A few very nice people have written encouraging me to try again and so I have to explain why it’s not that simple. I have had six miscarriages total. Four of them in the past 3 years. These seem to be implantation failures (I miscarry about a week after discovering I’m pregnant) and they don’t know why I have them. My hormones are all pretty normal, I have biphasic charts. My luteal phase is short (12 days), which is the low side of normal and my cycle day 21 progesterone test was 6.5. This has earned me a diagnosis of luteal phase defect.

While treating myself I used vitex (chasteberry), red raspberry leaf, red clover, nettles, dong quai and licorice root. I also took ProGreens, one of those mega green drinks with everything in it. And I was using natural progesterone. While using this treatment, I conceived and miscarried three times. This earned me the diagnosis of “habitual abortion”, although I prefer “recurrent pregnancy loss.”

After my last miscarriage, I had a battery of tests to figure out why this might be happening. All of my tests came back normal. All of Brett’s tests came back normal.

This is when we pulled out the big guns.

There are two theories to luteal phase defect. One is that the luteal phase needs to be supported, thus the progesterone use. The other is that the luteal phase is weak because ovulation isn’t strong enough. Thus the vitex and the clomid. Vitex and clomid are both supposed to boost ovulation. Clomid boosted my ovulation but I didn’t get pregnant once in the four months I was on it. Clearly the herbal treatments worked more effectively.

However, there is no treatment that guarantees that I will have a baby. I have lost a lot of babies. A friend of mine who has lost 12 (!) babies has been very helpful in getting me to understand my feelings around this. If you have lost a lot of babies, then pregnancy is no longer the only goal. The goal is to STAY pregnant. Getting pregnant no longer seems like fun; it seems like dread. I know I can get pregnant, in fact with those herbal treatments I was GREAT at getting pregnant. I got pregnant three times in six months. Had the first of those pregnancies worked out, I would have a three month old in my lap. (My miscarriage anniversary is tomorrow.) It’s difficult for people who haven’t had a history of recurrent miscarriage to understand how this changes the playing field.

So here’s the thing: I could see the naturopath and pay her $45 and I could spend another $50 to $100 on treatment. I could start meticulously keeping track of my cycle again. I could become embroiled in the whole thing again and maybe I would get (and stay) pregnant or maybe I wouldn’t or maybe I would get pregnant and have another miscarriage. There is NO GUARANTEE that I would get a baby out of it. None. Zero. I don’t rejoice when I get a positive test, I get scared. I get sad. I get anticipatory sadness. I start hyperventilating and I’m afraid to go to the bathroom and check my underwear. With good reason because I keep miscarrying.

I’m not trying to beg for sympathy but I’m trying to make it clear why I’m hesitating to get back into treatment. It would be different if I just needed to get pregnant but do you know what my statistical chances are of miscarrying again? About 47%. I know that outsiders generally see that 53% number but Brett and I are kinda hung up on the other side of it. Especially because my grief — and all the effort around getting pregnant — suck up a lot of my emotional energy. Is this fair to keep doing to Noah?

Our life is pretty good. We’ve talked about adoption but don’t think we could do this until Noah is much older because we want his participation and he’s really not interested now. Meanwhile, there is the possibility that we’re only meant to have one child. Otherwise why would we keep losing those babies??? I wish I didn’t feel like a second-class citizen for having only one child. Like I’m settling. But maybe I’m not settling; maybe I’m accepting. Maybe this is how things are meant to be. I don’t know.

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