Saturday 15 December 2012

Round 3 begins

We met with the consultant a few weeks ago and he threw something at us that we weren't expecting. We were planning on using our two frozen embryos for this next cycle and paying for it ourselves. If we aren't successful this third time, we were planning to have a fourth full cycle with egg collection using the funding that we are still entitled to. Well, the consultant suggested that some couples like to hang onto their frozen embryos - as they won't lose quality - to turn to after they have done all the egg collection cycles that they want to do. It maybe that the frozen embryos as used to try for a sibling. We thought about it for a few days and decided that, at this stage, we will feel very lucky to have one baby let alone trying to plan for an IVF sibling! We want to make life as easy as possible for ourselves so decided to go ahead as planned and use the frosties this time. Prior to meeting with the nurse for our planning visit, I was looking forward to a shorter cycle with drugs that I'm familiar with and knowing what to expect. But we met with the nurse this week and she had a little surprise for me. One of the drugs that is used after the embryo transfer (progesterone) has previously been a pessary which was fine. But now, a new form of the drug is available which is a daily injection. This is thought to be more effective as it gets straight into your blood stream. The downside is that it's an injection into your ass muscle. A bigger needle and help from husband required. Yuck. The nurse proceded to tell me NOT to read about this on the forums and that the couples she has spoken to say that the actual injection isn't that painful, it's the soreness afterwards that's more of an issue. We shall see! There just always seems to be something new and unexpected with IVF! Just when you think you know what's coming... Being at the clinic again got me down. I was depressed to be thinking about beginning another cycle and the emotional rollercoaster beginning once again. Each Christmas I think, 'maybe next Christmas there will be a baby, or a baby on the way'. Approaching another Christmas with neither is sad. However, the run up to Christmas has been fun and enjoyable so far and we have champagne cocktails planned for Christmas Day :)

Monday 5 November 2012

Moving on

So it's been nearly a month since the test and I still haven't shed a tear. But I have been feeling other negative emotions. Mainly anxiety. I've been getting daily heart palpitations. And I've not been dealing with stress very well. I've been worrying a lot more than usual. And I feel like I've been pretty miserable company! Just last week we found out that the mother of our god daughter is pregnant again. Our god daughter isn't even 1 yet. Apparently they got caught out! Thanks for telling us that then... You weren't even trying. Great. We've been waiting for an appointment with the consultant to discuss next steps. We had to chase it and finally have it tomorrow. It'll be good to find out a bit more about what the process is when using frozen embryos so that we can decide when to start again. It'll probably be the new year. I'd like a relaxing, drug free Christmas!

Friday 19 October 2012

BFN

Emotions are weird. Having already been in this siutation once before I thought I knew exactly how I would feel if I were in the same position again. But it's effected me completely differently. For 5 days before the test I was feeling premenstrual. In fact, on the Sunday before the test I woke up feeling really low indeed and I think that I subconsciously knew at that point that it wasn't going to happen. On Wednesday night, we both slept really badly in anticipation of the test. I also slept really badly as I had really bad period pain all night. Early Thursday morning we did the test - a very clear BFN. It just felt like confirmation of what I already knew. My other half went off to work and called me when he got there. I forced back the tears, adamant that I wouldn't cry before going to work. Shortly afterwards I got my period so it left us in no doubt at all. I sent out a stream of text and email messages to close friends and family to let them know. Wanted to get it all out there as quickly as possible. I had told work colleagues that the test was at the weekend so they suspected nothing and I went about the day as usual. It made it much easier pretending that nothing was different. I was feeling weirdly upbeat. I couldn't understand why. I could only put it down to knowing the outcome - very clearly - unlike last time when we were unsure for a few days. It was a relief to know one way or another. That night we went out for dinner and raised a glass to us and our future. My Facebook status was vague but made the situation clear to colleagues. They were kind and sympathetic on Friday. The weekend was really busy and so it was brave faces all round. Sunday we had a lazy day together and then coming back to work on Monday felt like a real anticlimax to the last few months. I felt pretty low all week. Thursday night I cut my finger badly and had to head to A&E. It was a distraction from what was going on and I felt a lot chirpier today. I'm not really very in touch with my emotions. They can sneak up on me. I'm still wondering when I'm actually going to shed any tears over this disappointment. We're now waiting for an appointment with the consultant to discuss the next round and what the process involves when using frozen embryos.

