[JulieMc]

I met with the RE this morning, and wow, what a difference. I am now glad that I went through the crap OB experience because it landed me with the RE instead. The guy was really nice, and he said that he is a good friend of my midwife and that she had talked with him about my other appointment.

There were two resident doctors there as well, and we met first in his office. He first explained how while he deals with infertility, he also deals with a lot of cases of recurrent loss and then went onto explain all of the major reasons that people have recurrent miscarriages. Then he had me tell him about all of my pregnancies, and he looked over my records. Not all of the bloodwork results were sent over, so he just looked me up on the computer and found the missing ones on there. He said treatment for the MTHFR mutations would be folate, which my midwife already started me on. He said that the PAI-1 4g/4g mutation doesn't contribute to recurrent loss (I guess this goes either way with REs - some think it does, some don't). Then he got to the lab report for the lupus anticoagulant, and the lab marked it as normal, but he said it was not. I guess there are a few different numbers to look at - one of them was "high", and the other "borderline" (49 point something, when 50 is considered abnormal). He said that the only number that mattered of those was the one that was high, and that he didn't trust the lab results since they had marked it as normal, so he is redoing that one. But if I have that, he said I'd take heparin when pregnant.

He also said, regarding the breastfeeding, with as little as I my daughter BFs, it would not be enough to cause problems and most people's problem with TTC while BFing is that if they EBF (no solids or anything), then ovulation is stopped, but usually once your period returns and is regular, BFing isn't likely to cause any issues.

So after all the talking they took me to an exam room and did a transvaginal ultrasound. He said my lining looked "disorganized", but that's because AF finally decided to start last night. He said he did not see any fibroids, and said my ovaries look great and that I am young and have lots of eggs. He does want to do a saline ultrasound to see if there are any polyps or anything else weird in there, but I can't have that done while I have AF so I will have that done next week. And he'll also go over the results of the blood tests I had done today with me...and then hopefully we can figure out what the plan of action is!

He said when I get pregnant again I will see him for the first 10 weeks for close monitoring, and then after that I'll be released to my midwife. He didn't say anything about trying or not trying yet....and since he didn't specifically say "don't get pregnant", I'm still going to TTC.

After meeting with him, I went to get my blood drawn. 10 tubes this time. Yikes. Last time it was 14. He said there were still some tests they needed to do that were not done (various proteins, prolactin, lupus anticoagulant, etc.) I wonder what we will find out this time! He seems to think my problems are either a hormone or clotting issue, or maybe both.

All in all, I came out of the appointment feeling very hopeful and pleased with my experience. He was very nice and explained everything in detail, and his residents were even pretty cool. They were all very personable, and didn't make me feel uncomfortable. I highly recommend seeing an RE if you're having issues and are on the fence about it. It's not like the regular OB experience, and I think they actually like to listen to you and have you discuss things, instead of hurriedly answering questions and rushing you out the door.

OH......and the RE kept asking if I was pleased with his explanations and everything and would ask if the other doctor explained this and that to me. Of course the other guy did not explain ANY of what this guy told me, and so the RE said "well, I'm his boss" and he said he is going to have to have a talk with him because he should have explained more and shouldn't have just blown me off, telling me BFing causes miscarriages and that since I'd had two kids already, not to worry, I'd have another baby.