On coping.

My thoughts and feelings are tangled and twisted at the moment and maybe writing it out will offer catharsis and well as clarity.  Surprisingly, I'm actually doing ok about 80% of the time. Surrounded by my family, with its collection of 2 dogs and one cat, I'm coping far better than I ever would have had I stayed in San Diego.

But, there still is that 20%.  There are short horrible stretches when you feel like you are drowning and cannot figure out how to stay afloat. Last night, I was jet lagged and could sleep for two hours at a time. Each time when I woke up, I was filled with the most negative, bleak feelings and I started crying, and I ended up waking up my mom. She asked me this, why on earth am I hell bent on torturing myself? She told me I HAD to figure out a way to make this stop. Tough love, but she is absolutely right.  When you are a person struggling with infertility, failure is like corrosive acid on your psyche. Fear is a demon and we welcome it in, we wallow in  it and our pain, and to what end? Its not going to give us the ending we want and it achieves nothing. 

So whatever happens, I have to find a way to make peace.  If I have to wait 5 years or 10 to get that child I want, by whatever route, I have to find a mental balance, a state of tranquility in that period. I have to find a way to go back to the happy and even keeled person I normally am and stop wallowing like a pig in self pity. Oh I lost 2 babies. Oh I have to go back to my sucky real life in a month, compounded by a  move to a bitterly cold city (biggest gripe, ha) when I know no one  Oh I don't know why, despite being pretty good at getting pregnant., something strong and nasty and unidentifiable is killing my babies. Yeah these things suck, but turning into a basket case in response serves no purpose. I'm young, healthy, have options, and there is still plenty in life that offers joy, I just have to turn myself to those things while life makes me wait, for however long, to have that baby. Most importantly, I also have to make peace with the remote possibility that the child I will eventually have might not be related to me by blood.

How do I do this? Giving myself this pep talk really helps. For the first time in my life, I'm going to see a shrink. I don't know what else will do it,  but I have to figure it out, and nobody can tell me how.  Its a really important life lesson and my managing to learn it would be the silver lining in this process.

Infertility is a bitch and I'm not going to let it slap me around.

What needs to be done.

I'll be flying out to India tomorrow, I'll have the D&C there and they can do a karyotype of the embryo. After that, the healing process begins.

I keep thinking, why does this tear us up so much? There is the love you have for that 7-20 mm mass you have growing inside you which was going to be your baby, but honestly, that bereavement is much easier to handle than losing your baby after having known him or her, or even at birth- that pain has to be unimaginable. You cannot really bond with you baby this early on, never having felt him or her, but yet you love the idea of them so much that letting go of that is not easy.  But you have to. Its easier if you believe in destiny. Bighead was not meant to be, neither apparently, was Turbulence. So I have to let them go, their souls were meant for other places, other bodies and I pray that wherever they end up, they are happy.  You still mourn though, I've broken down over my first baby so many times, and I'm sure there will be many moments in the future when I'll be doing the same for the second. But this is not the hardest part.

Neither is physical pain/ discomfort involved. When involved, in itself  pain is a trigger for depression. But, in my case, physical discomfort is pretty minimal. Right now, physically, I'm fine. I've never been through the pain of a real miscarriage, I'm in the pink of health both before and after the D&C.

The real torture of one early loss, or repeat early losses, is fear. Fear that your dreams will ultimately be ashes, that you will never have a baby. Fear that you have to go through this again. Fear of walking into an ultrasound and having the doc coldly inform you that he does not see a heartbeat (both  my losses, I've had non-empathetic jackasses for docs). Fear of walking around with a dead baby inside of you. Fear of getting your hopes up and seeing them dashed into the ground. And that is the true torture

As I told my mom, this is like a boxing match, and you are up against nature. You can keep getting back up to fight, but it has all the power. If it knocks you down, you keep getting up until a) you either give up and change course or b) it lets you win. To this, my mom said, so go into the fight unemotionally. You know what needs to be done, just do it without engaging your hopes and dreams and fears and letting this trio jerk you around like a puppet.

A good idea in theory, impossible to do, or maybe somewhat possible after being knocked out repeatedly numbs you to everything.  I'm not there yet. The prospect of an other loss, of walking into an ultrasound and finding out the worst, has me literally whimpering.