Wednesday 10 October 2012

Symptoms

A couple more symptoms to mention from the 2WW: Constipation! The Cyclogest pessaries kept me VERY regular last cycle but this time I have definitely been a bit constipated instead. Also, on one day during the last week I noticed a very small amount of blood on the loo roll after having a wee. It was odd, more like a very small cluster of red fibres rather than blood. I didn't pay attention to what colour underwear I was wearing that day mind you! Fingers crossed for tomorrow! My gut says that I'm not pregnant but my heart is still hopeful.

Monday 8 October 2012

Day 10 post embryo transfer

So here we are, 10 days in, 3 to go. It's difficult to sum up how I'm feeling. I've been generally feeling really good since the transfer and pretty positive. I haven't had any of the severe cramping and bleeding that I experienced last time. One quite odd symptom that I've had is that a couple of times in the early days after transfer I woke in the night to an intense - almost painful - spontaneous orgasm and a feeling of blood rushing to my pelvic area. Very strange. I put it down to taking the Clexane injections and my blood flow just being better generally. I've just been researching it online and other women have mentioned it - a lot of them who have ended up being pregnant so it would be great if it's a good sign. But I know from experience that reading stuff online isn't necessarily helpful! I've also had very sore boobs since the transfer but put this down to the Cyclogest. I've been feeling quite tired and have had a low level headache most of today. I've been working on positive visualisation and have been picturing one of my embryos snuggling nice and warm into my uterine lining, and a little hand coming out of the lining and holding the embryo gently but firmly in place. Note that I say I'm picturing ONE embryo, not two. One baby would be safer than two and I'm not desperate for a ready made family. My other half has been looking at me very differently this last week or so. He is gooier than usual. He's naturally a glass-half-full type of guy and I know that he is feeling very positive about this time. Yesterday I woke up feeling pretty low. I felt generally pre-menstrual rather than pregnant. A spot on my chin - a sure sign of PMT for me - added to my assumptions. I was feeling very negative about the outcome this time. My hub gave me a card this morning, saying lovely things to reassure me that if it doesn't work out that he is excited about his future with me. I'm very lucky to have such a supportive partner through all of this. I keep thinking about the weekend ahead. Unfortunately we have a very busy weekend planned and so we won't have much time to either celebrate or commiserate. We can do the test on Thursday morning after which we will both have to dash off to work. Thankfully we'll have Thursday evening free to come to terms with/celebrate the result. I'm due to go out with old work colleagues on Friday evening, my hub is working on Saturday morning, we have a wedding on Saturday afternoon evening and then hub is working again on Sunday - he'll be away from home for 2 nights then. If it's a negative result I think I'll be wanting to crawl in a hole again and not talk to anyone. If it's a positive result it's going to amazing! But a shame not to be able to spend more time with together to enjoy it. 3 ... more... days...!

Saturday 29 September 2012

And some to spare :)

Great news at the clinic yesterday. The 4 eggs that fertilised are ALL good quality. They have been graded 2, 2-, 2-, 2-. Anything above a 3 is worth using or freezing. so we had two transferred yesterday and the other two will be frozen. We really couldn't have asked for a much better outcome than that. I wonder whether the DHEA made a difference this time or whether it was just luck on our side. The embryo transfer went well with very little discomfort and we left feeling happy and positive. So now we wait... Test day is Thurday 13th October! The drugs that I'm still taking are Progynova and Cyclogest (both for luteal support), Cefradine (antibiotic following the egg collection), and Clexane injections (an anticoagulant which has been added to my regime as it may help aid blood flow to the area and therefore implantation). I've been suffering a bit with heartburn plus a bit of nausea when I first got up this morning. Side effects of the progynova I think. A small price to pay I guess.

