Lab Results

The results of my recent blood tests are in!  My progesterone and estradiol levels were perfect post-ovulation, so we know I’m “fertile” now, which I continue to credit to the maca root powder–I can’t recommend it highly enough.  If you do not ovulate on your own or have a hormonal imbalance, add 1 Tbsp of maca root powder to a shake every day, and I’m telling you, you will start ovulating without the meds.  (Word to the wise, put it in a shake with peanut butter.  That’s the only way to mask the awful taste.)  It worked for me, and I know it works for many, many women out there.  Anyway, back to my lab results.  Fortunately/unfortunately, I tested positive for a genetic mutation of MTHFR, which means I have a blood clotting disorder.  I’m glad to finally have a definitive reason for my infertility that is fixable, but what I’m about to say next is why I consider myself unfortunate.  We know for certain I miscarried once, back in March 2011; however, since trying to conceive more than 2 years ago, I’ve had several late periods along with negative home pregnancy tests.  My doctor believes those may have been early miscarriages caused by this blood clotting disorder.  So all this time I’ve been told I was infertile, when in reality, I may actually be suffering recurrent miscarriages.  What happens with this blood clotting disorder is the woman conceives a baby, but when the baby implants in her uterus, a small blood clot forms at the implantation site, causing the baby to detach and miscarry.  The thought of that is quite depressing, but I hope we will find ourselves having successful pregnancies and healthy babies soon now that we know exactly what is wrong with me.

I will be starting a pill regimen tomorrow to treat this blood clotting disorder.  I will be taking 81 mg of aspirin 1x /day, 100 mg of vitamin B6 2x/day, and a prescription called Full Guard 2x/day.  Full Guard is a combination of high amounts of folic acid, vitamin B6, vitamin B12, and iron.  You may be wondering why my “meds” are actually high doses of B-Vitamins.  The MTHFR gene causes your body to produce an enzyme called methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (say that 3 times fast!).  This enzyme assists your body in producing amino acids, which are the building blocks of protein.  The exact detailed science of all this is a little over my head, but I know this process requires your body to absorb folic acid (vitamin B9) to make the amino acids.  So, long story short, when a person has a mutation of this MTHFR gene, their body either does not produce the methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase enzyme or it produces an altered version of that enzyme.  Without that enzyme, the body does not absorb B-Vitamins the way it should.  Like I said, I understand that much, but how that causes blood clots is beyond me.  However, I am relieved to know about this before having children, because I learned that if left untreated, this mutation can cause neural tube defects, such as spina bifita and anencephaly.  Those are pretty severe birth defects, so I am incredibly grateful for a doctor who finally discovered this genetic mutation so that I can “fix” it.  Not to mention, this is beneficial for my own health as well.  This mutation causes blood clots; blood clots cause stroke, heart disease, etc.  The aspirin I take should thin my blood just slightly, preventing blood clots from forming, and the other supplements will pump my body full of the B-Vitamins I have trouble absorbing, helping my body to maintain a safe and healthy pregnancy.  The nurse told me if/when I become pregnant, I will have to continue taking the pills until the doctor feels it is safe for me to discontinue them.  However, because I will have this blood clotting disorder forever, I will need to start the pill regimen again after the baby is born.

God is so good to us.  We have waited for more than 2 years to learn what is wrong with me that prevents us from having a baby.  He has been faithful to us all along the way.  I really believe great blessings will be coming to us soon.  Thanks be to God!

New Specialist

Thursday was my first appointment with a new specialist.  This doctor specializes in NaPro TECHNOLOGY, which I’ve discussed on here before.  If you’re in the St. Louis area, I highly recommend this OB-GYN (and yes, he is a regular OB-GYN even though he specializes in NaPro, so you can go to him even if you are not infertile).  His name is Dr. Brian Gosser; he’s at St. Anthony’s Medical Center in South County.  I loved him!  He is hands down the BEST doctor I’ve seen since we started trying to conceive a little over 2 years ago.

First of all, he is super laid back and incredibly kind.  He’s the kind of person you feel like you’ve known for a long time even though you’ve just met.  He sat with me and talked to me like he had all the time in the world, which I really appreciated.  In fact, we talked for 45 minutes!  My favorite thing about him is we share the same faith–he is also Catholic.  He and his wife have 8 children, and he seems really proud of his family.  Also, he had a diagram of the woman’s reproductive system all ready as though he always draws his patients a visual of what he’s talking about, which definitely helps make things clearer.  As a side note, I’ve been told he’s VERY natural childbirth friendly, which doesn’t really surprise me since he was so intrigued when I told him about maca root powder helping me ovulate without medication–so intrigued that at the end of the appointment, he brought it up again and asked me to spell it for him so he could research it in case it was something he may want to tell his other infertile patients about.  🙂  I love when Western doctors seek to understand and even use Eastern medicine in their practices!

