"You are ready for your board certification in rheumatology," said Dr. Nice this morning. He also called me a control freak, but I think he meant it in a nice way. Other things he said:
1) The only reason the insert in the Crinone suppositiories say they may cause blood clots is that the manufacturer was in a hurry to get them to market and there had been no studies on progesterone separate from estrogen, which has been shown to cause clotting, so they agreed to include the warning and the FDA agreed to let them go to market. Conventional wisdom is that it does not cause clotting and, in fact, when prescribing birth control to smokers and others at risk of clotting, he uses progesterone only pills. Also, there was a reason to prescribe progesterone the last time around– my numbers were below 15 (he has to check my chart), although it could have been just that the blood test was done about 10 days after ovulation. Therefore, I have called in my Crinone refills.
2) Asked about the other tests for antiphospholipid antibodies (APA). Would have been alarmed if he’d said he hadn’t heard of them, etc., but he knew exactly what I was talking about and said that only the anticardiolipin antibody and the lupus anticoagulant had been proven to have any link to clotting and that the others are highly variable, can be positive one week and negative the next, etc. Since this aligns with what I was hoping to hear… I’m going with it.
3) Asked why they could not compare my DNA with what they tested after the D&C to determine if they had tested my cells or the baby’s. He said, "That is a very good question! Do you mean like at a crime scene? I don’t know why we don’t do that. I’m going to find out if there’s a lab that will."
Then he said he was sure I’d have a healthy pregnancy and that he hopes to see me back in there, pregnant again, very soon. And for today, at least for today, I’m putting aside my cynicism about doctors and I’m going to believe him. Because you know what? I am tapped out. I’m sick of this. I’m sick of being sad that I had a miscarriage and
that I don’t know whether it will recur.
You know how the toughest part of all of this is not knowing
how it’s all going to turn out? Well guess what. I’ll tell you right
now how it all turns out: There is going to be a baby at the end. There is! I don’t know if it
will be this year or next or the one after that. I don’t know whether
it will be my biological child. I don’t know whether it will be born
here or in China (or Korea– I hear Korea is the new China). But there’s going to be a baby. I’m going to be a
mom. It’s just a matter of when and how.
Hell Yeah!
Now that is a positive attitude! You go girl!