Friday 28 September 2012

A very unexpected series of events

The day of the egg collection (Wednesday 26th) was eventful to say the least. Before leaving for the hospital first thing in the morning, I used the prescribed pain killer suppository diclofenac. It's a long-lasting NSAID that is prescribed to help you through the discomfort of the procedure. I used it last time with no problems at all. During our drive to the hospital, and about 20 mins after taking the diclofenac, the palms of my hands started to itch like crazy and then the soles of my feet as well. Shortly after that I was feeling pretty unwell, getting hot and starting to sweat. As we parked, my vision started to blur and within a few seconds I could barely see anything clearly. I'd lost all my energy and my limbs weren't keen on moving. My husband helped me to the clinic reception and the receptionist rushed to find a nurse for us. By this point I was sweating pretty badly and I've never wanted to lie down so badly in my life. As soon as I lay down the symptoms started to pass. They took my blood pressure which was pretty low (around 80/50 I think), gave me Puriton and said that they would keep an eye on me for a while. A little while later another wave of heat and sweating came over me. As my blood pressure wasn't going up they decided to give me an adrenalin shot in my thigh muscle (ouch!). After that my BP was rising slightly but not enough so they gave me another adrenalin shot. Following that I started to level out a bit and the consultant asked me how I felt about going ahead with the egg collection to which I didn't hesitate to say "YES!". There was no way that I wanted to get this far with the treatment for it to be a waste of time. So ahead we went. As they still wanted to monitor me there was no chance of having the lovely sedative that I had last time. This time it was just gas and air. It really wasn't too bad though, considering how rough I'd been feeling all morning. They got 6 eggs which is one more than last time :) They weren't happy to send me home so I was taken by ambulance to the neighbouring hospital site (during which I threw up) and was admitted to the gynae ward. A lovelynew building with a private room. My BP was monitored every 30 minutes and eventually it started to rise. I felt pretty nauseaous all afternoon and threw up again when the doctor came to see me. The adrenalin started to wear off and I just crashed out. When I woke up I was seriously ready for food - not having eaten anything all day. Dinner stayed down and I started to feel human again. I stayed in overnight and they finally discharged me at 3pm the following day. It was quite an experience and I've been told to avoid all NSAIDs from now on! Apparently allergic reactions sometimes don't appear until the second use. The embryologist called on Thursday morning (27th) to give us the good news that they were able to perform the ICSI on 5 of the 6 eggs and that 4 have fertilised (again, one more than last time) which is great. So despite all the drama things are really moving in the right direction! We have the embryo transfer in a couple of hours and I've been climbing the walls this morning. I think I'm just anxious to hear how the eggs are doing and to get this last procedure over with.

Monday 24 September 2012

Finally getting there

I finally have the date for the egg collection - Wednesday 26th September. It's been a long time coming this round. Things got slightly delayed as my period didn't appear when it shouild have done and with the drug regime being longer this time I feel like I've been on the regime for months and months now. I'm very tired - I think from the buserilin - and am tired for doing the shots (3 each day). My belly is sore and it's hard to find an unused spot! Anyway, we are getting there. I had a scan on Friday and there were 8 good sized follicles. They were all growing at the same pace and were around 12mm at that point. I continued with the injections over the weekend and had another scan today. There are 5 good sized follicles on one ovary (16mm plus) and there are likely to be another 3 on the other ovary - unfortunately we don't know for sure as my right ovary is sometimes really hard to scan and today it just wouldn't come out of hiding. But I'll find out on Wednesday when we finally have the egg collection. Such a relief that the end is in sight. So I've stopped some drugs today (Gonal F and Prednisolone) and I'll be doing the Ovitrelle shot tonight to bring on ovulation. I've also started two courses of antibiotics today (Doxycycline and Cephadrine). My doctor is also putting me on some blood thinning treatment (Clexane and Aspirin). The Clexane starts after the egg collection but I'm starting the Aspirin today. I'm so tired that keeping track of the drug regime is a bit of a challenge! One of my colleagues has just come back to work after adoption leave. She went through a round of IVF prior to adoption and talking to me about it last week got her a bit emotional. Makes me wonder if, whatever the outcome of all this, whether I will ever move on emotionally from it all... Fingers crossed for some good eggs on Wednesday :)