But are what are my advantages? Lots of easily fertilzable eggs. Financial freedom (I've got a good amount saved up and my family is well off as well). Lets also throw in that I'm pretty darned pragmatic, resourceful and don't really care how I get to my current end goal  (a healthy child with my genetics in my arms). I also get pregnant very easily, but don't count this as an advantage any more because I do not know if  this is about genetics or my body is killing off my babies.


Because I can, I  am seriously considering taking my body out of the equation.  These losses are hell on me, and its much harder to face because I don't have that supportive partner who is suffering as much as I am at the moment.  I'll get through this one much more easily because I am flying 24 hours (not fun) to be with my family, but I cannot do that every time I have a loss.

I looked into gestational surrogacy in India, I contacted a clinic yesterday, and this is what I got back.

Program Fees  
The charges (in USD $) for Single Gestational Surrogacy program are as given below.
Stage I $ 8,900 (three free attempts for surrogate, SI charges and lawyer charges)
(Surrogate booking; Agreement; IVF / ICSI procedure; Pregnancy test)  

• Surrogate investigations, preparation, endometrial priming & booking  
• Legal (agreement) charges, Surrogacy India fees
• Follicular monitoring, Procedural (IVF / ICSI) charges, Hospital stay, semen freezing, ET, surrogate care, pregnancy test.

Stage II $ 7,900
(Antenatal care; Medications, investigations, special care, special accommodation, child care, diet, lost wages, Insurance, surrogate clothing)  

• First trimester (3 months)  
• Second trimester (3 months)  
• Third trimester (3 months)  

Stage III  $ 5,900
(Delivery; Post natal surrogate care; Visa assistance)  

• Delivery process (normal / caesarean)
• Birth Certificate
• Surrogate care (2 months) (Medications, stay, care, diet, lost wages)

Mulling it over. Its affordable, for sure. And possible for me, because this is the city where my parents live and resources are not an object.

What the future holds is unclear. But I'm trying to get to the end goal with minimal additional damage to myself.

8w6d ultrasound: no heartbeat

Its pretty much my biggest nightmare come to life. We found at this ultrasound (8w6d) that though the baby had grown (4 days worth of growth in 5 days), that the heartbeat had inexplicably just stopped. It probably happened yesterday. I will go for an ultrasound to radiology to confirm, but a no hearbeat is pretty conclusive.

Given the pattern, its probably what happened with my first pregnancy too, and probably around the same timeframe as well. What this means I do not know. When we do the chromosomal analysis again, think there is a fair bet that this one will come back with a 'normal' karyotype too.

I'll have to switch donors for my next try, because everything is screaming genetics at this point.  Its a possibility ( though definitely not confrmable) that me and the donor are genetically incompatible in some bizarre way.

I'm dealing with this as well as one can in the the circumstances- lots of crying involved, but you realize how tough you are when you realize you are already planning the next round in your head, and that you are willing to be knocked down again and again in the hope that one day you produce one healthy child.

Either my dad will fly down here or I go to India to be with my family for the D&C. We can do this if they can analyze products of conception there by karyotype as well.

I'm utterly thankful for my parents now- they are here for me, no questions asked and can take care of me better than anybody else can.

Not sure what else there is to be thankful for though.

Happy ICLW!!

This is the first one I've participated in, and I'm excited! My story can be pretty much summed up here and by taking a quick glance at my timeline, on the sidebar.

I never thought I'd be a blogger and I got into the blogging world to escape- I had all these thoughts and feelings about pregnancy and loss and this overwhelming, all-encompassing desire to be a parent (that nobody in my real life could even remotely get) and this blog was a much-needed outlet. Now though, its kind of transformed, I'm not here because of necessity so much anymore, I'm here because I'm a wee bit addicted.  This sucks you in, I tell you. I've met many wonderful and extraordinarily brave people here, its been a wonderful experience so far, and I'm happy I've gotten so sucked in.  Thank you for stopping by!

