When Enough is Enough and The Peace That Surpasses All Understanding

I appreciate the responses to my last post. TEBB is never fun. But...I'm okay. It was a clear sign. I don't like ambiguity. I know my hormones are great. I know the TEBB is the result of infection. I know our Chlamyd.ia infection is resistant to everything we've thrown it's way.

I know we could still try. We have only tried 2 cycles since our late Aug treatment. Sept was 30 days of  antibiotics. I believe we tried in October, in November I missed my fertile signs so we didn't try. In December we tried one time after seeing what I thought was TEBB and then were on Cipro the rest of the cycle. In January we tried for the second cycle. It's already February, and here I am in the fertile phase again.

Given our history, there is a decent chance that we would get pregnant this cycle trying. But, also given our history, there is a decent chance we will miscarry. Do I know the exact percent? Of course not. But I feel like we passed the tipping point in my mind. Like 55% miscarriage, 45% fine. Is there still a chance things would be fine. Of course. But I am not good with chances like 55/45. I am just not.

Is it for the right reasons or the wrong reasons? I have asked myself this. I have prayed about it. And you know what I have? Peace. I have had peace about quitting since June. We did full treatment in NY, but I didn't have too. I didn't feel desperation. I felt like I was open to it, and my dh lead us and I was happy to follow. I had realistic expectations after talking to some amazing gals that did the Hilgers/Toth route before me. I knew it wasn't necessarily our ace in the hole. No guarantees. We don't regret going. Honestly. We don't feel like we were owed something because we went.

Some thoughts in my head have been 'Is continuing to try better or worse for my marriage?' Dh and I can only be together during fertile times. We were recommended that by Dr. Toth and we did it, not because we wanted to but because it is what was healthiest for our future child. It is not good to have relations that only exist at fertile times for the purpose of procreation. It is not good to not connect in that important way at other times of the month. My dh and I have been hit some huge blows in our family and personally. My dh is struggling with shoulder pain and needs surgery; is in a job with a verbally abusive unappreciative boss he can't stand-for the last 8 years. My sister lost her husband, got caught doing meth, lost her kids. We discerned custody of the kids. These are big things. Are hearts have been heavy. We are not great experts of supporting each other and showing love when we can't be together. Yes, we need to learn to do this better, and I am reading Simcha's book on NFP (so good!) but we are real people with sin and avoiding all this time is hard. We have avoiding all 6 pregnancies including two full term. I think we've had a life time of avoiding in our 7 years of marriage. Seven years of marriage, six pregnancies. All consuming.

And when I wait those twelve weeks to see if a pregnancy will last? Time stops. It just stops. It moves so slow everyday. I live and die by blood draws. I am so emotionally drained I eat chocolate and watch tv and that's my life. I can't hardly function. That's not healthy. And really, with infection, it can cause pre-term labor and all sorts of complications at any point if not managed. So the risk never really goes away.

I also ask myself 'is it more selfish to try or to not try?' Babies in heaven is not a bad thing, necessarily. I mean, it is the goal. But if we believe a person is a person no matter how small then the pain, oh the pain of this mother's heart at parting earlier than expected. Are we not trying to avoid the pain of another loss? No. It isn't nearly that simple.

I was not a good mom to my kids during my losses. I was consumed by the pain. My last pregnancy, Nicholas, was conceived on Christmas. I bled for five long weeks. I passed his body and held it in my hands. I am still having a hard time with not giving him a proper burial. We were so taken off guard. We lost him on Valentine's Day. It is all very fresh still. I saw his fingers, you guys. His fingers!

My life is not calm. My nuclear family is always in turmoil. My dad and mom are no longer in good health due to a life of stress. My stress is not the focus of the family. It is a drop in the bucket. My stress and losses are one more thing for my mom to feel guilty about not being there for me.

My life revolves around insurance, appointments, and lots of lots of blood draws. The medicines add up in cost, and the cost of it all is beyond financial. I am tired.

I am happy for my little sister's pregnancy. She is 12 weeks-praise God! Genuine happiness. I am not sure if that would continue if I was pregnant myself, dying through the first trimester day by day. Or God forbid experiencing a loss.

