I talked with the geneticist today and as expected, she told me that there was no need for my husband and I to have genetic counseling.  She said the the odds of this happening again are extremely low, which she said was good news.  I told her about my first miscarriage and how I thought it was also a chromosomal problem.  She told me that I would be surprised how many recurrent chromosomal related pregnancy losses that she sees.  I asked her if she knew of any possible causes and she said this...at my age, bad luck.  She said sometimes the proverbial lightening strikes once, twice, even three times.  Wow, that really didn't make me feel better.

After talking to her I got thinking about getting stuck by lightening once or twice.  My mind then wandered to some other statistics and odds.

The odds that you'll get hit by lightening once are 1 in 576,000.
The odds that you'll get hit by lightening twice are 1 in 9,000,000.
The odds of becoming a pro athlete are 1 in 22,000.
The odds of winning the record lottery jackpot are 1 in 176,000,000.
The odds of getting hit by a bus and dying are 1 in 3,431.

Now on to some pregnancy related odds (Don't quote me on these because I did a lot of the math myself, but I did make it to AP Calculus)...

The odds of getting pregnant 1 out of 4 chance each month.
The odds of having twins are 3 out of 100 pregnancies (naturally).
The offs of having triplets are 1 out of 8,100 pregnancies (naturally).
The odds of having a miscarriage are 3 out of 20 pregnancies (not taking into account previous losses).
The odds of having 3 miscarriages in a row is 1 out of 200 pregnancies.
The odds of having RPL due to de novo (not parent related) chromosomal abnormalities are 1 out of 400 people who have repeatedly lost pregnancies.

I am not a math whiz, but those odds seems pretty tiny to me.  Maybe we should start playing the lottery?

I can remember a few months back, looking on BBC or the Bump and reading about women taking all sorts of weird vitamins and supplements to try to become pregnant.  I used to really wonder how that could help.  Recently I read, Making Babies: A Proven 3-Month Program For Maximum Fertility, by Sami S. David and Jill Blakeway.  They put heavy stock into vitamins and supplements for their patients and have proven successful in treating women with fertility and miscarriage issues.

One particular supplement that intrigued me was CoenzymeQ.  Apparently CoQ10, as it is also called, is an antioxidant that is used by all cells in the body to produce energy.  It has been shown to improve blood-flow and help prevent heart disease.  Unfortunately it isn't in great supply in the food that we normally consume, so getting it into our bodies has to come from a supplement.

In women, CoQ10 has been shown to increase blood-flow to the pelvic area.  There has also been research done to show that it may help prevent miscarriage by increasing egg quality.  In men, CoQ10 has been proven to increase sperm count and motility.

I decided that after reading this in the book, Making Babies, and reading about it all over the Internet on various fertility forums that I too am adding it to my daily vitamin/supplement cocktail.  The book suggests to take a daily dosage of between 30-100mg a day.  I have read various women write about taking upwards of 600mg a day.  The bottle that I purchased from the grocery store recommends 100mg, twice daily (for heart health).  I think I am going to stick with the book's recommendation for now and take 100mg a day, since I know that guy is a legitimate doctor and has had much success with getting women to become pregnant and stay pregnant.

I am not sure that egg quality is my problem as I really have no idea what my problem is, but I figure that it can't hurt.  On a side note, I would recommend that any women looking to get pregnant, having trouble getting pregnant, or having trouble staying pregnant read this book.  It has provided me with a great wealth of info.  Happy reading!

All information regarding CoQ10 came from Making Babies: A Proven 3-Month Program For Maximum Fertility, by Sami S. David and Jill Blakeway.

Dear Dad,

I can't believe that it has been six years since you left this world.  I never thought that the last time that I would see you would be at the airport as you saw me off on my flight back home.  I never thought that would be my last hug from you.  I never thought that the email that you sent me with pictures from C's play would be my last email from you.  I sadly, don't remember my last phone conversation with you.