8w1d u/s

The ultrasound was yesterday; its the first one that's left me unequivocally happy, with no doubts or worries whatsoever. She is exactly on time (8 weeks 1 day), and the heartbeat was 'eyeballed' to be at 150. I had a 2 minute crying jag after I saw her, it was just so perfect. In this picture, it almost looks like she has a neck, but that can't be right, its too early!


With my last pregnancy, the last ultrasound  where I saw my baby alive was at was at 7w4d, and the baby was 4 days behind and judging by the growth between ultrasounds, was growing at just around 0.7 mm per day (1 mm per day is normal). So, by the same milestones, I can finally say that this pregnancy is looking better than the last, with this one growing at about 1.1 mm/day, judging by the difference between the 2 ultrasounds.

I'm now starting to believe that this *might* actually be. My due date is July 1st, almost a year (to the day), after my D&C. Somebody who has been dealt as painful a blow as a pregnancy loss will be forever wary of fate pulling another unbelievably nasty trick, but that wariness aside, I'm hopeful and optimistic now.

I am also feeling a bit like Goldilocks, I'm either metaphorically too hot or cold, never just right. I complained I had no cramping right? Well tonight, I'm cramping so hard its scaring me a little.  This baby-building business is joyful, but boy, do you EVER get to relax?

Wanting to feel crappy

Until the start of this week, Turbulence was a very, very good girl. She made me upchuck the entire bag of greasy popcorn I had consumed at the movies on Sunday. She made me cramp on and off too. I was miserable, but ecstatic to have such proof that she is doing well. Who cares if you look horrible and green outside when you are beaming mentally within?

Past three days, there has not been so much going on. There is the occasional mild wave of nausea (so mild I convince myself that its *really* there). Not much heartburn. Very little to no cramping. And of course, I'm miserable. I alternate between feelings of optimism and doom so violently I'm giving myself whiplash. 

My ultrasound is tomorrow, and it won't be a moment too soon.

And of course, my brain being the hyperactive thing that it is, I'm running through my mental lists. What is the possibility of a second miscarriage at this point?

Very, very low. Thyroid ( a possible issue in the last pregnancy), has been dealt with. I don't seem to have other antibody-related autoimmune issues. As far as overactive T and NK cells (linked to the thyroid issue by certain studies) go,  who knows, but those are usually an issue with implantation, and as we all know, I have absolutely no worries in that area.


About the thrombophilias, it seems highly unlikely. I had read a paper a while ago which looked at Indian women with recurrent m/cs. The authors examined the possible causes and found thrombophilias did not crop up. Also, there is my vast, unbelievably fecund family. Everybody reproduces without trying. My family does NOT have pregnancy losses, atleast, not that I know of. What they have, is lots and lots of babies. They are the disgustingly fertile lot everybody wants to desperately be, myself included.   
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And finally, there is genetics. Although chromosomes  were normal, my overactive imagination has conjured up scenarios where there is a highly unusual single gene incompatibility between me and my donor, in such a case, 25 % of all of our kids would be at risk. Yes, knowing too much is an UTTER curse, combine with this a tendency towards neurosis and you've got yourself a nail-biting monster on your hands. I wish I was like my mom, she is calm, thinks positive, and nothing ever rattles her.  She is the calm center in any crisis. Wish those genes had not passed me by!  Hopefully they will skip a generation and show up in Turbulence.

My one loss was an unusual and mostly inexplicable one so I've got some reason to be nervous .But then, the possibility of a second loss is statistically very low and a lot of bases have been examined and covered.  This much fear is unreasonable. I'm just utterly glad I'm having frequent ultrasounds, and right now I just wish I would upchuck and cramp so I could get through the days in between comfortably.

The thyroid sagas

This post is mostly reads like a cross between a science lesson and science fiction. Most of you will be bored senseless, but for any of you with thyroid issues, this might be a little informative. Anyway, its cathartic to just put it all out here, so here goes.  If you attempt to follow this and your head hits your keyboard as you fall asleep reading, I apologize! 

Your body temperatures are controlled by hormones. Estrogen is a hormone that pushes your basal body temperatures down, while progesterone elevates it. These are not the only players, the other big ones are the thyroid hormones.  This is scientific fact, known hopefully by everybody who graduates from med school (yeah, I'm still in my annoyed with docs funk. RE is spared though, he is the one person who actually attempted to LISTEN to me).

