How I Overcame Repeat Pregnancy Loss and Miscarriage
- Caroline's Home Designs
- Apr 24
- 7 min read
Updated: Apr 29
In honor of National Infertility Awareness Month, I felt this was a good time to share my complete story of how I overcame repeat pregnancy loss and miscarriage.
This story has a good ending, but it took six years to get there.
First of all, I want to begin by stating that I can’t give medical advice since I am not a medical professional. This is my personal story of what worked for me—-but each person has individual needs that should be treated just in that manner—as an individual, not another number.
If you are reading this, you aren’t a “typical patient.”
You are an outlier. That 1% that you don’t want to be in….
I am too. And I really hope to make your journey to motherhood much less painful than mine was by sharing this information.
Let me begin by telling my story.
In 2015 my husband and I started trying for a baby and realized we needed fertility treatments. Two years later and I was pregnant with my very first IVF transfer baby who is now our very active and busy 6 year old son, the light of my life.
While it did take two years to become pregnant with our first child, it was a very straight forward process with a single embryo that stuck. I had an uneventful pregnancy.
We just needed IVF, when other less invasive methods didn’t work for us. I thought two years was hard. I thought doing IVF once was hard. Little did I know what my future had in store.
We always tried for natural pregnancy, but had no luck. When my son was about 2.5 years old we went back to our fertility doctor to do another embryo transfer.
It worked! I was pregnant.
Until I wasn’t….
It was my first miscarriage at 7 weeks…and it was devastating.
We were told “these things happen, we can try again”
Four Rounds of IVF later...
This led to 4 grueling rounds of IVF and six embryo transfers that led to miscarriage, pregnancy loss or that failed completely.
Why wasn’t my body working? Why could I carry my son two years ago and now my body was failing to do the one job it was made for?!
I was repeatedly told it was egg quality or embryo quality issue or varying degrees of this….all of which can’t really be proven on a test or in any meaningful way. It’s just an educated “guess.” Something they say, but you have no test results to prove this…
Not a single doctor tested me for endometriosis, autoimmune diseases or blood clotting disorders, which are known causes of miscarriage and implantation failure. In four years of loss….
Not one.
They cashed our checks, they put me under anesthesia time and time again, they repeated the same excuses…..yet they refused to consider that my body may need treatment to create the right environment for these babies…
I began to dig much deeper with every failure to find other women who had experienced this, but were eventually successful.
Reproductive Immunology
This is when I learned about Reproductive Immunology.
This is a specialty for patients with repeat pregnancy loss and miscarriage, specific to immune disorders. (Website links to these doctors are at the end of this publication)
They run tests your fertility doctor will say are “not well researched and probably don’t work”
But it worked for me after SEVEN losses. It also worked for a dear friend of mine who shared this information with me after she had six losses…
It’s worked for a lot of very broken women who tried all the “typical“ methods of the fertility doctors, only to have more losses.
Through my reproductive immunologist, I also learned that I had a rare blood clotting disorder and heightened natural killer cells and overactive cytokines from my lab work (indicating immune issues)
This environment was causing my body to attack our embryos like a foreign invader, which was likely causing my miscarriages.
My doctor implemented medication changes that we could see lowered these levels in my lab work. (These labs can’t be ordered and interpreted by just any doctor. There are only two labs in the country that do these tests…so please see the list of doctors below who are qualified to do these tests for you)
Some of these medication changes included high dose steroid use and IVIG infusion (intravenous immunoglobulin) treatments. (Not without its risks—you need a doctor’s guidance for this!)
Other Treatments:
I was treated for endometriosis with Depot Lupron for three months prior to my transfer as well (this condition can’t be diagnosed without a laparoscopic surgery, so do your research on risk/benefit)
We also added a blood thinner injection to treat my blood clotting disorder in my protocol and spent many months getting my thyroid and immune system as calm as possible before we did another IVF embryo transfer.
It worked.
I can’t say if it was one specific change, or a combination factor—-but the overall approach is what got us to this point.
I am 22 weeks pregnant and pray every day for continued safe and healthy pregnancy and baby.
