What now?

Well I was right. This cycle didn’t work. It was a heartbreaking realisation. By the time we did our blood test on Saturday I was so positive that it didn’t work that I convinced Hubby to go to coffee after they had taken blood.

Meanwhile the woman who called me back to confirm the bad news probably shouldn’t be making bad news calls. It was completely awkward and if I had have been in a different place, i.e. no bad symptoms and still full of hope I don’t know how the phone call would have gone. I told them I wanted a month off for my body to recover. She even said weird things like ‘generally we find that younger women like yourself find more success with frozen cycles’ umm then why did we ever try a fresh transfer? Don’t say stupid crap like that to women hyped up on hormones who you have just told that a $10k IVF cycle resulted in nothing. Then she said some other stuff and ended with, ‘okay well we will hear from you when you want to proceed with treatment again, if you do want to contact us ever again’ err… what? What a weird ass thing to say. Sweetie, you people have my frosty babe… I am coming back for them.

If the FET transfer doesn’t work, or they come back and say that the testing showed it wasn’t a good quality embryo I think we will look at going somewhere else. I have done some research and it looks as though Primary IVF might be pretty decent, it is practically next to Genea and they bulk bill so the pricing is ridiculously cheaper. We could do more than 10 full IVF cycles on what it costs us to do one at Genea. I have talked to a few women who have gone there (IVF support group via Facebook) and they all love the place. If anyone reading this has been I would love to hear your feedback. Unfortunately they are apparently really strict on BMI so we might not be accepted by them.

The grieving process for this was really bad. It happened the first night I started bleeding. My husband had never seen me like that and had no idea what to do. I blame those freaking hormones. I literally had no control over my emotions and I completely lost the ability to rationalise anything. I was a CRAZY lady. I think it was quite therapeutic though. I am not a huge crier and don’t remember the last time I had a really good cry. Afterwards I was completely exhausted and in pieces, but I felt this wonderful calm and I slept like a baby.

It has made me realise I need to slow the hell down. Infertility is bullshit and as much as we march on with the grit and determination of an Amazon really a piece of us dies inside with every negative pregnancy test, every purchase of tampons and every pregnancy announcement from others who have seemingly blessed lives.

We are not stopping trying this month, but we are not doing a transfer. A month of no sex was torture and I am not going into another month of that straight up. No sex plus a tonne of crazy lady hormones made for a very challenging month and we just want to get back to chilling and being with each other. I have organised for two weeks off in June and Hubby is taking the whole month off. We have to/want to get our landscaping done. That will be a fantastic achievement!

There is a lot going on in my head at the moment. We are just so very busy.

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All over red rover?

I am mostly over my flu/virus thing, but still tired a great amount of the time. I am also hungry a lot. I have been making an effort to cook proper dinners and have better foods at work which is always a good thing.

Over share time.

This morning I woke up to some bleeding. Not a lot. Pinkish. I haven’t had anymore since this morning. If it is AF then that bitch is early, like, a lot early… 5 days. I don’t think I have ever got AF early in my life. Now is not a good time to start.

The clinic happened to call this morning to see how I was dealing with the waiting period, it was the lovely UK nurse. I let her know about the bleeding and that the symptoms that I have been having seem to have dissipated. She said that it didn’t necessarily mean that the cycle had failed and this sort of thing did happen commonly. She then suggested I come in Saturday morning and have my beta test instead of waiting for Monday. I jumped at the chance because it means that I am not going to get the news in the middle of my work day on Monday which works SO much better for me.

Everything started so well, but I just have this feeling that this one hasn’t worked. I am waiting for this realisation to really hit home. I am guessing that will be about .25 seconds after I get home tonight.

I know that the cycle technically isn’t a complete write off yet, but sometimes you just know these things about your body right? Something doesn’t feel right about it. To be honest if it were 5 days from now I would assume I was getting AF.

Feeling a little sad panda, but positive Polly will find her way back I am sure.

I would love to hear about your experiences. Was your first transfer successful?

To test or not to test?

Trying not to test. Hubby really wants me to. He wants to know so much. It’s been a long time since I have seen him so excited about something.

Honestly I am somewhat scared of testing. I have never had a positive result on a preg test and I desperately want to see those stripes. It’s not like I haven’t earned them right? ☺ In saying that I don’t want the results of the blood test a week from now to be a surprise because I will get them at work and either result is probably going to end in a cry fest lol.

