A Not-So-Merry Christmas..

Ok, that title is a little harsh. We had a great month up until about a week ago. So I'm going to start with the happy stuff and then explain the crappy stuff at the end. Sound good? Great!

So, as I explained in my previous post, I made a Christmas advent calender to help create a Christmas-y atmosphere at home. Within this calender I had little Christmas activities to do- I think we had like 10 activities to do (but we only ended up doing about 5...bummer). Anyways, the very first activity was to go get a Christmas tree. Well, we thought it would be fun and adventurous to buy a Christmas tree tag and go cut a fresh tree down from the mountain (its cheaper that way, too!) Trouble was, we had NO idea where to go to find a real pine tree. (All over Sevier county there are these really funky pine trees that had branches growing upwards instead of out/down.) At one point we were afraid we would have to chop one of those suckers down and have a retarded tree. After spending an entire week searching for the real pines, Branden finally got a tip from a fellow Christmas tree hunter (lol) about where to go :) It just so happened that the real pine trees are CLEAR up at the top of the mountains. Sometime in the second week of December, we decided to finally go and chop one down... in the middle of a snow storm..(we had no other choice, it was either go this particular day or have no tree until the week of Christmas). After an hour and a half drive with a foot of snow covering the road, we came upon the REAL PINE TREES--dun dun dun! We got out of the truck and started hunting.

We hiked through this snow (that was up to my mid-thigh, mind you) until we found the least awkward looking tree we could. All the trees were all skinny and bare so finding a semi-decent tree was a hard task. Finally we found an OK one and loaded it up and hit the road.

As you can see, it's a little skiwampus, but it was the best we
could find before the big storm came. 

You can see on Branden's pant's how deep the snow
was at some points.

When we got home, we let the tree "defrost" for the night and then decorated it the next day. Branden actually helped me decorate it!! woot woo! However, he wouldn't allow me to listen to Christmas music during the decorating...Mr. Bah-humbug...lol!

I'm not sure if I like the blue...I think next year I'll go back
to the traditional red and gold!

The next activity was to make gingerbread cookies and decorate them.

I love my kitchen aid! Makes tasks like these so easy! :)

Rollin...

I love my one-eyed bikini guy...or I guess girl 

So that's that! Other activities that we did were to drive around and look at Christmas lights, Go Christmas shopping together, etc. etc.!

Now onto the crappy stuff...

So, I'll just lay it out flat- I had another miscarriage (3rd one in the last 6 months). I was 10 1/2 weeks along this time and I was just about to announce the pregnancy before we found out we had lost it. It has been a little over a week now since it happened, and I think it would be a good idea to write about it so I can start to move on...

I had made this announcement to send out to family and friends as
a creative announcement

Long story short, I am SO so so so so so soooooooooooo mad at my doctor.Really, that isn't going to make this story any shorter, but I guess that is just the thing to say. lol. Anyways, so back in November, when I found out I was pregnant, I immediately made an appointment with my doc. I had gone to a midwife with my previous pregnancies, and after the second miscarriage I decided I was too high-risk to go to a midwife, so I switched to an OB. When she found out about my two miscarriages, she got me in that same week to run tests to figure out what was causing me to lose my pregnancies.

Now, to make this story make sense, I must tell you about my aunt. She had multiple miscarriages before she found out she had a genetic mutation called MTHFR. Now, this genetic mutation doesn't always cause problems in pregnant women, in fact a very large percentage of the general public have this mutation and have no issues whatsoever. But then there is that small percentage who do have problems, and it is believed (but not proven) that this genetic mutation causes a blood clot to form in the umbilical vein around 9-10 weeks, which will eventually kill the fetus. Well, my aunt has ONE marker for this mutation, which most doctors would look at that and think nothing of it because it is very rare for that to cause any problems. However, because she had had so many miscarriages, her doctor decided to treat that disorder with heparin in the off chance that that one marker was what was causing the miscarriages. Due to the heparin, my aunt now has two beautiful boys.

