I don’t want to spend too much time talking about the D&E itself. I will say that if you take away the heartbreak, the procedure is fairly simple and painless. We hadn’t told anyone about the pregnancy except my mom and my best friend, so we only had to break the bad news to two people. My mom had apparently told her friends, so she got to untell them as well.
My RE’s office needed to know if the defect was genetic in origin, so we had karyotyping done. Neural tube defects (NTDs) aren’t typically genetic, and ours was no exception (meaning it wasn’t the donor’s fault). I never did ask if the donor was allowed to cycle again. I did find out the sex of the baby, which I’ll refrain from sharing. (Mr. GB didn’t want to know.) I also received tiny footprints, which are tucked away safe for now.
(We don’t know what caused the defect. They say that NTDs can be prevented with folic acid. I’d been taking prenatal vitamins for years, but it wasn’t enough. At my request I was tested for MTHFR (a disorder that can cause difficulty in absorbing folic acid), and I don’t have that mutation. My homocysteine levels were also normal. I read NTDs are more common with IVF…I always wonder if the lengthy embryo transfer was the cause. I also read that hot tubs and saunas can cause NTDs, and I wonder if sunbathing was the cause, even though I sunbathed after the window for NTDs closed. It was probably just horrible bad luck. I’m taking 4 mg of folic acid now, just in case. I have a 1% chance of it happening again. I hope it doesn’t.)
As I was recovering from the D&E, I was more determined than ever to try again. In fact, I was filled with an odd sense of hope that’s really hard to explain. Maybe it was just a coping mechanism. I did have bouts of sadness and grief, but I was ready for AF to arrive and start a new donor cycle.
Except AF was nowhere to be seen, and my HPTs were still positive. And I was still bleeding, like for a month. Went back to the MFM’s office for an ultrasound but nothing looked suspicious. She gave me Cytotec/Misoprostol to try to flush out my uterus, but nothing happened. Mentioned the bleeding to my donor coordinator, who talked to my RE, who told me to come in for a hysteroscopy to look around. The camera showed that my uterus was filled with cobwebs (aka “products of conception”) and a second D&C was needed. My RE said I could get the procedure done at the RE’s surgical center, but we’d have to wait a month.
So we commenced waiting. Again. We’re talking 77 days between the first procedure and the second.
Surprise surprise, AF arrived 58 days after my D&E. I will spare you the details but let’s just say it was the worst period EVER. My RE still recommended the D&C, but the good news was that I got to go on the pill, which meant I’d finally have control of my cycle back and we were finally ready to start looking at donors again. YAY!
I had my second D&C on August 11, the same day we put down our donor deposit. In the next few days I’ll talk a bit about our selection process (my criteria changed dramatically), a slight setback, and where we are today. But for now, I’ve got to run upstairs for a Lupron shot!
To be continued…
Golden Bud
Showing posts with label neural tube defect. Show all posts
Showing posts with label neural tube defect. Show all posts
September 9, 2010
September 8, 2010
Incompatible with life
I was going to wait to post this tomorrow, but I’m getting tired of reliving the past. I want to look forward, not back! So I’m going to post this tonight and finish up my story tomorrow. After that, I can AW about our latest donor cycle.
**WARNING**In this post I talk about the difficult subject of termination for medical purposes. Not everyone will be comfortable reading this, nor will everyone agree with our decision. You might also notice that I approach this post with humor and acceptance. Forgive me if I seem uncaring. This is a side-effect of my sunny outlook, my sense of humor, and the healing that’s taken place these past few months.***
Despite all the bad feelings I’d had about the cycle, I wasn’t surprised to get a BFP. At 7dp3dt I’d had really mild cramps all day long. I never get cramps before AF, and I’d never had cramps for any previous cycle, so I took the cramps as a good sign. I also received a batch of 50 cheapie pregnancy tests from Amazon that day, so I decided to test in the morning, or 8dp3dt.
