{"id":1862,"date":"2016-03-02T06:00:03","date_gmt":"2016-03-02T06:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/healinginourhomes.com\/?p=1862"},"modified":"2019-05-14T03:53:41","modified_gmt":"2019-05-14T03:53:41","slug":"my-mthfr-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healinginourhomes.com\/my-mthfr-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"My MTHFR and miscarriage journey"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MTHFR<\/p>\n

MTHFR and miscarriage – my story<\/h2>\n

Have you experienced loss? My heart goes out to you if you have. There’s a connection between having a genetic mutation on the gene MTHFR and miscarriage and I wish I’d known sooner. That’s why I share my story, because so many women who have learned about this connection have been able to stop miscarrying and have healthy babies and all women need to know about this …<\/p>\n

Around May 2010 I found out I was pregnant with our 6th child. We had 4 living children and I’d had one previous miscarriage. My first miscarriage was very early. That time, we found out I was pregnant on a Thursday, mailed out some cute announcements to our family across the country on Friday and I miscarried Sunday. It was shocking and upsetting but not hard physically. I was pregnant the following month with our daughter and I had a healthy, easy pregnancy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But my second miscarriage was different. I was planning on using midwives again for the birth and they don’t do routine early ultrasounds. While I was nauseous, I wasn’t as sick as I typically was – \u00a0I just had this nagging feeling that things were not ok. \u00a0So I set up an appointment with an OB to get one.\u00a0The ultrasound confirmed my fears. There was nothing to see, the pregnancy had not progressed past the early stages. But my body still thought I was pregnant. They offered me a D&C but I refused. We didn’t have the money and as a devoted advocate of natural birth, I wanted to\u00a0miscarry naturally.<\/p>\n

At around 12 weeks I was hanging with some friends and laughing a ton when the miscarriage\u00a0began. I rushed home and lost a large amount of blood at once. I’d go 45 minutes or so with nothing, then lose a lot again. Ill spare you the details but\u00a0after many hours of this pattern, things took a turn for the worse. While my husband knelt down in front of me because I felt so dizzy, I passed out. I was transported via ambulance to the hospital where I continued to hemorrhage. What happened at the hospital is another story – but let me just say that if ANY doctor, at ANY time, does not respect your body you have every right to stand up for yourselves ladies. The rest of the night is fuzzy but I was able to avoid a D&C and they gave me something to sleep through the night as I received 4 units of donated blood.<\/p>\n

For the next 30 days I was extremely depressed and it got so bad I started to wonder if I was losing my mind. I remember going to church one day and just crying and crying because I felt so absolutely lost. Then, I started to bleed again. I had retained placenta and that’s why I felt like I was going crazy. My body was incredibly confused. After all of that, I ended up having a D&C anyways and I felt\u00a0much better.\u00a0\u00a0I could finally start the healing process. But I didn’t trust my body, it had let me down.<\/p>\n

I wasn’t the same after that.\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Things were just different. I loved to drink iced tea before my miscarriage but afterwards I couldn’t handle any caffeine at all. I’d shake all over if I drank tea. I was anxious constantly\u00a0. We’d already had a really rough year before this happened in August and it took a toll on my health.<\/p>\n

Fast-forward to 2013. I’d had a perfectly healthy pregnancy and very healing pregnancy and birth. I was head-over-heels in love with my new little girl. My body had known what to do and done it perfectly. But I was still anxious and struggled greatly with many different fears. I was also forgetful, tired, my brain was foggy and I didn’t sleep well. I’d stay up really late and my mind would come alive after 11pm (sound familiar mommies?) but the mornings were torture because I was so exhausted. I forgot important things often. But worst of all was the anxiety. I’d be sitting on the couch just watching a show and my heart would start to race like I was about to walk out on stage. And this happened ALL the time, over and over. It was exhausting. I thought it was an emotional or spiritual issue and that it was an issue with who I was. I did my best to learn to breathe slowly and try to slow things down but it never really helped.<\/p>\n

A year later, I’d had enough.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was tired of feeling like something was wrong with me, like I was a bad mom and a bad Christian because I couldn’t just “relax and trust God” (this came not from the church but from certain people in my life). Nearly every afternoon I’d crash, often falling asleep on the couch even though I was home alone with my 5 children. I’d feel like I was drugged many afternoons. \u00a0I decided to find someone to help me figure out what was going on. I found a holistically-minded RN who specialized in women’s health issues. She started with a full blood panel and some saliva testing to see what was going on with my cortisol levels. I’d heard about MTHFR online and had done a little research and I requested she test me for that as well.<\/p>\n


\nWhat is MTHFR? <\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

When it\u2019s all working correctly, the MTHFR gene begins a multi-step chemical breakdown process, aka methylation<\/em>, which in simplified terms, is like this:<\/strong><\/p>\n