Monday 3 September 2012

Round 2 Underway

Wow, I didn't realise that it had been so long since I last posted! I hope that means that I haven't been dwelling on it all too much. I've certainly been busy and things are calming down work wise now so I have more time to chill out which is lovely. At our drug planning meeting, my husband asked the nurse if there was any other treatment that we could have that might help. It wasn't the first time that he had asked that question of staff at the clinic and we had always had a negative response. Other than the DHEA they haven't recommended anything else previously. However, the nurse at this meeting did mention 2 treatment options that we could try. One is an intralipid infusion - a soya based intravenous infusion - which may or may not help my immune system to accept an embryo. The other is another course of injections (Clexane) and some aspirin to thin my blood and hopefully increase blood flow after embryos are put back. Our funder said they would cover the cost of this too and so we figured, what the hell? Why not?? I don't want to have any regrets that we didn't try something. Anyway, today I had the intralipid infusion and it was fine. It took an hour to "infuse" and other than the discomfort of the IV needle I've had no ill effects. So far this cycle I have taken Norethisterone tablets and have started the Buserilin injections this the last week. When taken together these drugs seem to be OK. Unfortunately I've now stopped the Norethisterone and so I'm now waiting for the side effects of the Buserilin to kick in! I think my husband is a bit nervous as I totally lost it on him yesterday over something completely irrational. Oops. I need to take the Buserilin for at least another two weeks so it could be a shitty time for us all!! We went to our God daughter's christening yesterday which was lovely. She is very lucky and is surrounded by lots of family (4 generations). It's lovely to be part of it. I don't have any grandparents left and I've also lost my Dad. My husband's parents are divorced and my father-in-law is MIA a lot of the time. I have a lot of brothers and sisters in law but unfortunately the vast majority of them are overseas. It's a bit sad to me that any child that we may have won't have much family around them here. Hopefully we'll get visitors :) I'm thinking about getting a tattoo. I don't have any at the moment but I like the idea of having this African symbol on my inside wrist. It means strength and perseverance. I showed my husband and he said "you might want to wait until you come off the meds!" He probably has a point!

Wednesday 20 June 2012

Great news!

We recently heard back about the funding application. As it was means-tested we thought they would consider us "well-off" enough to find the money ourselves, but to our great surprise and delight they have agreed to pay for the next cycle of IVF and if we need another one they will pay for that too! Unbelievable. We feel very lucky indeed. It feels like a weight has been lifted and I didn't realise the impact that the financial side of things might have on stress levels until we found out that it's not a concern anymore. So we've contacted the clinic and have scheduled the egg retrieval for September. We're waiting for a planning visit appointment now. In the meantime the only correspondence that I've had from the clinic is a rather abrupt request for payment of a deposit with the first paragraph noting what the penalty would be if it was late. Lovely. It was very nice to be able to forward it on to someone else to pay! I had bought some DHEA previously and so now that we have a scheduled date I've started taking it. The consultant had recommended taking 75mg per day. The tablets are 25mg. I'm a small person! and I have read some things about negative side effects (hair growth, acne, mood swings) so I've decided to take 50mg a day for now. I haven't noticed any physical side effects. Although I've been reducing my calorie intake to try and loose a few pounds and the weight seems to be coming off pretty easily. I'm wondering if this is due to the DHEA effecting my metabolism. Mentally I seem to be feeling incredibly intolerant of other people's bullshit at the moment! Maybe this is just due to getting older and being very busy and not having time for it, or whether it's due to the DHEA I'm not sure! I'm wondering about increasing the dose to 75mg. I'm going on holiday in a couple of weeks so maybe I will increase it after that. If the DHEA is going to effect my mood I don't want it ruining my much longed for holiday! We are getting a new kitten when we get back from holiday :) He's 4 weeks old at the moment and so adorable! Can't wait to bring him home. He will be a lovely distraction and will no doubt give us a lot of laughs :)

Wednesday 18 April 2012

Back to "normal"

I got my period on Saturday, which is five weeks since the end of the 2 week wait. Good to see everything working normally again. We've decided to wait until we know the outcome of the funding application before we move ahead. It's tough to make a firm decision without knowing all of the implications. The earliest that I will start popping the inital pills for a second round of IVF will be August. Will try to switch off from baby making in the meantime!

