I do quite a lot of shopping online. I have a mild addiction to shoes, purses and sunglasses. I get a lot of emails for sales, new items, etc. My inbox is FULL of mothers day stuff right now and every one of them stings. I get a 5 minute mental reprieve from not focusing on this painful turn life has taken and glance at my email and it all comes flooding back. Shopping used to be my oasis, a reprieve from our painful reality and now it's yet another place haunted by thoughts of what could have been, what should have been.
I'm really trying to tell myself that it's just another day but my heart is hurting right now. I miss our baby.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Five possibilities
Depending on how you look at it there are a handful of reasons that could explain why our baby died.
You could say there is something physically wrong with me that testing to date hasn't identified. This is my second 'late loss'. I was 22 weeks pregnant when my son was born in 1997. He was born alive but passed away about an hour later due to his prematurity.
You could say the MTHFR mutations caused this. My inability to process folic acid well could have caused a neural tube defect that caused the baby to die.
You could say that I wasn't producing enough progesterone naturally, the baby died within days of stopping the progesterone injections.
You could say there was a genetic issue with the baby
You could say we just had really really bad luck.
We can correct all but the first and the last reason. They all sound like perfectly logical reasons but none of them are the obvious reason we were looking for. Because of this we've decided to put our faith in our doctors and God and give this another try. We've told our clinic we are ready to try again and are officially waiting for a match. Please keep us in your prayers.
You could say there is something physically wrong with me that testing to date hasn't identified. This is my second 'late loss'. I was 22 weeks pregnant when my son was born in 1997. He was born alive but passed away about an hour later due to his prematurity.
You could say the MTHFR mutations caused this. My inability to process folic acid well could have caused a neural tube defect that caused the baby to die.
You could say that I wasn't producing enough progesterone naturally, the baby died within days of stopping the progesterone injections.
You could say there was a genetic issue with the baby
You could say we just had really really bad luck.
We can correct all but the first and the last reason. They all sound like perfectly logical reasons but none of them are the obvious reason we were looking for. Because of this we've decided to put our faith in our doctors and God and give this another try. We've told our clinic we are ready to try again and are officially waiting for a match. Please keep us in your prayers.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
I don't do vague well
I was really hoping my RE would results from my bloodwork that showed some definite reason why we lost our baby and it would have a medicinal fix so we could go into another transfer with a little piece of mind. We are still waiting the results from one test but the only thing we've found so far is two mutations of the MTHFR gene (that's a real thing, not me trying to curse in lolspeak). Apparently about a third of the population has one or two of these mutations and they cause you to absorb folic acid badly. Low folic acid can cause neural tube defects and if bad enough can end a pregnancy. The fix is massive amounts of folic acid supplements when pregnant but my RE doesn't think this caused our loss. He does suggest the supplements if we try again but it's not the smoking gun we were looking for.
He's also curious about the coincidental timing of me stopping PIO and the baby dying. Everything I've seen has said by twelve weeks you body should be making so much progesterone that the amount you'd get thru shots is basically adding a quarter cup of water to a two gallon jug. However, because the shots go in your muscle and are absorbed thru your bloodstream there's really no way of getting accurate lab results on what you are producing and what you are injecting. He suggests doing shots for the first 12 weeks again and then switching to a vaginal suppository. These allow the uterus to absorb the medicine directly, bypassing the bloodstream so they can monitor my progesterone levels thru bloodwork and see what I'm actually producing. Again, not a smoking gun but a curious possibility.
So, unless this lab comes back with something significant we are left with vague lab results and a difficult decision. I really want to know by the end of the week what we are doing. Its really hard to put something behind you when you don't yet know what's ahead.
He's also curious about the coincidental timing of me stopping PIO and the baby dying. Everything I've seen has said by twelve weeks you body should be making so much progesterone that the amount you'd get thru shots is basically adding a quarter cup of water to a two gallon jug. However, because the shots go in your muscle and are absorbed thru your bloodstream there's really no way of getting accurate lab results on what you are producing and what you are injecting. He suggests doing shots for the first 12 weeks again and then switching to a vaginal suppository. These allow the uterus to absorb the medicine directly, bypassing the bloodstream so they can monitor my progesterone levels thru bloodwork and see what I'm actually producing. Again, not a smoking gun but a curious possibility.
So, unless this lab comes back with something significant we are left with vague lab results and a difficult decision. I really want to know by the end of the week what we are doing. Its really hard to put something behind you when you don't yet know what's ahead.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
You don't get it any I pray you never do
If you haven't been thru a loss here are some phrases that aren't helpful (some of these are actually offensive):
This is all part of gods plan
I know how you feel
Maybe this is a blessing and you just don't know why yet
You can have more kids
Why don't you just adopt
It just wasn't meant to be
When someone you care about loses a baby tell them you don't know what to say, tell them you are sorry for their loss, validate the existence of the little life that was lost and recognize that they are grieving that loss, not just the loss of a (seemingly replaceable) baby.
This is all part of gods plan
I know how you feel
Maybe this is a blessing and you just don't know why yet
You can have more kids
Why don't you just adopt
It just wasn't meant to be
When someone you care about loses a baby tell them you don't know what to say, tell them you are sorry for their loss, validate the existence of the little life that was lost and recognize that they are grieving that loss, not just the loss of a (seemingly replaceable) baby.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)