I think that you you would be proud of your family.  We are all doing well, but still feel a missing presence at each holiday and special occasion.  I miss talking to you about work and how much it frustrated me.  I miss your dry and sarcastic humor.  I miss talking computers.  I miss your black jeans and Carolina Panthers sweatshirt.

You would be interested to know that Bill Belichick now coaches the Patriots and the Browns still suck.  There are now computers that have touch screens called iPads.  I also have a Mac instead of a PC.  :-o  Windows 7 is finally out and I am using it at work.  Rush Limbaugh has gotten himself into a heap of trouble by spouting his mouth off.  Howard Stern still does his show, but it is on Sirius radio and he only works 3 days a week.  We have a Democrat as president again, and yes, I voted for him.

In each year that passes since you went away, I have missed sharing events in my life with you.  When I finally got a new job making a decent salary, I didn't have you there to pat me on the back.  When I got engaged after many years of dating, mom was the first person I called, but it was sad not being able to tell you too.  When R and I bought out first house, you weren't there to see it.  When I got married, you were not there to walk me down the isle.  When I lost three babies, you were not there to comfort me and help me through the pain.

I know that you were not a religious person, and frankly, I can't say that I am much of a believer these days, either.  I do hope that your are in a better place though.  I imagine that you are in Heaven (or somewhere like it) attending to my little angels.  Thank you for taking care of them for me since I cannot.

One last thing...at your funeral, six years ago.  I took a plant with me that had one white flower.  I vowed, that even though I have a black thumb, that I would keep it alive.  I have kept my word and the plant is doing so well.  Right now it has 3 flowers on it.  Every time I look at it, I think about you.

I talked to my doctor this morning to try to get some more information regarding the test results. She really didn't have much more to add. I asked her if she thought that a session with the genetic counselor was in order, and she felt that it was not necessary. Based on the fact that both my husband and I are both genetically normal, she feels that the chances of this happening again are not likely. I asked her if she felt that we should test the tissue from my first miscarriage and she did not think that was necessary either. She said she really believes that this is bad luck. I don't know, I have a huge problem with thinking that this is bad luck. I am a part of a group of less than 1% of women in the population that miscarry recurrently. She also told me that this is now an "explained miscarriage". Basically we know the cause of death of the baby, but not the cause for the miscarriage. Honestly, to me this seems like an unexplained miscarriage. We have no idea why a chromosomal abnormality was caused and we have no idea if it (or something like it) will happen again. Sigh.

I moved on from the past to the present and future and told her that I had ovulated last weekend and was now waiting for AF to show next weekend. She was happy with that progress. I asked her a few questions regarding the Femara. I am supposed to take it CD 5-9 and following with regular ovulation tests (and I will chart as well). She suggested calling the nurse next cycle if my period is late (I don't expect that it will be because we aren't TTC next cycle) so that I can come in for a blood test. I will definitely do that for the cycle where we start trying again.

A few hours later the genetic counselor called me back. I had left her a message yesterday asking her if she thought that our particular results of isochromosome 8, in combination with our normal genetic tests, warranted a visit to speak with her. She told me that she would be happy to look over our information on Monday and get back with me shortly after. I think I know that we are NOT going to proceed with further genetic counseling, but I think it would be interesting to hear what she has to say. She was very pleasant to speak with so I figured that I would take her up on her offer to look everything over.

So once again, no answers, only more questions. Happy Friday.

My RE called me one day early to tell me the results of the tissue test from this last miscarriage. Apparently this one died of a chromosomal abnormality, which I guess I was expecting. Isochromosome 8 to be exact.  My doctor told me that she did not expect this actual chromosomal anomaly to to be a recurrent problem, but the only brief information that I got was left on my voicemail.  I will need to call back tomorrow to get more info.  I did quite a bit of Googling this afternoon and found out a few things, but not as much as I was expecting.

