Month 20, Cycle 16, Day 8
I had a very interesting visit to the Reproductive Endocrinologist office on Tuesday. Out of all the procedures that I have had done, this one rates at the top of the list for most intriguing. It was like watching the discovery channel. Or ER. Or something that wasn't happening inside of me....but it was.
First things first. My glucose tolerance test came back normal and shows that I still just need to eat healthy and exercise regularly and be sure that I don't develop diabetes in the future. So, this indicates that elevated sugar levels was not a cause for the miscarriage.
So, we arrived at the office at 11:30am. The parking lot was completely full. We had to drive around the block and return to catch a van leaving a space 100 yards away from the office, but thankfully we made it to the clinic on time. This year I have resolved to control my anxiety a little better than what I have been used to, so when the doctors still hadn't called me in for my appointment at 12:00pm, one-half hour after the scheduled time, I decided that I was not going to share with my husband how nervous I was getting. Instead, I asked the receptionist if they needed to test my urine, because I needed to go to the bathroom, pronto! She, of course, said yes so I had to wait patiently (or pretend that I was patient) while the Medical Assistant prepared my urine sample cup so I could finally go. She came to get me within a minute, but that time seemed so torturous for a person trying not to show her anxiety.
Five minutes later, the MA called me back to the room. Shaun and I got to see one of the last remaining rooms that I had not been in since I began coming to this clinic in May of 2010. This room was the hysteroscopy suite. Chuckling, I told the MA that I had never been inside of this room. She smiled, and when she left, Shaun said, "Pretty soon we will be able to give the tours of this building."
I responded, "Pretty soon I am going to get my nursing degree and ask them for a job here. I have already recruited three patients to this facility and sent two others to St. Joe's clinic as well."
I hopped onto the table which was covered in blue pads. There was an ultrasound monitor, a hysteroscopy television monitor (really old style computer monitor looking) and a cart with blue pads covering multiple metal pieces of equipment. Again, trying not to cry or make Shaun deal with my anxiety, I tried to contain my fears by talking a lot. And then I pretended to touch the buttons on the ultrasound monitor. "Ooooh, these things look like they are the equalizer on a stereo...maybe I can increase the base. Oh, this button says zoom. I bet I can zoom it in." And so I did. Back and forth, back and forth. I lay back on the table because I was not relaxed sitting with my behind hanging out. And, then I sat up because it seemed weird. Finally, twenty minutes later, a woman walked into our room.
"Hi, I am a resident, and I thought I would answer some questions for you while we wait for Dr. Randolph to finish up with the other patient. Do you have any questions for me?"
"Yes," I tell her, giggling. "Do I have time to go to the bathroom again, because my bladder is not going to take this procedure if I have to wait much longer?"
She allowed me to use the restroom and then moments after I was done, the doctor came in. He told me he was looking for abnormalities in the uterus or polyps or fibroids or scar tissue. I lay back and he inserted a long thin tube into my cervix with a lighted video camera on the end of it and Shaun and I were able to see the inside of my uterus on the monitor. It was Swwweeeeeeeeeeeeet!
Everything looked normal, he said, except there was a small spot of yellowish tissue near one of the openings to my fallopian tubes. He took the scope and scraped against this tissue and said he thinks it is probably where the baby had implanted this last time and it should come out with my next period or within the next few days. He didn't really say what it was, but that it wasn't diagnostic of anything.
So after this procedure was over, he told me that with all the tests I have had done and there was nothing else left to investigate, he is sorry to say that he cannot explain why I had two miscarriages and my baby Ethan died. There is nothing he can correlate it to expect dumb luck. He said, what we know is that we know HOW to get you pregnant, but we just don't know HOW to KEEP you pregnant. Statistically, he said, any pregnancy has 80% chance of live birth. And with all the knowledge that we have about me, such as no abnormalities, no known clotting issues, no diabetes, 3 previous pregnancies with 3 fetal demises, then we can say that my chance for a live birth in another pregnancy is slightly less than the average pregnancy, but not much, probably 75%. But this statistic he gave this time was much better than what he estimated in December when he thought it was clotting related. He said, 60% back then.
Anyway, I asked if I should wait until the next cycle to do the shots to wait for that yellow stuff to go away and he shook his head and said, no, go ahead and give this cycle a go. No reason not to try. And when I asked if intercourse was to be restricted because of this procedure, he said, feel free to be as romantic as you would like to be. (Just for the record, Shaun and I had a nice romantic lunch at the Olive Garden!!!!) Hehehe!
So, I gave myself my very first shot of this cycle. I will give myself a shot on Wednesday and Thursday and then I will have an ultrasound on Friday to see if my ovaries are ready to ovulate. Praying that all is well.
Father, thank you so much for you. I am so blessed to know you and to call you my Savior. I praise you because you are so crafty and creative. Thank you for designing the human body to be so complex. I want to pray that you will bless Shaun and me this time with a little one to hold and raise to be an adult. Please give us the desires of our hearts to raise a child for your kingdom. In Jesus' name, AMEN!
No comments:
Post a Comment