Anyway, enough about this amazing doctor and on to what he told me.  As my regular readers may recall, I went to Dr. Gosser because practitioners of NaPro TECHNOLOGY work to find the underlying cause of everything rather than treat a list of symptoms as my other doctors have done.  I told him all the tests we’ve had done and what the results were.  I told him about my regiment at the Reproductive Endocrinologist office with regular ultrasounds, blood work, etc.  I told him about our failed attempts at IUI as well as the miscarriage we suffered when I was on Clomid at the beginning of this long journey.  I told him I just don’t understand why I haven’t had a healthy pregnancy yet when it seems like everything is perfect!  At least we know everything appeared perfect when I was seeing the RE.  At that time, I was on Letrozole to balance my hormones and help me ovulate, which worked REALLY well and didn’t halt my body’s mucous production like Clomid had done.  My ultrasounds showed no scar tissue anywhere, healthy ovaries and uterus, and showed lots of healthy follicles at the right time in my cycle each month.  I’ve had a normal HSG in the past, so we know my tubes are open.  Choi has had several semen analyses, all of which were above normal and super healthy.  Each cycle, when my follicles reached a certain measurement, I received an HCG injection to stimulate ovulation, which worked every time.  I did fail a post-coital test, but that’s why we tried IUI, which would have bi-passed any issues with my immune system attacking sperm.  Our rounds of IUI went well every time.  YET, I never conceived.  How could that be?

Dr. Gosser told me that it seems like everything should be functioning properly with my reproductive system, and I’ve already been tested (multiple times) for thyroid problems and similar disorders, all of which were normal.  So instead of referring me to IUI again or any other fertility “treatment” like that, he told me we were going to try to fill in the blanks, as few as there are.  He told me that 3 things came to his mind.

Number one, my progesterone levels were checked by my former OB-GYN and RE each cycle about 7 days after ovulation.  But neither of those doctors checked to see how my progesterone levels dropped as my cycle came to an end.  A common problem seen in women with recurrent miscarriages is progesterone levels dropping too fast after ovulation.  What happens is an embryo is implanting itself in the uterus, but because the progesterone is dropping too quickly, the lining of the uterus begins to shed even with the embryo attached.  This leads to miscarriages early on in the pregnancy.  The reason I was never checked for that is because I’ve only had one miscarriage (that we know of).  So, to be safe, Dr. Gosser is having my progesterone levels checked on days 7, 9, and 11 post ovulation to see how quickly my hormone level drops.  (I’m just now coming to the end of my current cycle, so it will be several weeks before I’m post ovulation again, but we will test for that in this upcoming cycle.)

Number two is a blood clotting disorder.  He said this is a new topic of interest to infertility specialists, so not many studies have been done yet; however, there is research out there that indicates women with unknown blood clotting disorders (because they don’t normally manifest themselves until we age, which is why many old people develop clots or heart disease even though they never knew they had a disorder) cannot conceive due to the disorder.  It’s still not clear exactly why these disorders prevent healthy pregnancies, but there does seem to be a relationship between the two.  He told me that in his personal experience, about 95% of the infertile women he sees whom he’s already checked for every other obvious and sometimes even not-so-obvious fertility problems with no success in finding a cause for their infertility end up having a blood clotting disorder.  He did tell me that once treated, not all of them conceive, but a big enough number do that he thinks it’s worth looking into.  Coincidentally, he didn’t even know that some people on my dad’s side of the family had blood clotting issues and/or heart disease.  So, who knows?  Maybe this test will show something we didn’t know before.  I’ll be checked for that with my first blood test for the progesterone levels next month.

Finally, if those other tests indicate nothing, then Dr. Gosser recommends I undergo the laparoscopy (surgery) to check for endometriosis.  I do have several symptoms of endometriosis, but because my HSG and ultrasounds never showed any scar tissue or warning signs for endometriosis, my previous doctors didn’t want to check me for it since it requires surgery.  Dr. Gosser said he would have done the same thing, but since we’ve tried everything else, this will be one of the last things to check for.  He said if I have it, it’s obviously a mild case; however, even women with mild endometriosis (even so mild that they have NO symptoms) can suffer infertility because of it.

Naturally, I’m hoping the rate of my progesterone dropping at the end of my cycles or the blood clotting disorders will be the cause of our long wait for a baby, but at this point, I’m willing to do whatever surgery or test necessary to get to the bottom of this and finally be able to build our family.

