A diagnosis...after 3 1/2 years of trying to conceive

Today John and I met with Dr. Mooney. John finally got to meet the new RE! It was a happy day, but a sad one too.

Let me start by saying that I am SO grateful to the two women who suggested I speak with Dr. Mooney at RG. THANK YOU. Because of these two women, I feel I am in better hands than I unfortunately ever was at ORM, and I've only met this doctor twice now.

The results of my blood work came back. Some of the things made me happy...my fsh and tsh levels are great. Even my fasting insulin was very good. But then we got to the Recurrent Pregnancy Loss panel that was run on my blood. First I found out that my body does not harbour any antibodies of the immune system, so that was good. Then Dr. M started to talk about the tests they ran to determine if any of my genes were normal or abnormal. Two tests came out normal, and three came back abnormal.

The three which came back abnormal are the MTHFR 677, PAI 1, and the Factor XIII. Basically, these are heterozygous status which means I got the "bad" gene from either my mother or my father. With these genes missing, and from what I understand, I am at a higher risk for: early miscarriage (possibly why nothing has implanted so far), preeclampsia, IUGR (Intrauterine growth restriction is a term used to describe a condition in which the fetus is smaller than expected for the number of weeks of pregnancy), and pre-term delivery. We can deal with these issues by giving me baby aspirin and heparin after an egg transfer, but the reality is that this isn't something that is easily fixed. Likewise, just because I get an embryo to stick doesn't mean that I won't have serious complications later on in a pregnancy.

I left the Dr. M's office feeling three things: sadness for the new found diagnosis, anger that Dr. S at ORM never thought to test me for these things (and when I did ask for additional blood work he told me they weren't needed) and lastly, a bit of relief that we FINALLY have an answer. No, it isn't the answer we want but it is AN answer. Now I don't have to ask "what if". What if we tried another IVF and the embryo's would be transferred into me? What if we used baby aspirin and heparin?

Now I can begin to ask...when do I get to take the next step on the road less traveled?