Wednesday, April 7, 2010

ashermans syndrome? and thanks for all your prayers!

Thanks to ALL of you who commented with advice, prayers, information, or links to others who have a balanced chromosome translocation. Prayer works! DH was SO MUCH BETTER the day after this post, partly due to my only giving him positive information I had found (he is never one to dr. google) and also because of all of your prayers and I am forever grateful. I am gradually understanding more of what we are facing and trying desperately to come to terms with it and be at peace. From what I can gather, the chance of a normal pregnancy varies depending on who has the problem and which chromosomes are unbalanced or broken off. We have an appointment with a geneticist this Monday, so please pray for us that it is a translocation with better outcome possibilities than other translocations!

I joined a site for groups-balanced translocation for information and support. I have been saddened however but some of the posts and outraged by others. It is clearly a 'women's choice' type mentality by many of the members when the amnio or cvs results come back with an unbalanced translocation result. I just can't help remembering a friend of mine who was told her baby was fine and a girl only to deliver a down's syndrome boy - who is ridiculously precious! I held him after mass Easter Sunday and he is so precious and loving. Doctors make mistakes all the time! It happens and it happens often. Many of them are pursuing prescreening the embryos before IVF. We are not God, we cannot decide others fates....I have been researching like mad - I want to be fully armored before I meet with the geneticist about our options - which really only is one.

From what I have read, the outcome of another pregnancy would go something like this:
50% miscarriage (unbalanced translocation)
25% unbalanced translocation - some type of mental/physical problems or stillbirth
25% normal or normal with same balanced translocation as DH
This is basic, not specific to the different types of chromosomal breakage. I guess we will find out Monday, but I am not sure I could ttc again unless these odds are a good bit higher. What upsets me is the karotype came back as a normal female from our last loss. How could our angel be normal and still have miscarried???!!! Our RE did say they don't really follow these tests unless the test shows abnormal boy because so many times, the mother's uterus tissue is what grows not the baby. (especially in d/c in which the baby has been dead for awhile before the procedure)

One positive outcome in all of this has been my heart TOTALLY opening up to adoption! I have always wanted to have my own children and never really contemplated adoption. After our 2nd loss I mildly entertained the idea but still was thinking of having only my own. Now God has opened my eyes fully to the idea of bringing children, joy, and laughter to our home through adoption, and I feel blessed for this revelation. I have several stumbling blocks to overcome as well, however. We have to start seriously saving, we have not been married long enough yet to even apply (which really makes me angry), and we have to completely and totally decide this route. DH is almost totally on board now, but still needs a little time. We are really afraid of domestic adoption losses, but I think international takes longer? Also with international, it is harder to get an infant? And my country of choice is Guatemala which is currently closed :( I traveled there last summer and fell in love with the people and culture. I am just so afraid of suffering losses like so many of the women on here have had to suffer. I am not sure I could take an adoption loss, it might just be the final straw to break me. But....I have to have faith and hope! As my priest said when I met him last week, utter lack of hope is a good way for the devil to try to sneak on in, and like my friend's co-workers say "Step back satan!!"

I am also so worried now that I may have Asherman's syndrome. After 2 previous d/c my cycle afterwards was very heavy and lasted about a week. I started Tuesday which is about 4.5 weeks after my last d/c and it has been soooo light. Light bleeding for day and half and no today - nothing, nada, zilch. This is strange for me and (of course) I googled it only to find countless sites and information about asherman's sydrome. The chance of having it is higher with 3 or more d/c especially when they are close together. Well, you can't get any closer together than mine: May 09, October 09, March 10. I have a hsg test in a couple weeks to check my fibroids (which have grown back in one year after a very painful and hard to recover from surgery last May) so I guess they can check for ashermans also. There is nothing I can do about it until then, so I just have to have hope and pray.

7 comments:

  1. Hi Allie! I am praying for you and I hope the appt with the geneticist goes well next week. I have never heard of asherman's before. I will have to Dr. Google it. God Bless and have a good evening!

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  2. I can hear the hope in your voice as I read this post! It will be hard, yes, but you've already reached a turning point for the good. Thanks for the advice on my last post-it's perfect!

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  3. I am thrilled that things are looking better for you and dh and you have hope! I hope your appt goes well.
    Is your hsg with a napro doc? I just ask b/c the hsg they do is different than the typical hsg-more sensitive. TCIE can explain better than I can, but it is called a selective hsg.

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  4. Wow. Will definitely keep praying. Regarding the odds you posted - reminds me of those Punnet squares we did for blue versus brown eyes in biology class! - I'm trying to find the right way to say this, but it sounds like worthwhile odds to me. Before IF, I would have said a 50-75% chance of a problem pregnancy or affected baby was seriously scary and maybe to be avoided. But I feel like I've gained a lot of perspective about just how precious new life is. Some of us will never even get to the stage of having a miscarriage (I am probably one of those). And of the IFers who do get pregnant, so many miscarry - and often no one knows why! Lots probably have a greater than 75% rate of plain, old-fashioned miscarriage, not even a baby with some health issues, and I guess it could be for this reason or a similar one and they don't even know. And OF COURSE we are all cheering them on to get pg with the next one and praying and praying it will be healthy, and in just a year or so of blogging I have already seen so many babies born to IFers who already have babies in heaven. So DON'T GIVE UP!! We're praying for you!

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  5. I hope you learn a lot from the geneticist about what you can expect based on your situation. Definitely don't give up, and you've got lots of people praying for you.

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  6. I'll be praying so hard for a successful meeting on Monday. That is so wonderful you are open to adoption...you will be a mother! God will lead you down the path you are meant to go. Failed adoptions are rare, so don't worry. Many, many prayers.

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  7. Allie, Hablas espanol? Por razon....eres ensenadora de espanol. Me encantan el idioma y la gente. Siento una afinidad especial con mis pacientes latinas. Que bueno que hables espanol tambien!

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