If you are struggling to conceive, whether it’s been a mere 6 months and you’re just starting to feel concerned or whether you’ve tried everything going as far as IVF to conceive and still haven’t had a baby, then I highly recommend you see if there are any doctors in your area that specialize in NaPro TECHNOLOGY.  It’s awesome, and I know I love my new doctor!

New Beginnings

Over the weekend, Choi and I signed the contract on our first house!  We are so excited to be homeowners.  It’s not quite “official” since we haven’t closed on the house yet, but we’re almost there.  New job (Choi, not me), new town, new house…  The only thing missing is a new baby.  But, we’re still working on it.  After a year of treatments from a Reproductive Endocrinologist and then a year of trying alternative medicines, we are now trying a new specialist.  I’ve written about it before.  It’s called NaPro TECHNOLOGY.  In a nutshell, it’s a more natural method of treating infertility.  Instead of throwing medications at the patient which only treat symptoms or pushing artificial reproductive technologies at the patient before trying all other options, doctors who specialize in NaPro TECHNOLOGY work to discover the underlying problem to a couple’s infertility, and then only use medications and treatments that will treat the real issue.  There were no doctors near us in Alabama who practiced NaPro TECHNOLOGY, but now that we are in the Midwest, there are quite an abundance of NaPro TECHNOLOGY specialists for us to choose from.  I have an appointment this Thursday with a doctor who gets rave reviews online.  I read the stories of many women who had tried everything to conceive and then finally had their miracle babies when this particular doctor was able to determine and successfully treat the couple’s underlying issues preventing them from achieving a healthy pregnancy.

I have to admit, as excited and hopeful as I am about seeing this doctor, I’m also terrified for Thursday’s appointment.  I haven’t been in an OB-GYN office in a year!  Instead, I was using alternative medicines.  I’m afraid of how I’ll feel going there again.  I remember vividly going to the hospital for blood work, ultrasounds, etc. and getting on the elevator after my appointments with glowing pregnant women and wanting to burst into tears as they talked to their loved ones about how beautiful their babies looked on the ultrasound, or how strong their babies heartbeats sounded, or how they really hoped they would go into labor over the weekend.  Meanwhile, I was dreading calling my husband to tell him the newest bad news I got from the doctor that day.  I’m incredibly worried that that feeling of great despair will come back as soon as I walk into the office, but I keep praying that God will bring me peace.  I will be sure to give you an update after my appointment Thursday.  Hopefully this will be a fresh new start for us.

Creighton Model

Are any of you familiar with the Creighton Model of Natural Family Planning (NFP)?  We used it to avoid pregnancies early on in our marriage, and then we used it for several months to attempt to achieve pregnancy when we first starting trying to conceive.  That’s how we learned so early on that I wasn’t ovulating.  We stopped using it once I had been on Clomid for a while, because the doctor required me to use an ovulation predictor kit, and the constant charting became a stressor for me.

After we ran tests and found some fertility issues with me, I wanted to use NaPro TECHNOLOGY to try to conceive.  The Creighton Model is part of NaPro TECHNOLOGY, which is a natural way of monitoring and maintaining a woman’s reproductive health.  Before I go on about our experience with it, I have to give a quick ad for the Creighton Model, because we loved it.  For those of you wanting to avoid pregnancy, please consider ditching birth control pills and finding a Creighton Model instructor (they also do skype classes for those who live in areas without an instructor).  The hormones in birth control pills are so bad for your body and are known to increase a woman’s risk of cancer.  Not to mention, it is my belief that the pill has a negative effect on couples anyway, but that’s a whole other conversation.  The Creighton Model is a MUCH better option, because it uses no medications or hormones to prevent pregnancy, and its success rate is very high.  The Creighton Model is a scientifically based method of NFP that uses mucus observations to determine fertile and infertile periods of the cycle, and it is extremely accurate.  The perfect use success rate of the Creighton Model to avoid pregnancy is 99.5%, while the typical use effectiveness is 96.8%.  That compares to a 99% perfect use and a 92% typical use for the pill.  As for those of us trying to conceive, the success rate of NaPro TECHNOLOGY to treat infertility is 1.5 to 3 times higher than IVF.  We wanted to find a NaPro TECHNOLOGY doctor to see when I was first diagnosed with infertility because of these statistics, but there were none in Alabama.  However, St. Louis has a couple of hospitals that offer NaPro TECHNOLOGY, so maybe we should go that route instead of completely giving up on trying to conceive.

Have any of you (or people you know) ever used the Creighton Model or a NaPro TECHNOLOGY doctor to overcome infertility?  What was your experience?  Do you know if they are able to treat people who produce antisperm antibodies?