I'm BACK!!!

Well, faithful few, I have returned. I met with the RE-wannabe (my doc) and he made me feel all better. First off, when I spoke with the more-experienced nurse (there are 2), she did not realize I had such a negative view of the other nurse's comments and had not realized how they could have come across. I was all prepared, for instance, for the doctor to tell me my eggs were all bad. That is not what was intended today, but that's what I thought was coming for almost 4 weeks. Well, I daresay SOMEONE is going to get a new one ripped today and it isn't me. :) A little bit of glee at what is going to be a learning experience for her. Just a thought -- use a little more care with all phone conversations since all they have to hang on are your words. Even though you intend something else, they may walk away with a different set of thoughts. And that will ultimately harm your bottom line -- customer satisfaction. It was entirely unnecessary for me to worry for 4 blasted weeks.

Next, the doctor explained that miscarriage risk is equal to my age. I am nigh unto 40 (4 months shy), so I have a 40% risk of any acknowledged pregnancy evolving into miscarriage. And that doesn't count those 2 months where I had symptoms and may have been pregnant but had no positive pregancy test (damned difference in HCG measurements!), so I am entirely normal. We do not yet have recurrent pregnancy loss.

Next, I likely am not seeing a problem with APA or ani-thyroid antibodies or natural killer cells, since those seem to happen in weeks 6-9 and I haven't gotten there yet. I was only in week 5. This miscarried embryo was therefore most likely (80%) chromosomally abnormal. And with my age, that's not surprising.

OK. I can live with that. He said, with some fuzzy math, that my likelihood of having a 2nd miscarriage with the next pregancy is 10%, but I still think it is 40% ... I know the odds are 10% that the 40% will occur. Whichever it may be, I just need to adjust my understandings to moderate excitement until we see a fetal heartbeat and then until we get past 12 weeks.

The doc said that I just caught the raw end of the deal but it does say some things. 1) I can get pregnant; 2) I have a normal cycle; 3) We got the timing right; 4) The current protocol (Femara) WORKS - don't mess with a good thing.

OK. Makes sense. Why oh why did I not demand to speak with my favorite nurse back at miscarriage time? Well, in reality, I did call her and leave her a message but I guess the less-experienced one just decided to call me instead. But now I know the code talk "I want to speak with Kathy about something." I can do that. I just wish I'd known that 4 weeks ago.

So, I'm kind of happy about all this. He gave me the name and address of a doctor colleague of his from medical school -- he's at Cornell in NYC, for August when I move. Cool -- I'll go there, since he said Cornell has the best rates around.

If I'm not pregnant by then. I'm crunching dates as we speak to see when I shall start again. Here's hoping ...