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.