During my first pregnancy, the thing that struck me was that I was so cold, so often.  2 days after I got my positive pregnancy tests, my temperatures nosedived by a DEGREE.  For somebody whose BBTs run like a precision clock, this was huge. My progesterone, the hormone you would think was responsible for this, was utterly normal. My temperatures stayed low my entire first pregnancy, and so many times I'd be cold to my bones. I told my doctors this. They shrugged, said 'temperatures are utterly erratic in pregnancy, don't you worry your little head about it'. Did ANY of them stop to think, oh gee, thyroid hormone requirements go up in pregnancy, maybe this girl's temperatures nosedived because her body needed more hormone because her body was cooking a baby and this gobbles up thyroid hormone (scientific fact).  No.  Temperatures are an irrelevant, its not in the handbook, so why bother even throwing it in the mix?

According to the tests, I was 'euthyroid' in my last pregnancy. Which meant my thyroid hormones were in 'normal' range. But its now known that for women with anti-thyroid antibodies, simply being 'euthyroid' is not enough.  If your baby is not getting enough thyroid hormone, things can go catastrophically wrong. Your TSH, the hormone measured to determine thyroid sufficiency, needs to be low in pregnancy.  Mine was not (it was probably over the limit now considered the upper end of ideal for pregnancy). So, in retrospect, its logical that I was so cold the last pregnancy. This is utter TMI, but I had the worst case of holding it in as well, if you know what I mean. Like we are talking, 2-3 days.  That is also a thyroid insufficiency symptom, thankfully one not at all present in this current pregnancy. Coincidence or the hormone I'm taking?

This time, since I've been on daily thyroid hormone supplements, I've been warm.  Hot even. It's blissful. For the first time in years, I actually have warm feet! My BBTs have stayed up, my waking temps are usually 98.2, and during the day, its stays in the 99s. I know this because I randomly check temperatures multiple times a day.  But even this has started to falter recently (I start feeling cold, check temps and find they have fallen by a DEGREE again).  This is because (my theory) that with advancing pregnancy, my requirements are starting to rise. Its supply and demand really. If demand overcomes supply, then my body reflects it by dropping the body temps. I told my perinatologist about the falling temps. He was like, body temperatures, who cares about that? They mean nothing, don't worry your little amateur head about it. I literally wanted to hit him at that point, all of these guys are so by the book, they are like horses wearing blinders.

I think I have fixed the problem myself though.  2 things can be given to improve thyroid function. The first of course, is thyroid hormone. The second, is selenium. This is required for converting the less active thyroid hormone (which is what we get as the supplement synthyroid) into the super-active version (called T3).  When I first started taking synthroid, I think it was just about how much I needed, or maybe a little more. At this point, I wisely stayed away from selenium in case it made me thyrotoxic. But as this pregnancy has progressed, I think my thyroid requirements have started to increase, and I think my body needs more of the very active form., T3. I have oodles of T4 (because I'm supplementing with that and my blood levels are sky high), but it may not be what is really needed, and there is probably a cap on the conversion rate of T4 to T3. So I've started selenium once a day. I first started it on the day I started freezing and my non-waking temperatures were around 98.4. Several hours later, my temps were back up to the 99s, and they have stayed that way. Today, they fell again (the freezing is an instant clue).  Its really scary I tell you, because danger signal or not, I associate it with things going wrong. I took my selenium. I've been waiting and the temps are going back up, and I'm feeling hot again. Coincidence or not? Who knows.

I'm frustrated because I have to navigate this scary world by myself, and try to fix all of this amateur style. If I tell a doctor this (first they have to sit down to actually listen to you for 5 minutes and that may be too much to ask), they'll just shrug it away. If they don;t have a textbook answer for you, they will not even speculate and will just wave you away. And I really, really dislike that. Our body tells us a lot of things, and NOTHING is ever random. If something changes with your physiology, there is a reason for it. Sure the body is complex enough that you might never be able to know the mechanism behind it, but sometimes you can make an educated guess. Who knows, you might even be close to the mark!