Accustomed Chaos™: Miscarriage, Pregnancy and Factor V Leiden

I have had a few people ask if i could elaborate further on the causes of my miscarriages. I know they were nervous to ask because this is a sensitive subject but honestly, if you have any questions - ask away. I am very emotional about it but I don't mind answering and talking about miscarriage and my journey. It is not talked about enough - and when I was deep into it I felt so alone. I will not be a contributor to stuffing this in the closet - so as hard as it is to publish my feelings sometimes for people to read - I will.

I had a few issues that contributed to my miscarriages. At this point it is hard to pin point if it was just one or a combination of the three. I had a luteal phase and progesterone deficiency (I will blog later on how that was figured out and what I did to fix it), undiagnosed celiac disease (for 5 of my 10 miscarriages and 2 full term live births) and Factor V Leiden - which I will focus on in this post.

If you read my post on my Journey Through 10 Miscarriages you will know that I discovered I had Factor V Leiden when I had a stroke when I was 8 months pregnant with my second child and two weeks later I was induced and she was born. Nothing else was spoken about Factor V Leiden until we lost Triton.

Factor V Leiden is not a disease, it is not something that can be 'cured'. It is an inherited genetic disorder that can increase your chances for developing blood clots (thrombophilia) and since any pregnant woman or woman on estrogen-based birth control is at an increased risk anyways - having Factor V Leiden can be quite dangerous for a pregnant woman.

While I was trying to conceive I was taking a 75miligram tablet of aspirin (baby aspirin) a day to help thin my blood. I was basal body temping and was an expert at this point so i knew the exact date of implantation and the first day a pregnancy test would become positive. When it did i went to the doctor to confirm and switched off the aspirin and started right away taking a blood thinner injection (Fragmin) that I would take every day until 8 weeks postpartum.

This was my daily needle that I injected myself into my lower abdomen (under the belly button) or the upper outer thighs:

Fragmin

One of the side effects of injecting a blood thinner was the bruises they caused. I had to mention to every nurse or doctor or person who saw my pregnant belly that I was on this medication because the whole lower part of my stomach was covered in bruises that looked like this:

Fragmin bruises

When it came to labor - it was tricky. I would not be able to safely go into labor on my own because - well, when you deliver you loose blood and being on a blood thinner i was at risk for losing a lot of blood. I was going to have another induction at around 38 weeks, when baby looked good and when my cervix started showing changes of dialation. I started dialating early around 35 weeks so i was on bed rest so not to go into labor.

Induction was set and i had to go off the blood thinner 12 hours before the induction was started. The tricky part was i could not go over 24 hours without the drug or I would risk clotting again and potentially having a stroke or pulmonary embolism. This drug was protecting me and the baby.

After 5 hours of hard core induction Baby E was born - healthy & perfect and I was then placed back on the Fragmin and continued after the postpartum risk for clots which was 8 weeks for me.

Baby E 2 minutes old

At times I wished that i didnt have to take this medication. It wasnt really fun or easy to inject myself every day and could not miss it or risk something bad happening to baby or myself. It was also not cheap -$10 per needle x 44wks. I am so grateful for my OB/GYN's and Fragmin because they protected myself and Baby E.

I am still taking a baby aspirin daily and will need to for the rest of my life. I am also not able to take any estrogen-based birth control because that will be far too risky with Factor V Leiden. If we ever want to have another baby we will have to be just as careful and meticulous and will need to have the injections and induction.

Disclaimer: This post is not intended to be medical advice. This is all based on my specific case and treatment outlined by my doctors.