The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

My uterus is beautiful. No, really, it is. It looks just perfect; the right shape, nothing hiding out in there, no cysts, no growths, no abnormalities, tubes all clear and leaking X-ray dye into the rest of my abdominal cavity...( Something I'd rather not consider. Where does it go after that?).

Which leaves us with absolutely no ideas re: the chronic miscarriages. Every test I've taken has returned nice, shiny, positive results. No blood-clotting factors, no overzealous antibodies, no chromosomal abnormalities. And now, a lovely, healthy-looking uterus. The doctors are doing a karyotype on Don's chromosomes now. They are to check my progesterone level later on this cycle, and we've both been prescribed a broad-spectrum antibiotic, in case there's some kind of infection involved. (Something that's easier to just treat than to look for, apparently.) But, Don's genetic material is already proven, I've was taking prescription progesterone for the last two pregnancies, and... an infection? Seriously, the odds of that being our problem are pretty small. But we're slowly ruling out all of the major causes... I'm afraid we're about to enter Unexplained Infertility land, the diagnosis that comes only after you've spent all your time and money to figure out what's wrong. The doc stated that he has confidence that our next pregnancy will work out, but that doesn't make me feel particularly warm and fuzzy. After all, he would have said the same things about the other pregnancies-- everybody else did. And while we've done scads of testing, we haven't actually changed anything since the last miscarriage, with the exception of this antibiotic regimen. I guess what comes next will depend partly on that progesterone test. If it measures low (and I think it will), then I want them to change my prescription. Either make it stronger (twice as much in every suppository), or change how it's administered, so that I take it orally or via injection. Also, I want them to write enough of a prescription so that I can start taking it way before I can even get a positive pregnancy test-- from ovulation, not twelve days later. Every month.

It turns out that the test wasn't nearly as bad as the medications I took in preparation for it. From now on, I will inform all future doctors about my extreme drug sensitivity, because my low level of pain tolerance is nothing compared to my complete inability to metabolize drugs properly. The procedure wasn't bad at all-- uncomfortable, but over in twenty minutes. But I was still throwing up from the Percoset (or was it the Valium?) four hours later, and spent all afternoon in bed with a wicked headache. Next time, I will just steel myself for the pain, take a few Advil, and refuse prescription painkillers. They are not for me. (Which is really too bad, because for the first hour or so, I felt REALLY good.)

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P.S. Don turned to me last night during a commercial, and said, "Next year for Mother's Day, I'm going to get you that." I can't remember what it was, but his confidence that by this time next year, we'll be celebrating Mother's Day touched me. (Oh, I remember now. A box of Rice Crispies cereal. You'd have to see the commercial for it to make any sense at all.) I want to be pregnant again by mid-summer, assuming that by then we'll have exhausted any available tests or treatments, and it's looking that way.

P.P.S For this test, they had to do it a certain number of days after my period. Easy... just wait for period, call and make appointment. For the progesterone, he said to call X number of days BEFORE my period starts. Am I the only one that sees the difficulty in this?

P. P.P.S. Becca, how can you, as a vegan, support breastfeeding? You know that it's.... DAIRY, right?