Monday, July 29, 2013

My history and recurrent miscarriage

 About five years ago I got pregnant. After two months I started spotting , and 20 days later I  miscarried. Back then the US doctor told me  it is very normal and I do not need to be worried. It was so stupid of us that we   did not tried for about 3 years. One year after my PhD we  though we are ready to have a baby.  I got pregnant in October 2011 and the same thing happened to me.  We were both confused and devastated. This time we were desperate to know the reason. I started to read books and articles and visiting doctors in Iran and Sweden. I learnt that there  are three main opinions about this problem.

1- Some doctors think it is normal and a  woman may have many many miscarriages   before a successful pregnancy and they do not offer any treatment! Ridiculous, isn’t it?!

2-  Some doctors  think there must be  some thing wrong and  offer mild treatment using drugs with low side effects such as aspirin and progesterone.

3- A doctor from Chicago, Dr Beer,  believes that the immune system is the main factor in most of the recurrent miscarriages . He suggests a vast range of blood tests that measure the number of “natural killer” cells in uterus. If  the results show any abnormality he offers some treatments to suppress the immune system using steroids.  There is not any doctor in Sweden who agrees with doctor Beer treatment, and most of the gynecologists in world argue against his treatment. His method is vey controversial, but he himself is very confident that  it is a right approach and there are many successful outcomes.  So this is the situation, I have a  problem that I get totally different advice from specialists.

After my second miscarriage, a new problem raised I found difficulty  of getting pregnant I tried for 8 months with no success, that added more pain and stress. I thought maybe I do not have any chance of becoming a mother so I started to read and learn about adaptation.  I tired to forgot the whole pregnancy things and focused on my work.  
Two weeks ago I learned that I am  pregnant for the third time. For any  woman a positive pregnancy test is one the most happiest moment of her life and is the start of motherhood, for me a positive pregnancy test is a warning that I may go through all the pains and difficulties of loosing another baby. Negative thought and anxiety do not leave me alone even for a second. I know stress and sadness will have adverse effect on my pregnancy but I cannot not help thinking about miscarriage and its consequences. I become so obsessed with the sign of miscarriage that I go to bathroom frequently to see if I see any blood. My unconscious kills all the positive thoughts to make me ready for accepting another loss if it happens. 

This time at the week five of pregnancy I started bleeding and yes the third miscarriage happened.  Thanks God  it happened so early so I did not need to live with anxiety for two months until I know that it does not work.  This two weeks of pregnancy and miscarriage was enough to trigger all the  feelings of  overwhelming sadness, dread, despair and grief.  I feel my body betrays me and is not under my control any more. This early miscarriage  was enough  to remind me  once again that I do not have a normal life as others. 

I am thinking  a lot these days,  I  do not want to give up  and am looking for ways to fight back my illness. I decided to try doctor Beer’s method. NHS doctors do not believe in Beer’s method,  and  the immunology tests or treatment are not offered by them.  However (unlike Sweden)  there are some private doctors here that follows  Beer’s treatment. I have to pay 250 pounds for every visit! and pay separately for every tests they may wants to do. After doing some internet search I chose one of them; Dr Hassan Shehata who has treating of a woman with 18 miscarriages in his profile. There are many positive feedbacks on his treatments and reading them makes me feel better.   I want to trust him, I want to  stay positive and to believe that this time it will be different. This may reduce  my stress and help my body to cooperate with the treatment better.  I know by getting my hopes high the risk of getting really sick with another failure increases, but I do not know a better way.  I do not know how to think positively and stay happy and yet consider the other side of story and be ready if  things go wrong. I hope one day I will find a way to solve my problem and to find peace. 

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