Hi, friends.
I want to say thank you. For your kind words of support, obviously, but also for your concern (I’m looking at you, Vanessa). It may be just me and Eric trying to make this baby over here, but I genuinely feel like we’re all in this together. So thanks for being so freaking supportive. It means the world.
I suppose you’re wondering what I plan to do differently this time. So far, I know that my allergic reactions, which logically seem to be causing miscarriages, are food related. Therefore, I’m putting myself on a super bland diet consisting of only the safest foods. What does that mean? It means I’ll be eating meat, eggs, white rice, and most vegetables – and not much else – for the foreseeable future. No fruit. No bread. No gluten. No dairy. Nothing processed. Nothing questionable in any way. In short, the most boring diet known to man. I kicked it off this week with a 36 hour juice cleanse (that’s as long as I lasted before I broke down and had a hard-boiled egg). Juicing is fun, but only when you’re allowed to use fruit. Otherwise the juice is bitter and makes the whole kitchen “smell like hay,” according to Eric.
Do I feel resentful of pregnant girls scarfing down McDonald’s and triple fudge cake without even thinking about it? Of course. But if this is what I have to do, so be it. I would gladly sacrifice delicious food for longer than nine months if it means I get to have a healthy baby.
What else? Well, I finally went on Monday to get my Blood Clotting Disorder Panel testing done. I’ve been putting it off and putting it off, but now we’re down to the wire and the results take two weeks, so I dragged my feet to the lab. Bad news off the bat – my new insurance doesn’t cover the lab I usually go to, and the test is suuuuuper expensive. Great. So I drove to the lab they do cover, waited 20 minutes, then was told that they weren’t sure which test my doctor wanted (there were three choices and they didn’t want to pick the wrong one). They called my doctor to confirm and had to leave a message. So after an hour of running around and frantically making phone calls, I never did get my blood drawn.
As if that’s not enough, the lab lady sounded skeptical that my insurance would cover this test at all, so once I figure out which test it is, I have to call them and confirm it’s covered. Did I mention I HATE our new insurance? Plus the lab they want me to use doesn’t do same-day results, so when we do get to the beta stage, we’re going to have big problems. (The lady at my old lab said that for stat blood work I’ll just need a referral, but still, it’s the rigmarole I have to go through that really ticks me off).
Lab lady has yet to call me back, so today is off the table. It seems like the universe is against me getting this stupid blood work. All the test will really do is determine if I need the Lovenox or not… but part of me is tempted to just take it no matter what. I don’t know. Besides Super Bland Diet, I don’t really have any ideas. Last pregnancy I cut out fructose, but I was still eating gluten and a lot of other crap. I’m pretty sure I reacted to coffee creamer right before it all went to hell. Of course I’m scared that it’s more than that, but there’s no precedent. I touch on this in the Reproductive Immunology Post (this week! I promise!) – there is literally no one else like me. No other person has reported that their food intolerances are linked to recurrent miscarriage. If there was, I could follow their protocol… or something… but as it stands, I’ve never heard of symptoms quite like mine. Frankly, it makes me feel crazy, like I’m spouting conspiracy theories or something. But these things are connected. I just know they are. I can tell when something is wrong, and I know for a fact that the food I ate caused serious reactions. I know my immune system went totally wonky.
So again, thanks for the real talk. Thanks for caring enough to voice concerns. I’m scared… but there’s not much else I can do besides just hope for the best, and this time totally eliminate trigger foods. And pray. Pray a whole lot.
Someone posted this story on Facebook the other day and of course I cried. But it also gave me hope. You never know when your rainbow baby is right around the corner (also, posts like this remind me that recurrent miscarriage or not, it can always be worse. ALWAYS. I cannot imagine how this woman survived with sanity intact).