Dr. Toth and Dr. Hilger's did not tell us not to try. They did say they have nothing more to offer me at this point. They did say they would throw a ridiculous amount of antibiotics at me after conception. You know what I think? I think that after the fact isn't nearly as good as prior in fixing a problem such as infection. Dr. Toth was never going to give us a post conception IV again. Nope. We think I am immune to that. I already became immune to Biaxin for sure. So it was going to be Zithromax alone and hope it works. Lots and lots of Zithromax. Around 1000 mg (the max). Until I can't take it anymore either. And we don't even know if that will work? Not to mention where will that leave me in the future when I get something like, God forbid, the MRSA my dad has? Is there such thing as being resistant to difluca.n? I don't want to find out. I take it monthly now and so does dh. My stomach is strong as can be against these antibiotics, it's amazing. But the yeast...Did I mention HCG shots? If I got pregnant, not only would I continue the four progesterone shots in my hips (2 shots, 2 cc each, twice a week for the entire pregnancy), but Dr. Hilgers wants me to give myself HCG shots in my stomach throughout the pregnancy as well. Just in case. Due to so many losses. I don't mind needles, but that is so much. I remember Dr. Hilgers trying to comfort me when we had our phone consult. He told me women with eight losses had gone on to conceive. Let's just say I didn't feel better. That is fine for them, they have that right. But I didn't plan on letting it get to that point!

So what's changed? This was always the plan since Aug, no IV after conception. And HCG shots. My sister didn't just get pregnant. My life didn't just now get crazy. My husband and my marriage didn't just now get stressed. I could go on and on. Except one thing. One thing changed that changes everything. The TEBB is back. And that's enough. The scales have tipped in favor of miscarriage, and that isn't a risk I am willing to take. It doesn't feel like a decision made out of fear. To try feels like a decision made out of desperation for us. To throw everything and the kitchen sink at it, Andrea's words-God love her, is possible. But not desirable. I just don't feel I need to know I did everything. Even though we basically did. You know what I feel? Peace. And a bit of freedom and excitement about what might be in store for us. And that, my friends, only comes from God. Because that sure as hell isn't me talking! :)









have made it no secret on my blog that I feel at peace. I am grateful

TEBB Back

Despite our expensive treatment and currently being on the 6th month of cyclical antibiotics, the tail end brown bleeding is most definitely back. While I only had two observations in one day, it is enough. Dh and I have notified Dr. Hilgers during the cycle review correspondence. I have already taken clomid for this cycle, and ordered more hcg (which is a pain-more on that later) so if we are advised to not ttc, it will be another month of avoiding. At this point we are only together during fertile times, a very difficult state to have maintained the last six months. We are already trying to prayerfully discern what to do if given the choice with no guidance. My dh might just need to know we've done everything, even if everything means another miscarriage. I don't know that for sure, but I sense he isn't quite at the point I am at. I am trying to meet him where he is at, whatever that means. I would lie if I didn't tell you there have been tears. Not tears over TEBB. Nope. The tears are over the possibility of another loss. Seeing the last baby I lost rocked me to my core. It was unexpected. We weren't prepared. I had thought the baby already passed. We had no plan. It is difficult to think back on. I still see Nicholas' tiny body on the tissue. It's been a hard week for sure.

Family drama continues. Dh feels strongly we can support the children, but not bring them into our home. We have our own stresses, etc. It feels selfish, but I get it. It isn't selfish to put your marriage and children first. Their case meeting was postponed to next week due to weather. Their mother still strongly

Lots going on. Prayers always appreciated. I am fine, I really am, but we all need them, right?

And p.s. moms, how great is this? http://catholicmom.com This is exactly feeling like me most days-between the hamster wheel, feeling I am neglecting the kids, the distraction and open tabs and half finished things, and list that goes to the floor, and what in the world did I spend my day doing? lol. So enjoy. And your welcome.

TEBB false alarm? Stay Tuned for the Meth and Family Preg Update

I was going to title this post "This and That", but then I figured it's been used and is totally nondescript so I ended up the other direction completely. What can I say?