Monday 9 April 2012

Tough times

I can't believe that it's been 4 weeks since I last posted. It's been a tough 4 weeks to be honest. We went for the de-brief meeting with the consultant. We didn't learn anything. She basically told us how many eggs had fertilised and how many they had put back, etc. Nothing we didn't already know. We had an opportunity to ask questions and we asked if anything would be done differently next time, to which the answer was no. She said the only thing that she could recommend I do is to take DHEA before the next cycle. This had been recommended before the last cycle but I'd read some things online about mood changes which had put me off. As the doc rightly pointed out, with all the other drugs we need to take, I shouldn't be put off by that. I asked about the cramping that I've experienced and she said that this was all normal - both for unsuccessful cycles and successful cycles. I wish I had known this at the time. The doc said that she has only ever known one couple to be successful on the first round. I think if we had known this in advance we would have been less likely to get our hopes up. When we left I felt really down. I think it was the reality of the treatment cycle being completely over and feeling so out of control of the situation. I felt so blue for a couple of weeks. Interacting with people was really hard and I turned down some social invitations. I've been so tired with regular headaches which tend to come on towards the end of the day. I've had a look online about this and it's clearly normal. The headaches are a result of hormones regulating apparently. Again, I wish the doc had warned me! Basically I've just wanted to sit and rest and eat and feel sorry for myself and not talk to anyone. More recently I seem to be very anxious and not sleeping as soundly as usual. I sometimes get heart palpitations when I'm stressed or have had stimulants (caffeine, alcohol, spicy food) and I've been suffering with them daily recently despite cutting out caffeine and rarely drinking. Generally, I am feeling much better though. I've got my energy back and can begin to imagine starting another cycle. I'll be busy with photography work through the summer and so we'll probably give it another go in Aug/Sep. I've ordered some DHEA - it's a natural substance that can help produce more and better quality eggs which, in turn, can decrease the chance of miscarriage. We'll see how it goes. You're supposed to take it for a few months before treatment. I haven't had a period yet. Which is fine by me! Nice to be carrying on without any female issues for a while! I got chatting to an old colleague recently. She had sent me a lovely email following the IVF failure. She had a miscarriage a year or so ago and she told me that she had another miscarriage a few months ago, this time with twins. We saw each other at a work reunion and had a good catch up. Although our situations are different, we are going through very similar experiences and emotions. It was good to talk. We both agreed that we didn't know which of our situations was worse.

Tuesday 13 March 2012

Deflated

I was really buzzing on Friday. I really did allow myself to have hope. We went away for the weekend with friends that evening and I was a good girl and stayed sober amongst the drunkards. Saturday morning I woke up early and did two tests. They were both clearly negative. It was really disappointing but as we were with friends and celebrating a birthday we were forced to put on a brave face. We decided to give it another day and test again on Sunday morning. It was another negative. That's the last time I use a Clear Blue test! It really gave us false hope. We were home by early afternoon on Sunday and we both quickly slipped into a funk. The rollercoaster of the last two weeks has been so tiring and draining. We were both very low again yesterday and struggling to smile today. We had quite a few people to inform of the outcome, and although that's been hard to do we have had some really lovely supportive messages. We are really lucky to have such great people around us. We have an appointment to meet with a consultant at the clinic for a de-brief next week. Disappointingly it's with a consultant that we haven't been that happy with in the past. She hasn't treated me personally and she doesn't seem well informed of my case so when we see her it feels like box ticking. We have questions that we want clear answers to so that we can decide what to do next. One positive thing is that we are aware of a charity that has funding for medical treatment which my husband can access through an organisation that he is part of, and so we are starting to apply for funding to cover another round of IVF. The thought of going through this all again at the moment is tough. I've stopped taking the hormones which have been supporting my womb lining so I'm waiting for my period to start properly. So far it's just been heavy spotting. During the night last night I had another bout of severe cramping. I'm so ready for this cyle to be completely finished now.

Friday 9 March 2012

Very hopeful!

Test day today! I'm such an idiot - I got up in the night to pee, convinced that it was around 2am, and when I got back to bed realised that it was 6am! I wasted that precious early sample!! Today of all days. I'm kicking myself. We did two tests and one of them had the faintest of faint postive result...! Aaarrgh. Going crazy now. The clinic say it sounds good, that we should try not to get our hopes up too much and test again tomorrow. So we have to wait a whole 24 hours again. Trying not to get tooo excited but finding it a bit impossible! I was reading some of my old blogs last night and found one talking about the psychic that I saw in Vegas. She had seen three pregnancies (3 fertilised eggs?) before I turn 38 (in June this year) and a baby girl. OMG. Could this be it???????

