Ahh, the lovely world of infertility. People will ask me "hows everything going?" I quicikly realize some just want a simple answer to a very complex question.
Im the type of person who talks...i cant help it. It helps me. So lots of people get a surprising story to a very simple question. Since i talk, alot of my peers, aquaintances, neighbors ect. , ect. know my story. And that OK with me.
My family, bless their hearts, try to stay up-to-date with doctor appointments, bloodwork, and procedures. Do they have any idea what im talking about when i explain things to them? Probably not. But thats not what matters. What matters is- they care.
Being in the medical field as well(im a post-partum nurse...yeah out of all jobs this is what i do, but i love it, so its OK- explaing this is a whole other post!) Anyways, it hard to explain things to people who 1- havent been researching the internet for a year about the topic or 2- have no medical background. But i try.
So the title to this post is the question i get the most. So ill try to explain it so reading this blog maybe a little easier if your not part of the RPL/IF world.
A beta is a blood test which measures the viability of a pregnancy. You start off with one # and in 48 hours it should double. And once you miss a period the beta is (on average) about 100. If the beta is not rising appropraitely - you got a problem.
So ladies and gentlemen, when im talking betas, im not talking fish!
6 IVF cycles, 7 losses, a healthy son and now pregnant with TWINS! All honestly told so be warned!
Thursday, August 31, 2006
The road so far...
Its been one year, three miscarraiges...and no baby.
Our first m/c was in October 05. It was quick/easy but very emotioanally troubling. This wasnt the first time ive gone through this (back in HS i had one but thought it was a blessing when it happened- oh to be so niave)- so i went to a fantastic doctor who was willing to run some tests.
What was found was low progesterone - a hormone that sustains a pregnancy- without it, you miscarry., +ANA antibody (this is more hard to explain but it basically means my body attacks itself, thus thinking the baby is a foreign object and it can also cause blood clots preventing blood flow to the uterus causing miscarriage. Lastly we found small polyps and i needed surgery to remove them.
So 6 months later , 3 gallons of blood drawn, surgery, humiliating procedures, my dad passing away and my sister becoming pregnant, we got the green light to start trying again, WOO-HOO!!
Our happiness quickly turned to joy when we found out we were pregnant right away in April! Everything was going well until i started spotting a few days later. My betas were rising but i soon started gushing blood.
This was the hardest m/c. I started bleeding as i was making a shirt for Nala saying "Big Sister in 2007" AND it was Mothers Day! Pete and i went to the ER 2 hours before our families were coming for dinner - where we were suppose to tell them our "good" news. How ironic- MOTHERS DAY, of ALL days - boy it was a kick in the stomach!!
After this m/c my doctor shipped me to a RE. I never thought it was going to get to this point. The RE was very straightforward and to the point, not exactly the empathy i was recieving from my awesome OB., but i could see why he wanted me to see Dr. F.
I had hope, we had a new plan. We started trying again in June. Another + test a month later ( GETTING PREGNANT is abviously NOT our problem!!). But the beta was only 7 - way too low for a successful pregnancy. It was thought that the beta was going to drop the next day and that would be it. NOPE - the number continued to rise for 3 and a half weeks!!! But never a good rise it only made it to 686 - i was 7.5wks pregnant witha beta of 686 the longest AND highest beta ive ever had...but it didnt mean SHIT b/c 686 @ 7.5 is horrible!
So the Dr. F was suspected ectopic but nothing was seen on u/s. So i waited it out and bleeding started along with my numbers dropping.
Here i sit, going through yet ANOTHER m/c.
Will it ever end? Will i have a healthy pregnancy resulting in a healthy baby?
I sure HOPE so....
Our first m/c was in October 05. It was quick/easy but very emotioanally troubling. This wasnt the first time ive gone through this (back in HS i had one but thought it was a blessing when it happened- oh to be so niave)- so i went to a fantastic doctor who was willing to run some tests.
What was found was low progesterone - a hormone that sustains a pregnancy- without it, you miscarry., +ANA antibody (this is more hard to explain but it basically means my body attacks itself, thus thinking the baby is a foreign object and it can also cause blood clots preventing blood flow to the uterus causing miscarriage. Lastly we found small polyps and i needed surgery to remove them.
So 6 months later , 3 gallons of blood drawn, surgery, humiliating procedures, my dad passing away and my sister becoming pregnant, we got the green light to start trying again, WOO-HOO!!
Our happiness quickly turned to joy when we found out we were pregnant right away in April! Everything was going well until i started spotting a few days later. My betas were rising but i soon started gushing blood.
This was the hardest m/c. I started bleeding as i was making a shirt for Nala saying "Big Sister in 2007" AND it was Mothers Day! Pete and i went to the ER 2 hours before our families were coming for dinner - where we were suppose to tell them our "good" news. How ironic- MOTHERS DAY, of ALL days - boy it was a kick in the stomach!!
After this m/c my doctor shipped me to a RE. I never thought it was going to get to this point. The RE was very straightforward and to the point, not exactly the empathy i was recieving from my awesome OB., but i could see why he wanted me to see Dr. F.
I had hope, we had a new plan. We started trying again in June. Another + test a month later ( GETTING PREGNANT is abviously NOT our problem!!). But the beta was only 7 - way too low for a successful pregnancy. It was thought that the beta was going to drop the next day and that would be it. NOPE - the number continued to rise for 3 and a half weeks!!! But never a good rise it only made it to 686 - i was 7.5wks pregnant witha beta of 686 the longest AND highest beta ive ever had...but it didnt mean SHIT b/c 686 @ 7.5 is horrible!
So the Dr. F was suspected ectopic but nothing was seen on u/s. So i waited it out and bleeding started along with my numbers dropping.
Here i sit, going through yet ANOTHER m/c.
Will it ever end? Will i have a healthy pregnancy resulting in a healthy baby?
I sure HOPE so....
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