Shattering my preconceived notions (karyotyping results)

I got the karyotyping results back and they were what I had been praying for since I heard my child's heart had just  stopped- a chromosomal abnormality, Turners syndrome (45 X0).   It does not seem that way, but I actually got lucky. Turners is a genetic condition with wide variation. In the least severe cases,  the child can survive, but have some serious physical issues, including heart defects and sterility.  Chances are, had this loss not occurred, I would have detected it in  the 5 month ultrasound and would have been faced with the agonizing decision whether to terminate or not. I thank god, the universe, whatever, that it did not take me to that place.

I would put this down to really crappy luck, except, though, as an effort to determine the PCOS diagnosis, we finally tested my AMH.  To my absolute amazement, it came back  on the low end, at 1.1 ng/ml. The reference range for the testing lab is 1.23- 8 ng/ml. AMH is touted to be the most accurate predictor of your ovarian reserve. The lower it is, the fewer eggs you have and the closer you are to menopause. My value, while not abysmally low, indicates that my ovarian reserve may not be as good as I thought it to be.

What this has told me- don't have preconceived notions about your own biology. I always thought that I had plenty of good reproductive years left. My grandma gave birth to my dad, her 9th child, at 45.  My cousin conceived her one and only child (a perfectly healthy boy) at the age of 43!  My mom got pregnant every time she wanted to, and produced 3 healthy children. Reproduction is NOT an issue with my family. When I had confessed my plans to that cousin who reproduced  (by accident) at 43, she tore into me for not waiting any longer, because according to her, I could have have done this comfortably even when I was skimming 40, given our history. At that point, I thought I could too. Now I don;t know anything anymore.

We have not yet confirmed that its a failing reserve we are dealing with here.  Overall, my test results can be summed up in one word- confounding. I'm baffled, nothing seems to add up.Adding weight to the PCOS diagnosis,  I have high-ish male hormones (though still within normal reference ranges). PCOS is associated with insulin resistance, with fits with my family history of type 2 diabetes. Because the universe has decreed that nothing should ever add up, I have the opposite,  insulin sensitivity- low insulin, normal sugar in fasting levels. With respect to ovarian reserve too I'm scratching my head.  At the last test around 4 months ago, the other good indicator of ovarian reserve, antral follicle count came back ridiculously high at 34. So we don't have the full picture yet, we need to determine if I have PCOS, or a close-to-failing reserve. Of the two problems, I'd pick PCOS I think, though its choosing between the devil and the deep sea.

Sometimes, things happen that really make you wonder if there is a gran plan to things, even if  a particularly perverse, slightly evil one. The day Turbulence was conceived, something told me it was a girl. After the loss,I've been praying it was a boy because then I thought, for some weird reason it would not hurt so much. It also it takes the guesswork out- if your karyotyping results are a chromosomally normal female, you will always be left a little in doubt, it might have been your cells they examined by mistake. But all in all, I was really anticipating an answer that would definitively give me the gender of my child. I've even been very mildly obsessive about this point.  When I got this result, I started laughing (the alternative was to cry). With an XO genotype, my child was essentially genderless.  Talk about the universe telling you, in a creative, slightly evil way of course, that sometimes, there are no answers.