Thursday 8 March 2012

Drained

When I got home from work last night, my husband started asking me if we should do a pregnancy test. We were advised to wait until Friday (9th) but we were desperately trying to find a way around that! We talked it through and after googling we decided that if we got a positive result then we could be 99% sure it is correct as the HCG injection that I did on 20th Feb should we out of my system by now. And we decided that if it was a negative result that it could just be because it was too early and therefore there was still hope. So we did a test and it was negative. My heart sank and the more I thought about it the more hope I lost and the tearier I became. But my other half is right, it was early to be testing. There is still hope. Then at around 2am this morning, I had some severe cramping again. It lasted about 45 minutes I think. I took paracetamol after about 20 mins and eventually it wore off. It felt like someone was wringing out my uterus! Today I've had no bleeding but have felt kind of sore. Not surprising really. What the hell is going on? I feel so physically and emotionally drained from all of this. Both of us just want this cycle of treatment to be over one way or another. I can't believe how much worse this two-week-wait has been compared to those when I had IUI. I think it's mostly down to the cramping and bleeding which has sent me googling and playing out every possible scenario in my head... Everyone in our lives who knows about the IVF is wishing us well which is lovely. Finally I feel that most of the important people in our lives can talk to us about it with relative ease. But on the down side, we may have to disappoint them all tomorrow. We're going away with friends tomorrow night and my husband thinks that if we get a negative result that perhaps I should continue avoiding alcohol for a few more days just to be sure. So, go away with friends on the day that I've got a negative result and stay sober while everyone is drinking as if I was pregnant? Yeah right! No chance.

Sunday 4 March 2012

One week in, one week to go...

So, we're one week in to the two week wait. Well 9 days actually, 5 to go! It's been a stressful time. Overnight, between day 4 and 5, I had some really strong cramps. Like bad period pain. It lasted a little while and then went off. But I lay awake for a while, terrified to get up and see if I was bleeding. When I did eventually get up, nothing. Then first thing on the morning of day 7 (Friday), I had some bleeding. I was convinced that I was getting my period really early and that it was game over. I walked into work fighting back the tears and was in a mild state of panic all morning. Wondering what the hell is wrong with me that my body is already rejecting when my period isn't due for another 5 days. The bleeding didn't last long. It changed to spotting and had stopped by lunchtime. I texted with my sisterinlaw, who said that she had some cramping before she knew that she was pregnant. I read article after article on the internet but couldn't get a consistent answer about whether what I experienced was implantation bleeding or something to worry about. My husband and I were climbing the walls so we decided to keep ourselves busy over the weekend. On Friday night we went out of dinner - no wine for me and I googled seafood during pregnancy to see what I could order! Then we went to a movie. On Saturday morning, I felt heaviness exactly like when I'm about to get my period. I was completely anticipating it happening and tried to accept it. I met friends for coffee and then did a bit of shopping. While shopping I started bleeding again. I really thought that this was it, end of the road. My husband met me at home, and the bleeding had stopped again! We both shed some stressed out tears and I called the doctor. Thankfully he said that this doesn't mean it hasn't worked. If I bleed as much as a regular period then it will be a bad sign, but otherwise we should wait and keep everything crossed. Later that evening, I was reading the side effects of one of the hormone supplements that I'm taking (Progynova). And what do you know, one of the side effects is bleedng and spotting! Why the hell didn't I read that earlier!! So it's been an emotional rollercoaster of a week to say the least! I still have hope. Now I'm wondering whether I'll get to Friday and be able to take the test or whether Aunt Flo will beat me to it...

