I am so relieved I could cry

To be totally honest, I did shed a tear this morning.

What made me so overjoyed? I finally had that appointment with the hematologist that my GP had recommended. I have to admit, I have been an anxious wreck for a few days about this. I was fully expecting a replay of that awful appointment with the perinatologist. I even ended up crying to Mr. Rhody last night. It didn't help that I was out of town for work the night before and basically running on empty.

But the appointment this morning was exactly what I had been looking for. The doctor didn't treat my mutations as something he'd never seen before, though he'd admitted that he wasn't as familiar with the combination and he promised to do some more research on that. We talked about the treatment for when I was pregnant and when I was not, and he said, the next time I'm pregnant, he wants to start with the 40 mg Lovenox once a day. If I end up miscarrying again--and he made sure that I knew that was a possibility--then we'd talk about going to a higher dose and twice a day. I asked him about the baby aspirin in addition, and he did say they used to believe it helped, but the newer studies are saying that it does not have any additional benefit over the Lovenox and could cause problems in the third trimester.

Meekly, towards the end of the appointment, I did admit I had a scientific background and I had been reading the literature. He surprised me by telling me that I should do that, I should be my advocate, but I should also take it with a grain of salt before actually talking it through with a professional. That's exactly what I wanted to do.

He also wants Mr. Rhody to be tested for these mutations. While homozygous MTHFR mutants are around, we've seen very little mention of homozygous prothrombin mutants in the literature. The doctor cautiously mentioned that this may be a reason for the losses as well. If Mr. Rhody is also a mutant, I don't know what we'll do, but at least we'll be armed with that information.

So he's requesting all of the labs from my OB, which he didn't have for this appointmenet since my GP had referred me. He wants to see me again in 3 weeks, sooner if I happen to be pregnant again by then. He does plan to stick around for the pregnancy, which is reassuring.

Overall, it was much better than I expected. It was the first time in a long time I felt like I was being taken seriously by a medical professional, and I appreciated that.