Sure enough, the next morning I got a faint second line on an HPT. To rule out an evap line, I had Mr. GB get out of bed, pee in a cup, and watch while I tested his pee. He got a BFN. (For the record, I am a big advocate of POASing, and I would’ve done so sooner if I’d had HPTs in my possession.)
Fast forward past a few ultrasounds at the RE’s office. Despite my high betas, I admit I was disappointed to only have a singleton, because I knew we’d have to repeat the donor process (and expense) if we wanted siblings. At the same time I felt very lucky to have no morning sickness or fatigue. There were many times I’d forgotten I was pregnant. My mom was the same way with me, so I wasn’t worried. We even met my mom in Las Vegas for a short vacation and broke the news. She was thrilled, of course. We swore her to secrecy. Or so we thought.
Fast forward to my first OB appointment at 11 weeks. Yuck. Coming from a fancy-pants RE clinic to this OB’s office was like a culture shock. The waiting room furniture was uncomfortable, there were no magazines, and the décor was dated. The paperwork had no place for me to indicate that I’d used IVF, let alone an egg donor. The nurse kept asking me when my last menstrual period was, and I had to explain to her that my LMP was irrelevant and that she should use the donor’s LMP. She also asked me if I wanted genetic testing for cystic fibrosis. Clearly she was clueless both about IF and donor eggs. And don’t get me started on her gender predictions based on the Doppler heart rate. The doctor was equally uninspiring. I hated being treated like a pregnant fertile in an assembly line. I was ready to get out of there.
I vowed to find an infertile-friendly OB just as soon as I got my referral for an NT scan at 12 weeks. To me, the NT scan was a big milestone. Technically I didn’t need one because our donor was 28 and not AMA, but I wanted one anyway—I wanted to revel in the magic of high-tech ultrasound equipment and get my hands on the DVD they give you at the end.
Per my usual impatience, I booked the appointment on the early side of the NT scan window (11 weeks & some days) at a Maternal Fetal Medicine clinic at a local hospital. (MFMs see high-risk patients and have better-than-average ultrasound equipment.) The MFM’s office was also an upgrade over the trashy OB’s office in the same hospital complex. The MFM paperwork had questions about IVF treatments and a nice little “Donor Egg” checkbox. I was happy.
The exam room was also lovely, with twinkling lights on the ceiling. Didn’t see the doctor at first, just the technician and nurse. The ultrasound was my first experience abdominal ultrasounds--the RE is all about the vag-cam, which is a different experience altogether. It was weird keeping my pants on.
Long story short: at some point I was asked to go empty my bladder and return to the room for a vag-cam for a closer look (so I got to take my pants off after all). Ladies, I’m telling you, if this happens to you, it’s probably not good news. I’d seen the technician do the NT fold measurement and the number looked good to me, so I had no idea WTF was going on. So I pee, come back, meet the MFM’s vag-cam, and the technician resumes looking at the baby’s head. Finally she says she needs to go find the doctor. I ask her if everything is ok and she said she’s having trouble seeing the baby’s head.
At this point she stepped out of the room and left me and Mr. GB to hug and try to deal with this news. A few minutes later the doctor (a very nice woman) and a genetic counselor come to talk to us. They told us that the baby has a severe neural tube defect that was incompatible with life. Basically the baby had a brain but no skull. Our choices were to terminate or continue the pregnancy knowing that the baby would not survive.
As you can imagine, this news was terribly upsetting. But I knew there was no way I could continue the pregnancy, so we made arrangements for a D&E the following week.
Alrighty, that’s enough for today. I’ll try to wrap up my history in the next post.
Golden Bud
**WARNING**In this post I talk about the difficult subject of termination for medical purposes. Not everyone will be comfortable reading this, nor will everyone agree with our decision. You might also notice that I approach this post with humor and acceptance. Forgive me if I seem uncaring. This is a side-effect of my sunny outlook, my sense of humor, and the healing that’s taken place these past few months.***
Despite all the bad feelings I’d had about the cycle, I wasn’t surprised to get a BFP. At 7dp3dt I’d had really mild cramps all day long. I never get cramps before AF, and I’d never had cramps for any previous cycle, so I took the cramps as a good sign. I also received a batch of 50 cheapie pregnancy tests from Amazon that day, so I decided to test in the morning, or 8dp3dt.
