My Experience With Recurrent Pregnancy Loss
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In the span of a single year, I’ve been pregnant three times. And yet, I have no baby in my arms to show for any of them.
This is my story of recurrent pregnancy loss.
Our First Loss
When my husband and I began trying for our second child together, we thought that the journey would be easy. After all, our daughter had been conceived without really trying, and besides a pregnancy fraught with morning sickness, we had a fairly unremarkable pregnancy.
We started trying to conceive baby #2 when our daughter turned a year old, back in June of 2018. Despite actually trying, we were surprised that we didn’t get pregnant until early December.
In our naiveté, we thought that the several months that it took us to conceive would be the hardest part of our journey. We were wrong.
By the end of December, we were lucky enough to have had our first ultrasound in which we saw our baby and a heartbeat.
A few days earlier, in early January, I was told by my OBGYN that my progesterone levels were a little low and they prescribed progesterone suppositories to help support the pregnancy.
Within a couple of days, however, I noticed that I had started to spot. Immediately, our OBGYN brought us in for a “viability scan” and they saw that I had a bleed near the baby, but the baby looked like they were doing okay.
However, when we went in for our next standard prenatal visit, we no longer saw a heartbeat and were told that we had lost the baby.
My husband and I opted for a D&C procedure the next morning because our OBGYN was concerned that we were too far along to have a miscarriage at home.
You can read more about this pregnancy here.
Our doctor told us to wait for one cycle and then try to conceive again, which we did.
Our Second Loss
We were shocked to find out that we had conceived in our first cycle trying again and got our BFP on April 1.
This time, the entire pregnancy was a rocky journey, and we were worried from the start.
Since we had already experienced a previous loss, our OBGYN wanted to test my progesterone levels and HCG levels immediately.
This time, my progesterone levels were great and my HCG initially doubled, though it was very low. Since they wanted to cover our bases, I did use progesterone suppositories anyway.
Going into this pregnancy, I was also taking vitamin D, baby aspirin, and l-methylfolate.
At our first ultrasound appointment, they didn’t see anything that they thought they should be seeing at that point. Since we didn’t know what date I ovulated, my doctor suggested more HCG level testing to see if my levels were doubling, along with a follow-up ultrasound.
This time, my HCG levels were not doubling.
Our OBGYN nurse said there was no way the pregnancy was viable and that we should expect a loss and stop the progesterone.
After a lot of soul searching, we opted to request another ultrasound before we stopped the progesterone. At this appointment, we saw a heartbeat. it was the most surreal feeling ever.
Since there was bleeding around the pregnancy, we were classified as a “threatened miscarriage” and put on pelvic rest.
At our next follow-up appointment, while in the bathroom, I started bleeding and the pre-scheduled ultrasound a few minutes later, confirmed that the baby was gone.
I was sent home to complete the miscarriage on my own.
Our Third Loss
After our last miscarriage, we were advised to wait two cycles and try again.
This time, our OBGYN also gave us progesterone suppositories and Lovenox injections to start as soon as I ovulated each cycle.
On October 30, we got a positive pregnancy test. Due to some pelvic pain that I had been having, my OBGYN did a quick sonogram to see if they could see anything in my tubes and tested my HCG levels three times to make sure that they were rising.
The first two HCG levels came back strong and were doubling, but by November 6, our HCG levels began dropping quickly and we had our third miscarriage.
Where We Are Going From Here
We promised ourselves that if we weren’t pregnant by the end of 2019, or we had a third loss, we would quit trying to conceive.
Now that we have had our third loss, we are now looking into domestic adoption.
We appreciate all the love and hope that you’ll follow along as we figure out what is next for our family. You can follow along with our ongoing journey on our Instagram account!
