Pregnancy and Epilepsy

It was Tuesday morning, Ody had the day off and the promise of a day in the shop working with pottery and playing chess over a glass of wine awaited us. Ody’s groggy voice crawled to the bathroom, “Don’t forget to take the pregnancy test, Sweety.”

I groaned. We’d slipped up with the good ol’ barrier method; we got a little lazy once. I didn’t want to go under general anesthesia for a wisdom tooth extraction on the off chance that one time could have, by some stretch of the imagination, created a life within me. Ody got up and went to his computer while I dutifully read the package insert (as if one could screw that up). I peed on the stick as instructed, capped it and set it on the counter.

Immediate plus sign.

There’s got to be some mistake… one time? Did I even ovulate yet?? This was supposed to be a routine screen, just to make us feel better. I put in my contacts, stunned, thinking of how I was going to call Ody in to see the result. At least he could look into my eyes and hold me without my glasses in the way.

And he did just that.

It’s funny how when you get pregnant, you suddenly feel this rush of responsibility. My God, you have to get ready for a new life by April! What about my debt? What about my 2 years of school, residency and starting a medical practice? What about… my epilepsy?

I’ve been taking my folic acid, as always, but I am still on the most toxic class of drugs on the market. Poisons designed to cross the most guarded area of the body – the blood brain barrier. They say that lamotrigine in pregnancy causes nothing but cleft lips… really? Very little is known about the brain. People can’t even predict what the result will be on a child when you drink alcohol during pregnancy. Will they have fetal alcohol syndrome because of one drink? Will they be fine drinking a little wine throughout pregnancy? Results vary depending on the person.

They can’t tell me my baby would be completely unaffected by my anticonvulsants. They’d be irresponsible doctors if they tried.

We took another one a few hours later. My head really hurt and I thought it might be caffeine withdrawal. It came back negative, with a slight debatable vertical line, but I’d also been drinking a bit of water. I called the ND clinic, (awkward since I’ll be working there in 2 weeks with everyone), and they forwarded me to my physician’s answering service so I could have her order a blood test. I broke down in mid-cheery message and tossed the phone after a choked, “O.k.-thank-you-bye.”

Oh. My. God.

Well, as it turns out, I’d been feeling weird for days and had a little unexpected pink tinge on the toilet paper the day before. This can happen when the egg implants, so it was anyone’s guess. I took a picture of the tests hours later with only the small remnants of the evaporating vertical line. The blood test came back negative and the lab was confused. I’m not. I had an early miscarriage (a "chemical pregnancy"). The levels of hormone were enough to measure in the morning as it was filtered out of my blood, but they were steadily decreasing as the fertilized egg let go of its new life. It wasn’t a good home for it, I assume.




Strange how such a terrifying event can turn out to not be true and suddenly be sort of sad. If one assumes this was a “meant to be” event, perhaps it’s time for me to get my things in order in case it happens again. I need to be excellent with money management. I need to get my school goals in line and fill requirements ASAP. I need to see my neurologist and get off of these pills.