that I would go to work after having an uneventful Sunday. Hell it was the first day of school, what kind of teacher isn't there to greet her students on the first day? The answer come to find out is ME. I went to work with every intention of staying the full day as I thought my bleeding was under control. Well when I got to school I immediatley went to the bathroom and noticed that my pad was soaked, I changed it and figured okay no problem I can do this. Not even 45 minutes later I went back to the restroom only to see another soaked pad, at this point I was freaking out. I again changed my pad and went to my classroom and this time decided to stay seated as my advisory class chatted about their summer. While sitting in my chair I felt a huge gush of blood, I stood up to see not only was my chair blood red but I had soaked through my clothing. Talk about being scared I was terrified, I took off my jacket (thank God I had one on) and tied it around my waste and  went to the bathroom to try and clean up the best I could. I called my doctor to let her know what had happened and she advised I come in immediately, my DH had to come and get me from school because I was  told due to the blood I was loosing I couldn't drive myself. To end this story, my doctor found that my bleeding was due to the fact that I was trying to pass the sack and it had gotten stuck keeping my cervix open and causing the gushes of blood.

I hope to never have to experience a loss such as this again, having to hear hundreds of times how sorry people were for my loss was like a knife to my heart. I just wanted to scream for people to leave me alone and stop asking me if I was ok. You want a truthful answer I am not okay and I don't think I ever will be. Here I was pregnant with my first child only to loose it weeks later. I fear for my next pregnancy, I fear that I will never have a "next pregnancy," and  I fear that this miscarriage will keep me from every truly enjoying a pregnancy.