• An isochromosome is an abnormal chromosome that has two identical arms due to duplication of one and and loss of another.*
• Isochromosomes are found in tumors and in some girls with Turner syndrome.*
• Since the chromosomes carry the genetic information which triggers our individual development, errors in the chromosomes generally lead to abnormal development. These abnormalities are often so severe that the baby is incompatible with life. Thus, many chromosomal abnormalities end in miscarriage. Often, this occurs very early in the pregnancy. However, if there is enough fetal material to collect from a miscarriage, a karyotype can be performed to determine if such an abnormality existed. If a karyotype reveals a numerical abnormality, it is most likely random. There is usually no increased risk of miscarriage in successive pregnancies, with the exception of trisomy (which has been linked to maternal age).**

Since getting less stressed and becoming more relaxed and less anxious has been one of my major to-dos lately, I have been listening to a lot of Reggae while at work.  Normally I listen to Sirius - The Joint and I'll have to say, I quite like it.  They have been playing a Mary J. Blige/Jah Cure song lately, Each Tear, which made me cry the first time I heard it.  This could just be because I have been a hormonal mess lately, but the song really made me think.

In each tear there's a lesson,
Makes you wiser than before
Makes you stronger than you know
In each tear
Brings you closer to your dreams...

You're much more than a struggle that you go through
You're not defined by your pain, so let it go...
You're not a victim, you're more like a winner
And you're not in defeat, you're more like a queen

Each time I catch myself feeling sorry for myself that things are working out exactly like I planned, I try to remember that this too shall pass and I'll be stronger for it in the end.  The first time I get to hold my baby in my arms, all of this struggle will have been worth it.

I had my second acupuncture session today.  It was less eventful than my first one, but still quite relaxing.  The acupuncturist asked how I was feeling and I told him that I was actually sleeping better after 2 weeks of insomnia and that I had a one day earlier ovulation.  He asked what the day was and when I told him 26, he shook his head in disapproval.  No good I guess.  Hopefully he can fix that and fast.  Back to the session...I fell asleep deeply today and woke up abruptly when I felt myself sliding off the right side of the table (I wasn't actually sliding off the table though because it was flat.  So weird!).  Afterwards I floated on my commute home feeling very relaxed and trying not to pay attention to the throngs of pregnant women I was seeing.  Seriously 9 out of 10 women I saw on my commute home were 8 months pregnant.

My first session was very interesting.  I got to the office after getting seriously lost for about 20 minutes so as you can imagine, I was kind of flustered and very late.  The acupuncturist gave me a long questionnaire to fill out.  The questions were not the typical ones that you would see at a western medicine office.  They included things like color/consistency of AF, color of your urine, and color and consistency of your BMs.  Other questions like are you normally hot or cold and are you usually thirsty were also on there.  I tired to be as truthful as possible, but come on, color and consistency of your BM?!

After completing the questionnaire, the acupuncturist looked it over.  He then took me back into a small room and looked at my tongue and felt my pulse.  He asked me a few more questions about my cycles and losses and told me about a 40 year old woman with 6 recurrent losses that he was able to help get and keep pregnant.  He then told me to lay down on the table and he stuck in the needles...i in my head, one on each hand, one on my stomach, and one in each lower leg.  He then turned on some soothing Chinese music turned the lights out and told me to relax.  I was able to relax fairly quickly and I drifted off to sleep several times and had really trippy dreams.  They were almost like mild hallucinations with weird shapes and patterns floating at me.  Very interesting indeed.

When the session was over, the acupuncturist gave me a laundry list of things that I was not to consume and not to do.  They included:

• coffee of any kind (including decaf, which I had been drinking since kicking my caffeine addiction last June)
• alcohol (which is the only good thing about not being pregnant)
• anything spicy (I am addicted to Frank's Red Hot)
• anything greasy (this one isn't too tough for me, but lately I have been craving tater tots)
• no refined sugar (I didn't think this would be hard since I prefer salty to sweet, but I miss my Chubby Hubby)
• no chicken (unless organic, which I try to eat anyways)
• only room temperature beverages (try asking for a seltzer with no ice, terribly ridiculous)
• no TTC for 2 cycles.