The Middle Chapters

I was telling my story to an accupuncture student today and realized how strange some parts of it sound. One thing - for a long time I've been referring to my old RE as my "specialist." The thing is that he's an infertility specialist. So telling the story about going to an infertility specialist, she understandable interupts and asks, "So you were diagnosed as being infertile?" Well, no, see I can get pregnant, but they were treating me as if I couldn't.

I remember strongly the feelings I had after the first miscarriage and the year plus it took to get pregnant the second time. They sucked. I remember the desparation after the second and third miscarriages - I simply wanted to do anything that might increase my chances of (a) getting pregnant and (b) staying pregnant. (For me, the IUI may have helped with (a), but no luck with (b). I stopped on the eve of IVF with PGD.)

There also is the continued feeling of helplessness of being diagnosed as unknown. What finally helped me get to what appears to be a healthy continuing pregnancy? No idea. Maybe it was leaving work and "relaxing." Maybe it was the accupuncture and Chinese herbs. Maybe all the prior embryos had problems. Maybe fifth time was the charm.

I assume one similarity between recurrent miscarriage and infertility is the helplessness and hopelessness. The willingness to do anything that might help, but with no idea whether it actually will. I had gallons of blood taken and the hyso-whatever (the dye test to check tubes and uterus). Luckily I got to stop before having any surgeries. Dear husband go through all this with minimal blood letting and finding out that he had a slightly wonky motility count.

During the last few years I have heard so many times, "Well, at least you know you can get pregnant." What someone who hasn't dealt with recurrent miscarriage doesn't seem to realize is that without the baby on the other end, its really not such a prize. I understand that some women have miscarriage that are very similar (physical symptom-wise) to a period. I wasn't so lucky. Even the early ones were around 24 hours of what I assume were contractions. Even discounting the evil physical symptoms, the significance of a miscarriage has always been huge for me (and I assume every other woman who is losing a wanted pregnancy.)

Recurrent miscarriage and infertility seem like two suck-ass problems that are different but result in the same thing -- not getting your heart's desire.