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.

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.

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...!

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.

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.

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 :)

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!