If you read this far, bless you. I know it’s an incredibly long story and not a fun one to read—-but I hope that this helps someone out there struggling to find the answers much sooner than I did.
My advice after 8 years of fertility treatments:
Be an advocate for yourself.
Don’t just take the doctor at their word. Fertility doctors are great at creating embryos and even getting you pregnant. They do not specialize in KEEPING you pregnant.
If you’ve had multiple miscarriages, I would strongly encourage you to have more testing done before doing IVF or any additional embryo transfers. There is something causing your miscarriages, dig deep to find out what it is…
Have your husband or partner tested too. It takes two to tango.
Ask a lot of questions.
Make sure you really understand HOW they are addressing your specific issue. What tests have they done?
If they can’t tell you how doing IVF will prevent miscarriage (especially when you can get pregnant naturally) then I would pause…think about that…is this really addressing MY issue? Getting pregnant a different way may not change the outcome…
Some may suggest genetic testing to prevent miscarriage and while I think it’s important to have some testing done on you and your partner to identify if there is something serious (like translocation issues)
For research on this topic and other important papers, a great place for links to studies on this topic and many other infertility research papers is Embryoman. A former embryologist who has a webpage devoted to the latest infertility studies.
Don’t accept less than you deserve as a patient.
If they won’t run labwork you want done, find someone who WILL. Do not accept no for an answer. This is crucial information you need to prevent another loss.
Basic Labs
A few other basic labs that should be checked: make sure your progesterone levels are adequate and REMAIN adequate. Low progesterone is a very common issue that should be eliminated from the list of possibilities. I personally have always taken higher dose progesterone to sustain my pregnancies through 16 weeks. Have them checked multiple times in the beginning of your pregnancy. (This is where a fertility clinic is helpful)
Estrogen levels--too much or too little is detrimental to baby's development, so check these regularly. Get copies and review the labs yourself. Do not rely on a nurse phone call to tell you "it looks good"
Blood clotting panel --PAI 1 , Factor 5 Leiden and MTHFR among others can be tested for as well as other conditions such as APS and Lupus and high ANA values that can cause miscarriage.
I recommend using a functional medicine doctor to rule some of this out if you are waiting a long time to see a reproductive immunologist.
If they are unwilling to try a medication you feel very strongly you need, find a doctor who will.
Often times when your fertility doctor won’t prescribe a medication, they are willing to work with another doctor who is treating you for that condition (for example an IVF doctor won’t write a blood thinner for you, but a hematologist can treat your blood clotting disorder and they can write your prescription for that and your fertility doctor will be fine with supporting that in conjunction with your therapy)
Get PAPER copies of everything in paper for your own records. You will need them.
Get multiple opinions. Be patient, do the research before trying again.
Every miscarriage puts you back months, so if you can discover the root cause of your miscarriages, then you are so much closer to that rainbow baby. I know it’s hard to wait.
Find other women with your story. I have linked some of my resources below for community support, which was invaluable to me during my time of loss. You’ll learn so much from these other women who have been in your shoes.
If one doctor won’t help you, find one who WILL. Don’t accept “just try again” if you’ve had multiple losses.
I pray each and every one of you has your miracle baby in your arms so very soon!
Message me directly with questions. I am here to help. Sending you all the strength and courage as you weather this storm.
-Caroline
Important links:
Reproductive Immunologist: there are only a few in the country. Most will see you virtually. Some accept Insurance!
Learning about reproductive immunology disorders and finding a community of women with similar challenges:
This group was HUGE for me. You’ll need to have a Facebook account to access this group and you have to join the group.
I encourage you to spend time reading the stories and relevant questions, similar circumstances to you before posting. Chances are someone has already posted your question and there are tons of answers below.
This group is also very helpful for those with blood clotting disorders:
Embryo Man: a fantastic resource for the latest IVF, Infertility and Pregnancy Loss/Miscarriage Research. He breaks it down here on his website, but you’ll need to have a free account to access more than three articles. Follow him on Instagram as well!
Comments