It helps to know

This week I found out the cause of my last pregnancy loss. There was a chromosomal abnormality called trisomy 20. Basically, everyone has 23 pairs of chromosomes. In this case, the fertilised egg ended up with three copies of chromosome 20. According to google, trisomy 20 almost always causes miscarriage in the first trimester. It's usually caused by a problem with the egg, probably due to maternal age.

I feel a bit like everything has been turned upside down. Despite fighting to have the testing done, I never really fully believed that the hospital had actually done it. And because everyone kept telling me that the testing was often inconclusive I thought that I wouldn't get a result.

So what does this mean? It means a lot of things.

It means that no matter what I did in the last pregnancy, it was never going to work out - right from the moment of conception. And I did so much. I took time off work to go on bedrest. I took expensive and unpleasant Chinese herbs. I did acupuncture. I used six unpleasant and expensive vaginal progesterone pessaries a day. I took low dose aspirin. I avoided dairy products, wheat, sugar and raw fruit and vegetables. I tried to think calm and positive thoughts. As it turned out, all of this was futile. It was just a matter of time until the pregnancy failed.

Right after the second miscarriage I remember thinking that I just couldn't have another miscarriage and that I was going to do anything I possibly could to make sure it didn't happen again. It's kind of like there is some force in the universe that wanted to teach me that I couldn't control this, that there are some things I can't control. There is nothing I could have done to prevent this. Its a deeply unsettling realisation.

But its also a relief. I had pretty much convinced myself that the miscarriages were caused by some kind of immunological problem and that I would need to seek treatment for that in my next pregnancy - probably with considerable resistance from the medical profession given that no immunological problems were found in the investigative tests. But now I don't know. I still don't know what caused the first two miscarriages. They could have been chromosomal abnormalities as well. Or they could have been due to hormonal or immunological problems. I don't know and I will never know. What this does mean is that the progesterone and aspirin didn't fail - they never could have worked. And if I do have an underlying problem, they could work in my next pregnancy. It gives me more hope for my next pregnancy. Although of course there are no guarantees.

It makes me realise once again that one of the really painful things about miscarriage is not knowing why it happened. It really helps to know.