2019 TTC | News & Meds

As promised in my other posts, I wanted to write about the cycle I am going through more so to give help to others in the same boat. I realise this may not work for me or anyone else reading this but, I also know it has worked for a lot of people who have had immune issues or a history of recurrent miscarriage.

In November my cycle came super early at around 27 or 28 days. This is weird for me as I'm typically a 33-36 day cycle. So waiting in December for my periods only to find it never came - I knew that the early cycle would have thrown it all off so I waited. Testing out my ovulation on OPK's and, I typically find I surge before my cycle arrives, I tested around the 3rd of January only to find there was that positive OPK surge - hoorah! The cycle was en-route. Or so I thought.

Fast forward to 16th January where I started spotting, again normal for my cycle, I'll typically spot for a day and then go onto a low flow, heavy and then trail off over four days. Only the spotting started to trail off and the flow never arrived. I was at that point stressed as I'd planned to go trampolining. I'd also started my new meds. So, to be safe and because Connor said to test it out so we had evidence for the hospital, I tested on January 18th. It was...

Positive!

Shocked was an understatement.

Now we realise that First Response has a super low test rate of 12.5 mIU. This means we are super early. Yes, most people say to wait until 12 weeks or at least the first trimester is up before announcing anything, however, with 7 losses we wanted to note the journey regardless of the outcome. There are so many people who don't document it all out of fear. Hell, we have a lot of fear and anxiety right now but hopefully, this helps others in the same boat.

So for this moment - I am pregnant.

Like many of the other losses, we have started a new medication cycle. It's beginning to feel like every pregnancy and every baby is a test subject and this hurts me greatly. However, there are only so many losses until something works, right?

I've read so many stories from ladies all over the world who have gone to private specialists (Dr Shehata mostly) or others who have had expensive tests were done and most have been put on the same protocol - prednisolone. Many of them have had successful pregnancies after so many losses. Absolutely some still have a loss while on the protocol but have gone on to find they had chromosomal issues or insertions or deletions with DNA. I know Connor and I don't have that so I can only live in hope of a positive outcome this time around.

Medication Schedule

♥ 40mg Prednisolone Steroids | Steroids stop the immune function in the body, for someone with active NK cells or more so NK cells that become active in pregnancy, this can be a lifesaver. It also helps greatly with my auto-immune conditions so it's win-win.

♥ 2 x 75mg Aspirin | While I don't have blood clotting issues, they say that ladies around the age of thirty-five benefit from aspirin daily anyway, therefore it's recommended to reduce the issue of poor implantation.

♥ 2 x Progesterone Suppository | Again no progesterone issues however it was never tested to see if there was any dips or drops ''while'' pregnant. To be safe they recommend progesterone for those with recurrent miscarriages.

♥ 1 x Methylfolate | This is the folate version needed for someone with MTHFR genetic variations.

I'm hoping that we get the same results. That the Prednisolone protects this baby and stops my immune system attacking it. If this doesn't work, then I have no idea where we go from here.

Wish us luck!