Sorry for the long pause in posting. Life has been anything but dull. I thought if I waited a little to post it would be less like dragging out a situation and drama-ish (wow, I am clearly not articulate at 1:30am, but then again who is?!) However, drama has only increased. Since I am not writing because I am thinking "yeah, drama, good blog material" perspective and more from a "good grief we need prayers" and it's been so long I may start forgetting the cycle stuff...Also I didnt write before because I am not good at expressing how I feel. As a result, I dump the information, most people would think I am in a place I am not, and I don't want to give that impression and have you all feel sorry for me. We are okay. My sister, however, is not. More about that in a minute. Enough with the disclaimers. Time for info.

Last cycle is something I wanted to update on, mostly for myself and the sake of remembering. I took the usual CD 1-10 abx, only this time at night. On about CD 8 (lazy, not looking up), I thought I saw TEBB. I was sure, at the moment, that it was brown blood. I had total deja vu about last Dec when we conceived Nicholas when something similar happened. However, I totally forgot I was on Rifamp.in in that moment, which turns my urine orange about once a day. This was complicated by the fact I had recently switched to taking it at night. In hindsight, I am not at all confident that it was TEBB. When it occurred, I called Dr. Toth. He said he was sure it was the Rifamp.in. I called Dr. Hilgers in a panic. In my mind, ideally, I would sit out the cycle ttc and take Cipro the second half of my cycle. I would only ttc based on my period the next cycle and things being clear. Exactly what I had wished I had chosen with Nicholas. However, Dr. Hilgers was out of town. In Mexico. Stefani was as nice as could be, understood my stress over the situation, etc. But there was no one to talk to and it sounded super clear there would be no Cipro. It was Dr. Hilgers call. She offered to consult with Dr. Steve Hilgers, Dr. H's son, which came back to say don't worry. One time. One small observation. I thought, easy for you all to say. However, dh and I did talk and decide that, since I wasn't getting scripted Cipro, that nothing would be different next cycle. I could look at my blood to feel better and see if clear, but if it was brown now it would be brown then too likely and if it wasn't then it would be clear, as we were not getting any "intervention". It's hard to explain even to myself, but we decided to still try and just trust it wasn't TEBB. Well, the next day I got a call that the Cipro script had been called in. What?! We chose to not utilize any other days to ttc and let the antibiotic work on things. If we would have had TEBB and we would have still tried on the Cipro we would have exactly mirrored the Nicholas situation, one year later almost to the day. The Cipro was something we really "needed" anyway per Dr. Hilgers based way back on Aug cultures done on my lap. Toth disagreed and I never got clarity from Hilgers. Timing never worked out to take them due to being on pre peak abx since Toth treatment-it had to be worth taking off a cycle and we didn't get any clear answer from Hilgers on that. I am glad we have the Cipro done and have moved on. This cycle the blood looked fine. That meant a lot of abx though-pre peak, during ovulation (both Toth) post ovulation Cipro and don't forget the amox for CM. Dh is doing much better with his symptoms since I was sure they were yeast and got aggressive with the Dif.lucan. Dr. Toth and Hilgers are committed to us having the script whenever we want. We don't know the drawbacks of taking too much, but we def chose to utilize the scripts as needed and feel great. We know the abx anti yeast meds cycle will be relatively short term but there is the back of the head concern. Basically, we chose a path and we now have to follow it. I am not into diluting something or going rouge, if that makes sense. So we will play this out.

Needless to say, I was pretty relieved at not being pregnant that Dec cycle. This cycle the blood looks great, the CM looks great, and we are taking advantage of a lot of days. After all, its now cycle 4 post treatment and only the 2nd one we have really tried. It's now or never, time to learn if the treatment will bear fruit and move on from this antibiotic/antiyeast cycle we are stuck in.

I have so much more to say, not at all cycle related (meth and pregnancy in the family related) but I can't this second. Charlie and AJ have been taking turns (or together) sick since Halloween, taking turns waking at night. AJ is now potty trained at night, wonderful!, something Charlie isn't, but there was always him waking at least once to go sans 4-5 days in there. Add in Charlie's bad dreams, pottying out of pull-up until we found a solution, etc and it was a lot of disrupted sleep for us. It hit an all time low the last ten days when one of the two would wake AND STAY UP at least two hrs requiring multiple re-entry into their room. Now I am just dragging myself through the day. I can not live like this-it's def worse than newborn nursing IMO. Add family drama and I am spent. Here, tonight, both are sleeping, and an unusual event-I couldn't turn my brain off after my stomach waking me upset. So, at least I am into this update I have been meaning to do and I will come back this weekend and post about the family drama. For now, prayers prayers prayers for my sister JC and KT.  Ah, and one question? If you use a Reader, which one do you use for blogs? I have got to figure out a new one and get it on my phone!

