Tests, Tests, and Hopefully No More Tests!

While I am determined to not make this a pregnancy and miscarriage blog, I also want to keep everyone updated. And since this is a lot of what is going on in our lives right now, it's also very much about us and what is going on. But be on the lookout for more non-baby related posts!

As you may know, our doctor's prognosis for testing in the future was to suffer through one more miscarriage before testing was needed. This seemed to be the most common answer when I talked to people. I didn't like it, but I also wanted to listen to the doctors and do whatever they recommended. A few people began reaching out to me and telling me their experiences with recurrent miscarriage and what their issues had been. At first, I was just listening, but as numerous people kept bringing this up, even when I was not the one initiating any discussion on the topic, it started to resonate with me. In the midst of these conversations was also the name of a particular doctor. I found myself in battle between following doctor's orders and taking a stand for my own health. I thought it was crazy to wait for another miscarriage, but I also was comforted by the fact that my doctor's did not consider it cause for testing just yet. Well, I decided there was no way we could lose another baby with this new information I was getting.

I have mentioned before (I think) that my doctor's were interested in chromosomal testing if a third miscarriage was to occur. I started thinking about this, and for me, chromosome testing was not what I wanted at this point. Now, I am speaking on my view of what this entails. I never discussed it further with our doctor as it was not something we would do just yet. With that said, I could be completely wrong on what the results would tell me or the types of tests we would do. To me, chromosome testing would test our chromosomes (obviously) and let us know if there were any issues with those. In my head, this only told us who the problem was stemming from, and really would not offer any solutions. I know it would give us more information, but at this point, I wanted to rule out things first. This new doctor was known for being much more proactive and finding more answers. After one of the conversations I was having with someone, I called and made the appointment, which so happens to be in Dahlonega, which is very strange to me!

Less than one week later, I was sitting in the doctor's office with Derrick, making a plan with this doctor. Now, it should be stated that I'm not jumping doctors. I still really like the doctors we switched to but I didn't like their plan for testing. At this point, I have not made a real decision as to who we will continue to see. Right now, we're taking it one step at a time. The only negative about this new doctor is that she does things at Chestatee Hospital, which is not okay with me :) A few days before this appointment, I was at the other office, getting the blood work done that was originally in the plan. It tests for blood clotting disorders. This was also the first step the new doctor wanted to try. However, her next step was to do a Hysterosalpingogram (dye test) if the bloodwork came back normal. The dye test is where they inject dye into my uterus and look at X Rays to see where the dye went. This will show if there are any abnormalities within the uterus or surrounding areas that may be affecting a baby being able to implant properly and thrive. There could be a number of answers from this test. The test takes about 15 minutes and we will have answers immediately. That part is super exciting, as I will leave knowing the results and the next steps. I was advised to take some pain meds before going in, which of course has me worried. That prompted me to google it, which was a bad idea. I'm thinking about a couple glasses of wine at 5:30am :) Just kidding! I go in for that tomorrow morning at 6am! Unfortunately, I will have to do it at Chestatee. If you know the Dahlonega area, you know why that is scary! But they aren't putting me to sleep or anything, so hopefully I survive :) Actually, I'm slightly okay with going here so I can form my own opinion about the hospital and not the horror stories I have heard! The results of the blood clotting bloodwork have not come back yet. Some of them did, and they are normal, but apparently the 2 big ones they are looking for are still at the lab. We're going to go ahead with the dye test, regardless. So hopefully by tomorrow late afternoon, we will have dye test answers as well as blood clotting answers.

I'm so excited to be moving forward with some of this and finding answers. I hope we get answers quickly, but I am also aware that all of these tests may come back normal. One big thing we found out from this doctor is that the chance of another miscarriage within 3 months of a miscarriage, is over 60% higher. It may have been more than that, possibly 80%, I can't remember. While that totally sucks that we didn't know that before, it kinda puts us back at the first miscarriage being a "fluke" and the 2nd one resulting in us getting pregnant too quickly. Some people have asked me about that, but according to both previous doctors, there were differing opinions on the waiting period. To me, it makes sense. But in our drive to have a baby, we listened to the doctors without doing much research on our own.

It was hard to make the decision to see this new , as I wanted to seek God's will. It's hard to differentiate between "signs", but I like to think of those as God. I hope we're making the right decision by going through some of these tests. It's exciting to me, so I hope that's a good sign :) Stay tuned for results and updates!