WTF Doctor Appointment

Late yesterday afternoon DH and I went for our 'WTF' doctor appointment to discuss the miscarriage and what the next steps will be. I nearly fell off my chair when the doctor told us that a gestational surrogate could be a solution to my repeated pregnancy loss. Not that I have anything against surrogacy, but musicmakermomma's doctor had recently suggested the same thing to her. Then the light bulb clicked in my brain: my doctor is giving me a textbook answer/suggestion. I can see it now in a RE textbook: when a patient is left with several frozen embryos after a history of unsuccesful transfers and/or early unexplained losses, suggest using a surrogate. I was rankled by the suggestion and told the doctor my 'situation': an old friend recently volunteered to be my surrogate, but she is in Toronto (single, with a toddler) and I'm on the US west coast, and I think it would be too complicated on so many different levels to involve her, eg. what if it worked and something were to happen to her (since she's a single mother); what if it worked and she had a miscarriage or if it didn't would I blame her? And would that come between our friendship. Also, I told the doctor (as selfish as it sounds) that I'm doing all this to experience pregnancy and childbirth, and that if I can't then I might as well go the adoption route.

We honestly did not learn anything new at this doctor's appointment. He said that the miscarriage wasn't caused by the mercury fillings in my mouth, or by anything I did, but rather because of something wrong with the embryonic structure. The only thing we haven't tested is DH's karyotype, but at this point it's irrelevant because we already have the embryos so it doesn't make a difference if there is a problem. At the appointment I could see DH's eyes well up when this subject was discussed, so I tried to lighten the mood by joking that maybe my body is 'allergic' to DH's genetic structure and so it rejects the embryo, but the doctor disputed this and said it probably wasn't valid. Sheesh, I can't get a break anywhere.

Proudly, I did not break down during the appointment, although I had to bite my lip to stop tears when the doctor spoke about the miscarriage and my previous four losses. I am worn down and close to tears by the fact that modern medicine's answer to recurrent pregnancy loss is that it is due to a genetic problem with either the sperm or egg.

DH and I agreed prior to this appointment that we would like to try one last FET to use up all five embryos. We usually lose two during thawing, so then we would have three. I asked the doctor if it would be possible to transfer three embryos and he went into a long ramble about how dangerous a triplet pregnancy is and then on about the octo-mom and her crazy doctor. He won't transfer more than two embryos.

At this point I need to phone the nurse/coordinator and set up an appointment to decide when to do the FET. Not sure when to do it, but I know I need more recovery time so it may be pushed out to late May or early June.