Category / miscarriage

by adena

In Case You Were Wondering… Yup, I’m Still Pregnant. (For Now)

I’m 4 weeks, 6 days pregnant… which means, I’m almost 5 weeks pregnant. Since it’s still super early, I’m at a very high risk of a miscarriage. It’s one of those things you generally can’t control but worry about anyway. With PCOS, they say miscarriage rates are 30%-50%, BUT I wonder if that also depends what type of PCOS you have. In any case, even a healthy woman has a 20% chance of miscarrying – 1 in 5 women, in other words, will have a miscarriage. That seems like an awfully high stat for something we don’t like to talk about in society.

I definitely had some symptoms of pregnancy very early on, but for now, all of that has done away except for this cold. I don’t have a fever, luckily, but my throat is sore, and I have all the cold symptoms that won’t go away. Hopefully they do soon. I’m trying to not go to the doctor until next year (just one month away) since with the new job my deductible reset in Oct and I planned to not use any insurance until 2018.

The good news is since I’m a high risk pregnancy and already going through an RE (and I didn’t realize this) my endoc actually covers monitoring until I’m handed over to my ObGyn. I’m not sure exactly what that means, but I have my first ultrasound on Wednesday to see if everything looks correct in there. It’s too early to hear the heartbeat, but apparently one can see the sac(s) and the fetal pole(s). I say (s) because there is still the very real possibility of multiples. There should only be the possibility of two at the most, but stranger things have happened. I just hope there’s ONE healthy baby in there.

Being pregnant still hasn’t sunk in yet. I’m excited about it, but I know our lives will change entirely in less than 8 months. We’ll start planning the home for baby once I get through the first trimester. More on that later. Fingers crossed everything goes well on Wednesday… and that this cold goes away soon. I can’t take time off of work now as I have to save my time off for baby… even though I don’t have an accumulated PTO plan… so I’m not sure how that will work, but not going to stress on that for now.

by adena

CD 13, Early Trigger Shot, and the TWW

In two weeks, I’ll know if this cycle amounted to anything other than $1000 in medical bills. I have a strange feeling in my heart this cycle is going to work (no reason other than I will be testing on my birthday and I want that to be my birthday gift) — but I’ve also been reading a lot about the super-high rate of miscarriages amongst women with PCOS and I’m now more concerned about getting pregnant and losing the pregnancy than getting pregnant to begin with.

There’s a little logic behind this. Not much. But my logic is that I seem to be a prime candidate for infertility treatments. Unless I have more tubal issues than we think, my only issue / reason for not getting pregnant, as far as we know thus far, is not ovulating. Well, with the Femera I’m producing 1-2 mature follicles each cycle — and they seem to be releasing properly when using a trigger shot to force ovulation. Assuming nothing else is wrong, we have a 15-20% chance each cycle of conceiving using this method.

Yet, the chances for women with PCOS to miscarry are 30%-50%, or even higher, according to numerous studies. I’m quite concerned that even if I can get pregnant, I won’t be able to stay pregnant. This is all personal hypothesis at this point — my eggs could be of horrible quality, or my tubes could be blocked, or something else could be wrong making it impossible for me to even get pregnant. Or, maybe my body isn’t set up like a typical woman with PCOS and I won’t have any issues with miscarriage.

I just like to plan ahead for these things so I’m emotionally prepared. I’ve been fairly sure my whole life I won’t be able to have children – or it would be very, very hard to get pregnant. So as much as I’m saddened over this, I’ve dealt with it a while ago. But – if I DO get pregnant and then lose the child, it’s going to be a whole new emotional ballgame.

I’ve been reading all of these horrible stories about miscarriage and I just think about how awful it is for all the women who have been through this. It’s actually fairly common, even for perfectly healthy expecting mothers. Most miscarriages happen in the first 12 weeks, but some happen later. I just worry about getting my hopes up — and also, actually I worry about worrying every day that the fetus might not make it to another day… not to mention reading those horrifying stories about miscarrying at work (I can’t even imagine!) Well, here’s to hoping this cycle is my ticket to pregnancy and I won’t have to experience miscarriage. But, I prepare for the worst… and hope for the best.