After the debacle of the letters from the hospital, I was pleasantly surprised when I had a call last week to say there had been a cancellation and was I able to come in on Monday. I jumped at the chance.

The appointment was at the fertility clinic that generally deals with problems in getting pregnant not staying pregnant, so I had no expectations that I would get any further on finding out why I was miscarrying, but was interested to see what I would get from it.

The consultant’s view on the use of progesterone and a short luteal phase was a resounding vote of no confidence. His opinion was that if the luteal phase is irregular (i.e not the same length each cycle, which mine sometimes is, as well as being short), it indicates a problem in the follicular part of the cycle controlling ovulation, and that progesterone would not be the solution because the issue starts before that, with subsequent poor corpus luteum activity (which helps make the egg healthy) during ovulation. Basically, it’s putting the cart before the horse – once you have a poor quality egg then extra progesterone won’t help. But he said it doesn’t do any harm and I hark back to the fact that I know it lengthens my luteal phase, which is at least something. He would rather treat the possible ovulation issue with Clomid, which stimulates egg production.

So I’ve had some more blood tests done – I await the results – and we are to come back in six months if I’m not pregnant.

I’ve certainly taken his thoughts on board as he spent two years of his life researching the subject, but now I’ve got conflicting views battling around inside my head and I’m wondering, is it possible for any to sit alongside each other? Maybe.

For now, I’d best describe progesterone as acting like a splint on a broken leg and I’m still waiting for it to be put in plaster to fully heal.

My frustrations on how the medical profession deals with miscarriage continue though as the comments I received on having a third miscarriage were that I would need to have more before investigation as they were not consecutive, that my age makes it more common, yadda, yadda, yadda.

This has got to change – it happens to so many people and yet it is still so easily dismissed.

On the plus side, the lovely GP at our surgery has managed to refer me to Tommy’s new early miscarriage clinic in London so we still have another path to follow. The consultant thought I was unlikely to qualify, having inconveniently experienced the joy of having a baby in between my miscarriages, but we will see…

Image from Pixabay