Summary of my fertility journey

I'm an undiagnosed recurrent miscarriage sufferer, who finally had success!!! Yeah!!! This blog outlines my journey from the beginning of the successful pregnancy. 

I blogged during this time because a natropath gave me optimism. She told me that my body couldn't tolerate folic acid, which is something I had been previously taking - religiously. (40% of all people have the gene that can't tolerate folic acid, both my husband and I have a double gene). 

I'm unsure of the exact number of pregnancy failures we had, I think it was 11 miscarriages and 4 failed IVFs (some of the miscarriages being IVF). So a total of about 14. Over 9 years. It was frustrating as we had no idea what was wrong. I visited over 20 fertility specialists in 4 different countries to discover I had a clean bill of health. No serious illness, or obvious reasons as to why. And every year that went by made me a year older. At the time of this pregnancy I was 40.

I had known about my homozygous MTHFR gene mutation for a long time. A number of the specialists had identified it saying it did cause miscarriages, but was very common and was negated by taking folic acid. This naturopath then told me that folic acid was my enemy, she told me to take bioactive vitamin B (5-methylfolate) instead. That's what this whole blog is about. 

http://holisticprimarycare.net/topics/topics-a-g/functional-medicine/1353-mthfr-mutation-a-missing-piece-in-the-chronic-disease-puzzle

http://mthfr.net/mthfr-mutations-and-the-conditions-they-cause/2011/09/07/

http://chriskresser.com/folate-vs-folic-acid/

Photos of my precious little babe

MTHFR and folic acid diagram

This is the diagram that helped me the most:

We got there!

In hospital now with a beautiful, healthy, 3.2kg, baby girl sleeping on my chest. She's perfect. I'm in love.

Labour isn't fun.

And I didn't end up needing an induction because my waters broke that night.

Here she is:

Tomorrow...

In bed about to go to sleep before induction tomorrow. V nervous. Really hope everything goes alright.

Please dear God.

Induction booked for 6th Jan 2016

Met with Dr today, if baby hasn't arrived by the 6th she will induce me. Everything seems healthy and normal. Baby weighs 7.2lb.

Full term

Yeah, we're 37 weeks and full term. Baby still wriggling around and meeting with Dr next Monday to discuss induction at 39 weeks if it hasn't come before.

Yeah!!!!

Here's a photo:

34 weeks

Met with the midwife, all well.

Am feeling very stressed though cause last week I had a whooping cough vaccination... Now I'm paranoid that maybe I shouldn't have.

I made sure I had lots of folate at the time and after, but what if...

I was trying to balance the risk of autism vs the baby getting whooping cough. Both are not good scenarios. I don't want to vaccinate baby until at least 3 months, if not later, so that's a long period to not be protected from whooping cough and apparently there's a lot around. I thought it would be best if I made sure I was metheylating, then used my body rather than baby's to pass on immunity. Really hope it was the right decision.

Thing that's making me paranoid is day of/after my vaccination the baby stopped moving as much. Apparently at this age they slow down cause they run out of space, so praying that is the reason. Please, please don't let me have made the wrong decision.

33 weeks

Another good meeting with Dr today. No issues. Baby weighs 2.2kg now.

Hospital visit

As part of an antenatal class we did a hospital visit to the delivery ward last night. They took us into a delivery room so we could get a feel as to what it will be like on the big day. In that room I choked up and had to fight back the tears, I can't believe we've made it this far. I honestly can't believe it.

Key milestones: 28 and 32 weeks

Our obstetrician told us that key milestones in pregnancy are 28 and 32 weeks. She said after 28 weeks the baby is likely to live if born. After 32 weeks it will live and not have any premature issues.

We are over 32 weeks now! Yeah! Here's a photo:

My dream

I dreamed about having this baby for the first time last night. It was a normal birth, everything went well and the baby was healthy and sweet. What's strange is it's the first time I've dreamed about babies, or miscarriages, or any of the issues we've been going through. The first time in 9 years. Something psycological happening there, especially when pregnancy/miscarriages/fertility is virtually all we've focused on.

Please don't let anything go wrong now. Please.

I'm 30 weeks and it's kicking like crazy.

