The big news is, there is no big news just yet. Dr Calm doesn't have the pathology report yet, so she wasn't able to tell us WTF happened with Fishy (that is what we named this one, after the fact). We did tell her that we didn't want to know the sex, and she made a note of that. Unless it is clear that it was related to Husband's translocation, we'll be looking at ye olde eggs as the culprit.
Also, my darling doctor friend looked up my harebrained Vitamin K theory and said this:
"Vitamin K is a cofactor which allows your liver to make certain blood clotting factors (actually factors that allow you to make blood clots AND ALSO factors that dissolve clot - keeping you in balance). There is no scientific data that I could find that suggests that having too much Vitamin K makes you hypercoaguable (while having too little Vitamin K definitely puts you at risk for bleeding as your body can not make its normal clotting proteins). The amount of clotting factors is highly regulated and no matter how many times over the recommended dose of Vitamin K you take, your liver won't make more clotting factors than you need.
Love again,
Your friendly neighborhood M.D."
And yet another omnipotent "I'm the cause of all bad things" theory bites the dust. It's ok. I wanted less reasons to blame myself.
So back to the visit: I was wanded, and my uterus is clear of clots (unlike last time, when there was one that was allegedly going to come out with my next period, but instead got me a hysteroscopy after an evening of hemorrhaging). Also, all's quiet on the ovarian front, so I'm thinking we may not see a period until about 6 weeks from the D&C which was on 12/16, somewhere near the end of January.
I have to wait two cycles before I can do anything uterine related, so that is clearly March-ish.
Also, we decided to not go back on the DHEA. She isn't impressed, and I don't need another pill to take.
We talked about Donors in their program, and things of that ilk.
Basically, no matter what the pathology report says, the decision we make will be based on what we think we can bear.
-If it was Husband's translocation, and my FSH is below 10, can we bear to do 3 more IUI's?
-If it was my egg, can be we bear to say "Well, at 39, the miscarriage rate is 20%, so let's roll the dice?"
-Or do we go to the bank, write the big check and say "Donor Eggs better work or were SOL on the pregnancy front."
We won't be able to put it all together for a few weeks, and in some ways, we'll just need to let it stew. Nothing like time to make things clearer, eh?
As anyone whose been reading this blog for any time knows, I like to stay one step ahead of the current situation. My preparation for the meeting was to spend a an hour and half absorbing an adoption agency site that a friend directed me to (email me for the name, if you want it). I read over the letters to birth mothers, looked at the pictures, and found myself edging towards a funk. We are not athletic. We don't come from cookie cutter happy families, we are not Christians, we don't live in a suburb, and we are not obsessed with cleaning products. Ok, the last one was from a profile that sort of freaked me out, the woman asks for cleaning supplies as gifts! I'm at least a little more approachable than that!
Anyhow, I started composing a letter to a birth mother in my head. At first, had more in common with David Sederis's Christmas Letter from the Pierce's, but as I went along, I realized, we are pretty awesome, and if I were a birth mother with a sense of humor, and a wish for an honest couple who loves, respects and LIKES one another, we'd be a shoe in. Try it. Try writing a letter to a birthmother, and you might just find out how awesome you are.
So, it seems one must say something about 2009.
So here goes:
2009 was truly one of the absolute worst years of my life. It was the year I faced and worked through what it meant to lose this life long dream of easy motherhood, of being genetically related to our children, and the loss of my husband's genetic relationship to our children. It was one of the Dark Nights of my Soul. And yet...and yet, it has strengthened me in ways I would never have allowed myself to imagine as I was in that cold hellish place. Also, I have made some amazing friends, and I have allowed others to see me at my most vulnerable, not so easy for me.
So, yes, 2009, don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. So long and thanks for all the growth. I hope 2010 is less personally...challenging, yes that is the word.