Thursday 23 February 2012

Exciting times and sad times

So I continued with the injections and coped really well with them. No major side effects at all, just a bit tired. And then I had a scan on the 17th Feb. I had several follicles at that stage but only one was large enough so I continued with the injections over the weekend and had another scan on the 20th. On the 20th, I had 7 good sized follicles and so started 2 lots of antibiotics in preparation for the procedure and was scheduled for the egg retrieval on the 22nd. I was amazed at how fine the egg retrieval was. The staff in the clinic were really lovely and it was as pleasant as it could have been. As soon as I was on the bed they gave be an IV sedative and it felt great :) I wasn't really that aware of what was going on after that. The local anasthetic injection went by unnoticed. The only real discomfort was when they were accessing some of the follicles on my right ovary, which is quite buried. But it was just a bit uncomfortable, not painful. I came around from the sedative reasonably quickly and we met with the embryologist before we went home. She confimred that there were 5 eggs and she asked us whether we wanted to go with standard IVF (putting the sperm in the vicinity of the eggs and leaving them to fertilise) or ICSI (injecting the sperm into the eggs). As we have had four unsuccessful rounds of IUI it made sense to go for ICSI. We want to give this the best chance possible and if there is any chance that our eggs and sperm aren't working together then we don't want to waste this opportunity. And the NHS are happy to cover the extra expenses of the ICSI for this round. We headed home within a couple of hours of the procedure and I was very dozy and sleepy for the rest of the day. The pain killers wore off a bit by the end of the day, leaving me feeling like I'd been kicked in the stomach. But I've woken up this morning with very little pain and just a bit of bloating. The anticipation of the event was definitely worse than the reality. I just got the call from the clinic this morning to say that they managed to inject 4 of the eggs and that 3 of them have fertilised which is a great outcome! Our clinic will only put a maximum of 2 eggs back in and so they will pick the best 2 and they will probably be putting them back in tomorrow. And then we wait... In the meantime, I'm still on a stack of drugs - conitnuing with one of the antibiotics, paracetamol for the remaining post-procedure pain, and a progesterone pessary and an estrogen tablet which will continue until we know the outcome and possibly longer if I am pregnant. Having literally just written this, I popped upstairs to go to the loo and came back downstairs to find that one of my cats has passed away. He was recently diagnosed with heart disease and, although on medication, hasn't been looking very well these last few days. It happened very quickly and so we can only assume that he had a heart attack. It's so upsetting, he was a really lovely, beautiful cat. Truly my buddy. We were expecting him to continue for a while with the medication. I'm glad that we knew about the heart problems, which were discovered as apart of his annual check up, as otherwise it would have been a horrible shock. We'd had such good news this morning and this just emphasises again the fragility of life. No matter what the outcome of this treatment, I am truly thankful for the people (and animals) already in my life.

Friday 10 February 2012

IVF underway

I'm feeling less of a need to blog which I guess is a good sign. I'm not really thinking about all this as much as I used to. I'm feeling positive about the treatment and happy to be cracking on with it. Life is less hectic and stressful lately than it was been over the last year. All is good. I had a pre-op assessment at the clinic a little while ago. They talked me through what will happen when I go in for the egg retrieval. The nurse was very honest about the fact that the local anisthetic injection in my cervix will hurt - "all the ladies say so". Thanks then! I could have coped with not knowing. It doesn't sound like it's going to be a pleasant experience but hey, I'm sure I can deal! I had a second round of the Norethisterone tablets at the end of January and have now started on the injections. One Buserilin shot and two Gonal-F shots each day, plus two steroid pills each day. So far so good. I'm not bothered about giving myself the shots anymore. And at the moment I'm not feeling any negative effects. I'm really hoping that I don't put on too much weight as I've been working out regularly since Christmas and don't want to see all my hard work disappearing! The shots and steroids continue until the 16th and then I go in for a scan. If I'm ready the egg retrieval will go ahead on the 20th.

Foggy

That's how I'm feeling. Foggy.
I've had two rounds of injections now. Not something I'd choose to do for fun, but it's bearable. My other half is doing his bit by flicking the injection spot before I stab it to try and reduce the pain. I'm currently injecting Buserilin and Puregon. They are making me drowsy and disconnected. I think it's the Buserilin. I'm hoping that I'll adjust to it because I can't quite imagine feeling like this for 9 days! I have work to do and am finding it hard to keep my eyes open and focus. I haven't noticed any other side effects as yet. Watch this space!

Monday 2 January 2012

IVF Round 1

A fair bit has happened since I last posted. We met with a new nurse at the clinic to discuss my treatment to date and IVF. He was great - a good listener, very clear and gave us all the time we needed which was very refreshing! I now feel confident that I have had all the tests done that are worthwhile and accept that IVF is the logical next step. I received all of the drugs for the first round of IVF - overwhelming!
There are 10 different drugs which include pain killers and antibiotics for the egg retrieval procedure. Some of it needs to be refrigerated - it's taking up half the fridge. We went away over Christmas and then on 29th Dec I started the first drug (Norethisterone) which I guess it what stops my natural cycle. I have to take it 3 times a day for a week. I initially felt very drowsy on it but that seems to have passed. I can't help thinking that there is a small chance that I'm pregnant. I did an early pregnancy test before starting the drug but it was really much too early to be able to register a positive result. I can't help wondering about it though and what effect this drug might have if I am. We have an appointment with the clinic tomorrow to update blood tests and swabs. And then another appointment on Wednesday to plan the rest of the treatment. We're expecting the egg retrieval to happen around 20th February.