Another piece to the puzzle

As much as we didn’t think the first miscarriage was a fluke, we had no choice but to try again. I wasn’t told of anything we could do different. I took comfort in the fact that my local ob/gyn had run a clotting panel on me. It was very thorough, and is usually reserved for those who had 3 miscarriages. How awful to make women wait that long for help, I thought! Not my doctor. He even coded it that I had had multiple miscarriages to get it all paid for, but that was when I had just had one. The clotting panel came back fine, so nothing changed between Michael and Gabby. Before we tried again, I knew we had to do something different. Something before we got pregnant, since you can only do so much during pregnancy (typically progesterone) to try and turn things around once they go south.
Before I even had actually lost Gabby (but we knew we would), I had a phone consultation scheduled with my doctor in Omaha. August 22nd-I clung to that date. The date I would get some answers. I put all my trust in this man as an instrument of God (both a faith filled man who has devoted his life to preserving life based on God’s call, also an internationally known researcher). I had the gammet of emotions on that call. DH and I were both present and hovering over the speaker phone.
Dr. Hilgers first said he was very sorry for our losses. And basically said it shouldn’t have been happening given all the up front testing and treatment. We were devastated-we can’t be stumping the man who has all the answers! He went on to say what he suspected the culprit to be. In April 2006, one of my many diagnosis, actually the last I received was that they had found a bacteria-ureaplasma urealycticum.
I remember thinking as we were driving out of Omaha and received the call, can’t you just let us leave this freakin’ town without following us out with one more diagnosis! You have to be kidding me. But it seemed simple enough at the time. Take two weeks of doxycycline and it should be fine. Easy enough. A one time treatment instead of monthly meds or shots. I can handle this. I asked if DH should also have the treatment and the nurse said it wasn’t typical, but she would check. She said the doctor agreed and we would both take the meds. I remember asking if we could retest, and she said not without another trip to Omaha and another endometrial biopsy (others don’t culture it out as long as necessary). Even then she said we might get a false negative. So take the meds and hope for the best. This antibiotic usually was enough. I learned at home doing research that this bacteria was a fancy name for an STD. I had contracted a(nother) STD. I already was treated for HPV in college. Now this…you would think I had slept with half the planet instead of three men, including my husband.
Now Dr. Hilgers was saying he thought the ureaplasma was back. That the antibiotic wasn’t enough. That, or it was another bacteria. Afterall, I had been cultured in april, after DH and I had stopped having sex. Before then we used condoms all but once to my recollection. It wasn’t until after we got married and resumed intercourse that we didn’t use condoms and I was exposed to anything DH may have had. The fact that I had a bacteria was evidenced by the two miscarriages and also by the fact that I continued to have tail end brown bleeding (brown bleeding at the end of my period). Before this was thought to mean low progesterone, but now it may indicate bacteria as well.
Well, at least we were getting somewhere. We had a hypothesis. We had hit the ground running with so much from day one that there wasn’t a lot of road left ahead of us. We were already working with a national leader in the field, so I knew even one option was at least something. The two options Dr. Hilger’s gave us were these 1) we could take more oral antibiotics. A different kind (this time Biaxin) and more of it. First 21 consecutive days, then on cycle day 1-10 (both DH and I) of each cycle until we conceived. Or, we could see Dr. Toth, a national expert in pathogens. His lab tests for every known pathogen and he is the only one who links new ones to infertility. Dr. Hilgers studied under him for 2 weeks and was setting his lab up similar to Dr. Toth, but it was going to take years and years before it was ready. Dr. Hilgers had sent four patients to Dr. Toth. One had just had a baby, and three the jury was still out on.
DH and I said yes to the oral antibiotics on the spot and said we would look into Dr. Toth. We left the call with a prescription and a plan, but I was doubtful $7.44 could answer our problems. I had little hope left. But maybe the antibiotics would buy us some time-we could see how the other girls’ were doing and if it did work, we would save so much money.