29 weeks

Had another scan with the Dr today - all still going well. Baby was sucking it's thumb - cute!

Good news is the baby has turned so that it is not in a breech position, apparently it is sitting in perfect place. It's weight is now 1.4kg which is about average, heart beat is perfect, and my blood results all came back with no issue. Oddly, it seems that, so far, the pregnancy has been text book perfect. Very strange feeling. I keep on repeating to my husband 'I can't believe it's happening to us - after everything we've been through.'

I keep on expecting our luck to turn...

Dr says our next milestone is 32 weeks.

Another catch-up with my Natropath

Yesterday I had another phone appointment with my Natropath, this is what she told me:

1. She said that 3rd trimester was time to increase my Omega3 fish oil to x2 captuals a day - baby's brain is developing now so it's important for that. Note: my DNA says I don't absorb Omega oils well, so maybe x2 a day is more than normal.

2. She said it's important to have x1 probiotic each day - important to help with the baby's immunity.

3. She said to make sure I'm having almonds, eggs, cauliflower, fish and avocado along with my normal diet.

Negative for Gestational Diabetes

Oh, I'm beginning to feel so happy. There's kicking and movement on a regular basis and today I found out I'm negative for Gestational Diabetes. My readings were in the middle of the normal range for the 2 hour test - yeah. That's a big deal because in the past, when not pregnant, I had a Glucose Tolerance test and scored above average for it. Dr told me my insulin levels were high and my body was struggling to break down sugar (though that could have been for the 1 hour test). He told me that while I didn't have diabetes, I was susceptible to it - so I felt there was a high chance of getting Gestational Diabetes, especially seeing I did research on why the baby could have a big stomach and found there was a correlation between the two. But my obstetrician must have been right, she told me she thought the large stomach was the sign of a healthy placenta. Oh, so happy.

Note: the 2 hour Glucose Tolerance test was not fun. I felt like vomiting for the full 2 hours, and it had me in tears. Yuck.

28 weeks

Yeah! Yeah, yeah, yeah! We've made it to 28 weeks. Dr said it's a major milestone. Know it's alive cause can feel it moving.

V happy.

26 Weeks

All still going well. It's 1kg now, in the 60th percentile. The doctor said if it was born today it would have a 90% chance of living. She took an amazing 3D image of it, see below.

Can't believe everything has been so problem free. Not normal for us, praying it stays this way.

3rd Trimester

Yeah, we've made it - for the first time ever!

Lots of kicking now and frequent night time trips to the loo. Tummy growing rapidly!

Can't believe this is happening to us.

23 weeks

All still on track.

Our obstetrician's first words to us today were "you're viable now". 

Our baby nearly weighs 700g, with 500g being average. It has a very fat stomach that is nearly 2 weeks above average (in the 88th percentile), our obstetrician checked it's internal organs and everything is fine. She said it's better to be bigger than smaller, and that the stomach size is a sign I have a good placenta. 

She checked the veins supplying blood to the uterus, which she said was very normal and good. Apparently if they are low then there is a high chance of preeclampsia and premature labour. 

She also told me that from now on it's a good idea to always be close to a hospital that you would be happy to deliver a baby in. So that means no weekends away to our holiday house. 

It was nice to see baby's movements in the ultrasound. Yesterday I didn't feel much movement, so last night I phoned the midwife who told me to come in for a scan with the Doppler. It was late, so I had to go into the delivery ward. Of course the heart beat was immediately picked up and everything  normal. The midwife said that sometimes the baby turns in the uterus and directs their kicks at the spine. 

Seems strange, but the closer we get to achieving a birth, the more upset I feel. I guess there is more to loose with everyday. 

Advised to stop Clexane

I forgot to mention, the other day when I spoke with the naturopath she said she feels confident for me to stop taking the Clexane injections... She said that is because I have a good homocysteine reading. 

She told me if I want to I could take them like twice a week - just in case - so I'm going to do that. But it seems EVERYONE is confident that taking an aspirin every day will stop any blood clotting issues the MTHFR may bring on. 

Really looking forward to not having to inject myself every day - and have a constantly bruised stomach.