Who's that girl with the hot young eggs? It's me, it's me!

I had a saline ultrasound on Monday to search for any irregularities in my uterus. All looked well. He also checked my eggs and my ovaries, which were slightly polycystic but nothing to worry too much about. As he was looking at my eggs he asked how old I am. I replied that I will be 37 in less than two weeks. He said, “Your eggs don’t look 37. They look much younger,” to which I replied, “Like the rest of me?” Ha! He said they are in different stages of growth, and perhaps they are ovulating irregularly, which could cause the miscarriages. If so, that would be corrected with the ovulation stimulation. He is still waiting on blood work testing our chromosomes and any blood clotting issues, but he thinks those will come back okay. He basically said he thinks I’m a great candidate for the ovulation stimulation, coupled with strong progesterone support and possibly aspirin to help with blood clotting. He said we can start as soon as possible.

I told him I’m not really ready to start just yet. The past week or so I have found myself really sad and grieving for those three lost babies. I don’t know that I ever really have gone through the grief process for them. I’ve just focused on the beautiful, happy, healthy baby I already have and have felt like I’m blessed to have her so I shouldn’t dwell on the losses. But I’m still sad and I’m finding I need to go through the grief process despite my best efforts to avoid it. The doctor said that waiting will have no impact, because everything looks young and healthy. So we’ll wait until I’m ready.

We did discuss the possibility of multiples, which totally freaks me out. He said he rarely sees quads or more, but does see his fair share of triplets. I asked him to quantify “fair share” and what that would mean in terms of my possibilities, and he said that given my history and age it would probably be very slight, but that twins is very possible. Now that he knows my fear of multiples, he will administer the medication differently though. He will do a lower dosage over a longer time period, carefully monitoring the eggs to make sure we only get three good ones. Then we will attempt to fertilize those three. With my history of miscarriage he thinks it likely that I will lose at least one, so hopefully at least one more will have been fertilized. But there is still a chance that two, or even three, will have been. Good lord! If any of those double on their own, I will need to be committed to a mental institution.

Ca Cause

Miss Mia is so excited about “Ca Cause”. Although she is not so interested in sitting on his lap (“No, Ca Cause. No, Ca Cause.”), she talks about him and “toys for Mia” every day. We talk about Christmas being Jesus’ birthday and we practice singing Happy Birthday to Jesus. Each night I rock her while we look out the window at all the Christmas lights. I can’t wait to experience this Christmas with her, because she “gets” it a little more this year than last. I’m really looking forward to starting our own Christmas morning traditions, tucked in between the chaos that is our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day celebrations with our families. Not sure what our “own” traditions will look like just yet, but I look forward to watching them evolve over the years, so that one day she looks back on Christmas morning as the special time Mike and I do.

My girl

I am not sure how I would ever get through all this without my Mia. If I never have another child, she will bring more joy to my life than I ever deserve. She is the silliest thing in the world, and I just eat it up! She talks non-stop, and is always ready to entertain. I can't begin to list all the things she says now, but some of my favorites are:

• "Bye guys, see you 'morrow." This as we leave daycare each day.
• "Oh my goo-ness" when she sees Christmas lights.
• "Mickey Noooo-se," her reference to Mickey Mouse.
• "Big cock. Daddy, that's a big cock. Big cock Daddy." When she sees a big truck.
• When the sun is in her eyes, "No, no, no sun! No! Hurt Mia's eyes!"
• "Hi kids!!! Play with Mia?" She screams this out to the court when we get home.

Reproductive endocrinologist

I haven't written in well over a month. I've just been too sad. On November 9, Mike and I went in for our ultrasound and there was no longer a heartbeat. I knew it as soon as we saw the sac. There was no movement, it was just there. We were devastated, as you can imagine. On that Thursday I had a D&C, and spent the weekend recuperating. Since then we have just been coping with it all. I've had feelings that I'm not sure I ever want to get pregnant again. I've felt like I wish I could just take a long break. But the docs tell me that with my age, I really need to at least look into what's going on. So today I saw a reproductive endocrinologist.

It was a very informative appointment, and I just loved the doc. We'll do blood work to rule out many things, we'll do chromosomal testing on both of us to see if that's an issue. We'll check my glucose and insulin levels. We'll do a saline ultrasound of my uterus to check for any abnormalities or scar tissue that could be causing trouble. He said that less than 1% of women have 3 or more miscarriages in a row, so this is a big deal that it's happened. He said that without treatment I will likely just continue to miscarry. But he also felt confident that based on the information he received from my history and previous blood work, a procedure called ovulation induction should work for us. That's where he takes over the timing of everything in my cycle and we induce ovulation, then inseminate me at the right time. We would do various medications prior to insemination and during the pregnancy to help retain it. We'll have to think about all this and decide what's best for us, but he seemed really hopeful that this procedure should work.