Sure enough, the next morning I got a faint second line on an HPT. To rule out an evap line, I had Mr. GB get out of bed, pee in a cup, and watch while I tested his pee. He got a BFN. (For the record, I am a big advocate of POASing, and I would’ve done so sooner if I’d had HPTs in my possession.)
Fast forward past a few ultrasounds at the RE’s office. Despite my high betas, I admit I was disappointed to only have a singleton, because I knew we’d have to repeat the donor process (and expense) if we wanted siblings. At the same time I felt very lucky to have no morning sickness or fatigue. There were many times I’d forgotten I was pregnant. My mom was the same way with me, so I wasn’t worried. We even met my mom in Las Vegas for a short vacation and broke the news. She was thrilled, of course. We swore her to secrecy. Or so we thought.
Fast forward to my first OB appointment at 11 weeks. Yuck. Coming from a fancy-pants RE clinic to this OB’s office was like a culture shock. The waiting room furniture was uncomfortable, there were no magazines, and the décor was dated. The paperwork had no place for me to indicate that I’d used IVF, let alone an egg donor. The nurse kept asking me when my last menstrual period was, and I had to explain to her that my LMP was irrelevant and that she should use the donor’s LMP. She also asked me if I wanted genetic testing for cystic fibrosis. Clearly she was clueless both about IF and donor eggs. And don’t get me started on her gender predictions based on the Doppler heart rate. The doctor was equally uninspiring. I hated being treated like a pregnant fertile in an assembly line. I was ready to get out of there.
I vowed to find an infertile-friendly OB just as soon as I got my referral for an NT scan at 12 weeks. To me, the NT scan was a big milestone. Technically I didn’t need one because our donor was 28 and not AMA, but I wanted one anyway—I wanted to revel in the magic of high-tech ultrasound equipment and get my hands on the DVD they give you at the end.
Per my usual impatience, I booked the appointment on the early side of the NT scan window (11 weeks & some days) at a Maternal Fetal Medicine clinic at a local hospital. (MFMs see high-risk patients and have better-than-average ultrasound equipment.) The MFM’s office was also an upgrade over the trashy OB’s office in the same hospital complex. The MFM paperwork had questions about IVF treatments and a nice little “Donor Egg” checkbox. I was happy.
The exam room was also lovely, with twinkling lights on the ceiling. Didn’t see the doctor at first, just the technician and nurse. The ultrasound was my first experience abdominal ultrasounds--the RE is all about the vag-cam, which is a different experience altogether. It was weird keeping my pants on.
Long story short: at some point I was asked to go empty my bladder and return to the room for a vag-cam for a closer look (so I got to take my pants off after all). Ladies, I’m telling you, if this happens to you, it’s probably not good news. I’d seen the technician do the NT fold measurement and the number looked good to me, so I had no idea WTF was going on. So I pee, come back, meet the MFM’s vag-cam, and the technician resumes looking at the baby’s head. Finally she says she needs to go find the doctor. I ask her if everything is ok and she said she’s having trouble seeing the baby’s head.
At this point she stepped out of the room and left me and Mr. GB to hug and try to deal with this news. A few minutes later the doctor (a very nice woman) and a genetic counselor come to talk to us. They told us that the baby has a severe neural tube defect that was incompatible with life. Basically the baby had a brain but no skull. Our choices were to terminate or continue the pregnancy knowing that the baby would not survive.
As you can imagine, this news was terribly upsetting. But I knew there was no way I could continue the pregnancy, so we made arrangements for a D&E the following week.
Alrighty, that’s enough for today. I’ll try to wrap up my history in the next post.
Golden Bud
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