Ideally at this stage you will be happily pregnant and on your way to parenthood. In these cases, we celebrate with our patients and refer them to a regular OBGYN at 10 weeks.
But if not, we’ll meet and reevaluate your treatment to see what is working and what is not. Deciding what to do next, is always a time to assess your situation. We find patients that keep going with treatments, achieve success.
But every patient is unique, and the stress of fertility treatments can take a toll. Some patients need a break. Others want to repeat a process but with a minor adjustment, like adjusted medication. Our physicians will listen to the patients’ wishes while letting them know the odds of success for each option as best as they can predict.
Some patients get pregnant with a viable pregnancy on just an adjustment of thyroid medication. Others need gynecologic surgery to remove uterine polyps and fibroids, PCOS treatment, and three rounds of IVF to get there.
Perhaps most devesting is when our patients achieve a pregnancy only to have a miscarriage between 6-8 weeks. The emotional toll of a miscarriage when a patient is trying for a baby cannot be overstated. In this circumstance, it can be especially difficult for a patient to keep going. But those that find the strength and courage to continue are the patients that achieve a baby.
10 to 20% of pregnancies end in miscarriage so while we do our best to avoid them, they happen. We mourn with our patients and hope they will continue with us to plan the next course of action.
We can learn a lot from a miscarriage.
Blood tests can show if a woman has certain medical, immune, or blood-clotting conditions that might cause RPL (recurrent pregnancy loss). The chromosomes of women and their male partners can be studied using a special blood test called a “karyotype.” Some healthy people have differences in the way their chromosomes are arranged. This can increase their risk for genetically imbalanced pregnancy losses. If available, the tissue from a miscarriage can be tested for genetic abnormalities.
Sometimes a miscarriage provides us with the necessary information about the patient or their partner to go on and achieve a healthy pregnancy and baby.
Our goal is to get our patients pregnant with a viable pregnancy as quickly and in the least invasive way possible. Sometimes we get it right on the first try, but more often it takes multiple tries and adjustments to succeed. We believe these families achieved after battles fought and won are often the most precious.