Ok, now back to me. So at my first appointment with my OB, I had a TON of labs drawn to see if I had any of the common disorders that cause miscarriages. MTHFR was one of these tests. Now, at the time I had no idea what this disorder was. I just knew that my aunt had one marker for it and they treated her with heparin, which worked. So I told my doc about this...and she said she would definitely test for it. A week later, she called me and told me that all the labs were insignificant and that I only had one genetic mutation that causes me to not be able to metabolize folic acid adequately. She instructed me to take some extra folic acid everyday and she put me on progesterone just as a precautionary measure. I remember specifically asking her about the MTHFR mutation and she said "the results of that test are nothing to worry about. So I took her word for it and went on with life thinking that my doctor knows best and blah, blah, blah. I had an ultrasound at 9 weeks, where I saw the heartbeat and according to my doc, everything looked great. However, a few days after this appointment, I started having this really bad feeling. I would cry almost every night for a week, thinking something was wrong with my baby. I was able to talk myself down each time and just tell myself that I was just being paranoid because of my history of miscarriages. I finally made an appointment with my doc, after almost a week and a half of this, so I could have some piece of mind before we made the big announcement. At this appointment my doc couldn't find a heartbeat via Doppler, so she did an ultrasound just to be safe. This confirmed my awful feeling, and showed that the baby had died a few days earlier...no heartbeat, no movement. It happened just as my first miscarriage had, which made it that much more devastating. Through my sobbing, I asked my doctor what she thought was wrong with me and she said, "I think next time we will definitely treat you with heparin. Heparin is not a proven treatment for your disorder, which is why I didn't treat you with it this time." I specifically asked her about the MTHFR mutation, yet again, and she said that she didn't think that the results to that test were anything to worry about (still avoiding telling me the truth about the test result). So I went home with a broken heart and a prescription to do the Cytotec, just as I had with the first miscarriage. That night, I decided to do some research on the MTHFR mutation, just to see what it was. I knew my doctor wasn't telling me something when she told me she would treat me with Heparin next time. I thought to myself that I must have a marker for this mutation, otherwise why would she treat me with heparin? Within an article about the mutation, I found a sentence that said that this mutation causes a reduced capability to metabolize folate (folic acid), which was exactly what my doctor had told me all those weeks ago, but she made it seem like it was a completely separate mutation from MTHFR. Anyways, so I believe I have the same problem as my aunt, which is why I keep losing my pregnancies. I have yet to confront my doctor about this, but when I do I am going to rip her a new one. If she would have told me the straight out truth in the beginning, I would have demanded to be treated with heparin and I might not of have lost this baby. :(

As you can imagine, the whole week before Christmas I was very depressed. My first round of Cytotec did not work and we were contemplating a D&C procedure (which could cause further problems on top of my current issues). In an attempt to cheer me up and bring a little more Christmas spirit to the family, Laura had Mikey dress up as Santa Clause and go around to a bunch of friend's houses to visit the little kids. Here are some pics:

Isn't Mikey such a good Santa?

This is at my mom's house. Little Mikey (my nephew) was SO
excited to meet Santa for the first time (and he totally bought it).
Braxton, on the other hand, was asleep when we got there and was dead to
the world. We would try to wake him up and he looked stoned out of his mind.
Funniest. Thing. Ever.

This did help cheer me up, for the day, but I still felt really down about having to have a D&C. On the eve of Christmas Eve, I talked with the nurse at my doc's office, and was able to get a second, stronger, round of Cytotec, which worked and I ended up passing the fetus the morning of Christmas Eve. :(

So that is my sad story of why Christmas this year was a not-so-merry Christmas. There is hope, however. I made an appointment with my aunt's "fabulous" high-risk doctor. With his help, maybe the next time I get pregnant (which I hope will be soon) I will be able to have the baby I have been dreaming about since my first pregnancy. These miscarriages have been awful and heartbreaking, to say the least, but I believe that they will make me appreciate that little miracle that we will one day have. In the mean time, I have three little angels that will always have a special place in my heart.

If you are still with me, I applaud you because I'm sure all that was very boring for you. I figured I should have the events of what happened laid out, in case I need to refer to it later on. On a slightly happier note, Branden and I bought a TV with our Christmas money we received. :) It's very big and slightly unnecessary, but we enjoy it!

Oh, and I MUST show you this. This was a pinterest project. I got a less-cute idea from pinterest and tweaked it to my likings. I ended up making one for my sister (who's name I drew out for Christmas) and one for myself. It's a chalkboard dinner menu! Isn't it so cute?

And now I will end this loooong post with pictures of my favorite little guy...GEORGEY :)

Whoa, red evil eyes. But so stinkin cute!

My favorite picture of him!

Enjoy!