Knowledge is power, I believe that, so I went right to work. Dr. Toth had a website and I was able to read numerous research articles on his site, sign up for his patient discussion board, and find both of his full text books free on the site. I set to work reading. I also called the office and got every insurance code for every procedure and called Cigna to see what was covered. Needless to say that that summer I did not write my dissertation proposal as planned. I was busy continuing my other doctorate, the one infertility that would never be officially recognized.
Reading Dr. Toth’s book, the Fertility Solution, was the best thing I did. I saw myself all over the pages. I jotted notes about symptoms and began to fully realize that bacteria was my problem. We were “lucky” in that we had symptoms so we knew it would help-many don’t have symptoms and therefore don’t seek treatment.
I also learned quickly that there are two ways to get bacteria-from your sexual partners (horizontal) or from your parents (vertical transmission). I highly suspected I got it horizontally (from parents due to all the miscarriages in our family) and vertically (not just from DH, but from BF#2).  I tied this back to God, even though Dr. Toth doesn't revolve his practice around his faith like Dr. Hilgers.  I thought, if we all followed God’s plan to not have intercourse before marriage, this would never have happened to any of us. When we take things into our own hands and disobey God, then we tie his hands to help us. He gave us free will, and we choose to use it to go against His will, He doesn’t punish us. But rather, we literally tie his hands to help us. Then bad things befall us and we curse God. But if at any point, even way after the fact, we realize and turn toward God, he can make amazing things happen. God can “write straight with our crooked lines.” He can and He is more than willing if we just give him a little room to work. I felt DH and I did that when we turned even our sex life over to Him before we got married or even engaged. And we were still doing it daily, by practicing NFP, by not giving in to pressure for in vitro and other things against the Church. Most recently I demonstrated this by even giving God my tubes. I had already been convinced the goal was to live as God wants us to, to abide by His will. If He wants a child to come out of it, great. But regardless, He has wonderful things in store for us that we can’t even imagine. He has rewarded us for being faithful by bringing us to this diagnosis early, by leading us to a man determined to treat the cause and not the symptoms, and now by leading us to Dr. Toth.
I learned that even though Dr. Toth isn’t Catholic, he disagrees with in vitro, for the most part, for another reason. If the cause is bacteria, then not being able to get pregnant is preserving the upper reproductive tract to be bacteria free. By artificially inseminating someone, they bypass the bodies’ natural barrier and literally infect everything in the upper reproductive tract. It horrified me and I thanked God for His wisdom and for guiding the Church’s teaching. I knew all who followed it would be spared further pain.
I also learned another way that God was blessing DH and my faithfulness. If we did have a bacteria and got pregnant, the baby could have died much later during the pregnancy. Or the baby could have lived, but been born very premature with lots of health problems. Dr. Toth believes that bacteria is very very common in the reproductive tracts. Just think about all the unprotected sex! I thought in a long term faithful relationship I was safe without condoms! Especially if I was tested and so was my boyfriend. But the labs that test for common STDs do not test for all of the one’s Dr. Toth knows cause infertility. This is because his research is new and cutting edge. Also, Dr. Toth and Hilgers culture out the specimens much longer. As a result, some labs have said people don’t have Chlamydia (a known cause of infertility) and in actuality they do find it with Dr. Toth.
Besides these reasons, another reason Dr. Toth things bacteria is common is because of the number of miscarriage and premature babies. We find this all common place now, but bacteria is a lead cause of these things happening. The body was not meant to miscarry and Dr. Toth believes just one miscarriage should cause someone to seek immediate intervention. Dr. Toth associates in his research a link between bacteria and premature babies, ear infections, behavior problems, obsessive compulsive disorder, autism and many other things including cancer and heart disease. If you think of all of these things in relationship to bacteria, you do realize that it is very very common. For some it shows as miscarriage, others not being able to get pregnant at all, other secondary infertility (one baby fine and then can’t get pregnant again or miscarry). Others have children with problems they don’t realize are related to bacteria, so they don’t treat it and then their children go on to have problems conceiving. This gets worse with every generation, but research proving these generational problems are difficult. Dr. Toth does as much studies as he can with virgins he finds full of bacteria, and is able to trace it back to their mothers.