Sonohystogram

I'm back from my appointment. It took a long time to check in and a long time to wait to be seen, and then about an hour for the procedure - but it's finally done. Phew!

The first part of the exam was a transvaginal ultrasound. The technician could readily see that I have a partially bicornuate uterus and commented about that. Otherwise, I looked normal in that part of the exam.

After he was done with that they began the procedure to fill up my uterus with saline. That took a while to set up, but not so long to actually do. Once they were in there they took a couple 3D ultrasound images as well as some 2D ones. The news was pretty much all good - no polyps or fibroids, definitely an arcuate uterus (the top or "fundus" of my uterus is concave instead of convex or flat), with a very small, teensy weensy septum. The doctor said she absolutely wouldn't worry about it because it was so small, and it may not even be considered a septum - there is a specific length that it has to be before it will be defined as such. An arcuate uterus is considered a variation of a normal uterus and shouldn't cause miscarriages, although some studies have found it more likely to cause them in the second trimester.

The whole thing wasn't too painful; there was definitely some strong cramping when they injected the saline (you could tell my uterus was like, WTH?). I was glad that Jonathan was there to drive me home, though, because I was shaking like a mouse when I was done (too nervous and cold and tired from holding my legs up).

My genes are normal

Hello everyone,

I thought I would post an update about my appointment today, even though that would mean posting TWO DAYS IN A ROW. Wow, go me.

First of all, I must say "welcome to the 21st century." This office had a digital scale, a digital blood pressure taker, and probably a really nice ultrasound machine (although I did not get to experience that). A very nice change from my old Ob/Gyn's office!

Second of all, thanks for those quick prayers! Dr. Atkins had gotten my entire humongous pile of records from MIT. Woohoo! She spent about 15 minutes delaying my appointment to go over them before she talked to me - but at least she had them!

The appointment itself was good. We spent a lot of time with her explaining the various possible reasons for recurrent miscarriage (yep, I already knew all of that, thanks), but it was good because she was also able to go over my test results from MIT and tell me what was not wrong with me (since you'll remember everything was negative). It turns out that they had looked at my chromosome, which is NORMAL, as well as all of the exciting inherited thrombophilias, again NORMAL (I am thrombophobic); they checked for lupus and some other antibody disease, NORMAL, thyroid, NORMAL.

The possibilities we still have to test for are, in the order of probability:
1. Structural anomaly - sonohystogram
2. FSH and progesterone levels on Day 3 of my next cycle (since it was suckily Day 4 today) - blood tests
3. A few more thrombophilias, the ones that are not inherited - blood tests
4. Jonathan's chromosomes - we probably will not check this unless we find nothing else wrong. Chromosome problems are usually the mother's, since chromosomally abnormal sperm don't swim normally and rarely beat out the normal sperm to fertilization.

It turns out that my uterus is heart-shaped, or bicornuate, (thanks to none of my past doctors for telling me this!), which is okay unless I actually have a septate uterus, which means a septum (or thin layer of skin) running down the middle of my uterus. If this is the case, then I would have a very high risk of recurrent miscarriage, unless this is surgically corrected. There are also other possibilities for structural anomalies, such as fibroids or polyps, although a septum is the most likely anomaly in my case.

I have a sonohystogram scheduled for next Monday. Super fast service! The blood tests are all going to be run on my next CD3, as long as that is not a Saturday or Sunday, since they aren't open on weekends. I will meet with Dr. Atkins again on November 2 to discuss all of these results and what we should do next.

Get your news! Daily news! Fifty cents!

Okay, so I have tons of things to write about today, but we'll start with the oft-requested picture!
(Disclaimer: this photo is barely processed, since I cannot get Photoshop to work right now. Ignore the pimply face, please.) Sorry that this is so long in coming, I just never had decent looking hair after work this week... so it took until Saturday to take!

News #1:
Real women don't date Yankees fans. Love you, Que Sarah Sarah!

News #2: We found our church today! Hope Bible Church is a non-denominational church that is absolutely perfect... for both of us! I had no faith that we were going to find a church that made us happy, especially not one that we both thought was perfect, but that is what we walked out of the door today saying.

They sang hymns and praise songs, had at least 45 minutes of exceptional expositional preaching (and today was just the pastoral intern! We heard amazing things about their regular pastor), in-depth, exciting classes after service, and the friendliest people ever, including "the other" electrical engineer at the church and his wife (who are also new and want to invite us over to their house!). AND THERE WERE SO MANY PEOPLE OUR AGE!!!!11!1!one1!!1eleven! (as Brian would say).

News #3:
I have already done three substituting jobs (in high schools all three times), and I must say that I absolutely love teaching. It is a bit stressful (especially when you have a high maintenance teacher like I subbed for on Friday) and tiring (when standing on your feet all day long running from student to student to keep them on task), but so much fun and really rewarding. Hopefully I will pull myself together some time this week and write a post about it. :)

News#4:
I have my first "recurring pregnancy loss" appointment tomorrow at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore. I am really looking forward to possibly getting some answers and to being pregnant again soon! There were so many pregnant women today at church and I really just wanted to be one of them: a normal pregnant woman who doesn't worry about if her baby will actually make it past 12 weeks this time. Okay, so I won't be that non-worrying person anyway, but at least there is a possibility that my next baby could make it past 12 weeks!

It might be too late for this, but you could pray that the Women's Health Center could find the records that MIT mailed them. As of last Monday they were missing in action and MIT wouldn't fax them or send the whole set again (I had them resend the test results from June, at least), and I'm really hoping that my doctor will have information to work with.

News #5:
I just ordered this printer along with three full sets of ink cartridges....for free! When we signed up for Verizon Fios, their current deal was that you could get a free netbook from HP (one of those mini computers) after paying your Verizon bills for two months. Well, we just passed the two month mark and got our certificate... and realized that we didn't have to use it on a netbook (which we didn't really want or need). So, we had $299.99 to spend on HP's website! We really, really needed a new printer, and decided to get the Officejet 6500 Wireless All-in-One (we really need the scanning/copying function, too!).

News #6:
I'm sure that you could have lived without knowing this, but I needed to share this with other women who might understand me (since my husband just kind of nods his head at this kind of information)... I am having the most wonderful, sweet period ever. I never would have thought that I would call a period wonderful or sweet, but this one has just been absolutely magical after the hellish nightmares of the past four months. TMI, I know. But I just needed to share.

Job!

Today was orientation for my new job as a subsitute teacher. I was so nervous, even though I knew this was just an orientation, and I didn't sleep well at all last night! That made it very difficult to get up this morning at 7.

The weather was awful on the drive over to the Board of Education. Torrential rain and traffic on MD-100 on top of that, so I had to drive really carefully, all the while fighting the urge to close my eyes.

Orientation was great (well, as great as watching training videos and presentations can be). There were probably 30 people there, a lot of them were new graduates who couldn't find teaching jobs, so they're stuck subbing until budgets improve. Sad. :(

Regardless of budget cuts, the Board of Education gave us free copies of the Substitute Teaching Handbook from Utah State University's Substitute Teaching Institute. I had looked into buying this book earlier this summer (and searched every Maryland library for it to no avail), so I'm glad I didn't spend the $20 on my own! That was really nice of them. Go Board!

I can't start working until they get my name entered into the system... Which probably won't be until next Tuesday or so. I'll definitely write all about my first day once I've had it!



P.S. I got my hair cut on Wednesday, but you're going to have to ask very nicely if you want me to post a picture (it's not bad or anything, I'm just lazy!). If I get enough requests, maybe I'll have Jonny do a photo shoot tonight. :)