I did have to take a tiny amount of the ovidrel last Thursday. Honestly I have no clue how long after transfer you can test without the trigger affecting it. I would hate to test and get a positive then be gutted in a weeks time.

Over share time… let’s talk symptoms. Obviously I have been symptom spotting. I had some slight cramping Thursday and Friday, Saturday I had very weird nausea, all of a sudden I felt ill and quite sure I was going to be sick, but I didn’t have the whole saliva filling the mouth part. Then after some breathing of fresh air it passed. Saturday night I got incredibly sensitive nipples, this has gone over into today (Sunday), they almost feel bruised, very odd. I have also had some lower back pain today. I have no idea if any of this means anything. I’d love to hope it does, but who knows.

How long after transfer did you guys wait to test?

Transfer day

Well, good news. Embie is on board. Procedure went well. When we got in there the embryo had actually started hatching which was really cool to see. The first transfer attempt the embryo actually stuck to the catheter. The second attempt it went in. The doc and scientist said it was a sticky and stubborn embryo. I bet they say that to all the girls.

We also got a sibling to PGD test and freeze. Unfortunately the others didn’t develop the way they would like.

So I guess that means that I am currently PUPO haha waited a long time to use that term lol.

The procedure was Wednesday abs today’s Friday. I apologise for the lack of update, but I have had some net issues and I woke up with a flu like virus Thursday.

The virus is freaking me out. I am worried it could affect the bubs.

I have had some cramping today which I am hoping are signs of implantation. Fingers are crossed.

I had a dream yesterday that we had a perfect little man. However Channing Tatum was in it too so I doubt it is prophetic by any means ☺

We get the blood test on the 23rd May. So many things crossed, many prayers said. Don’t honestly know if I will make it all the way before peeing on a stick haha. Do any of us though? ☺

Day 3 news

So it seems we are traveling well with our little embies. We got a call from the scientist yesterday, sorry for the late report, yesterday was madness all round.

Anyways, let’s get on to what you really want to hear about. We had 6 fertilise and on day 3 none of them had ceased development.

At 8:20am on day 3 we had 1 which has 8 cells, 3 which have 6 cells, 1 with 5 cells and 1 with 4 cells.

So there are 4 at the stage they would want on day three which is 6+ cells. In saying that I am not giving up on the others either because not all of the eggs would have fertilised at the same point in time over the 24 hours they were exposed.

So it looks like we are all set for a 5 day transfer tomorrow. 

I am feeling very excited and grateful at this point.

Egg collection & fertilisation

Egg collection went well. I was hella nervous, but managed to keep myself together for half of the procedure. I felt like he could have been a bit more gentle, but then obviously I was a lot more tender than I would normally be so maybe he was.

The first half was okay. The general anesthetic hurt, but a needle inside your lady parts is always going to smart a little. That was all pretty text book and my meditation breathing was calming me down. Then he put the anesthetic in the left side and it hurt like hell. I managed to keep my pelvis still, but my back arched off the bed. The doc said ‘oops, sorry, I’m sorry’ so I think something happened there.

That pain broke the emotional barrier though and I was suddenly overwhelmed by what we were doing and the silent tears just started falling. Next thing I know the lovely English nurse is by my side chatting to me and rubbing my arm and giving me tissues. Totally love her!

Onto the good news… numbers. We got 9 eggs. I was personally hoping for 11 because I was going by the 50% drop off rate for each stage and had thought that would be a great starting number. 9 is great though… plus in the end it only takes 1 right? ! ☺

Further to this news is the call I got not long ago to say that they put the eggs and sperm in together and overnight 6 eggs fertilised. Got of the phone and burst into tears. I was so happy. The last time I was this elated we were getting married.

For the first time in my life I have embryos. Not one… six!!! That’s such a good number and way more than I was hoping for.

I do understand that not all of then will make it to day 5, I am being realistic with this, but after 4.5 years of trying for a child the knowledge that we are on day 1 with 6 embryos is amazing!

Originally we were going to test all embryos and do a frozen cycle transfer next month. However, the specialist and the scientist convinced us that because we are healthy and young and there is absolutely no history of any abnormalities in our families if we get a 5 day embryo of good quality we will do a transfer this cycle. That decision is exciting and surprising. Now I just have to keep sending my embies strong growth vibes. Come on kids! ☺

Trigger time

I went back for more bloods and an ultrasound yesterday. Had some follicles in the 18mm range and a bunch around 14, 15 and 16. Lefty was an over achiever with 14 follicles.

Low and behold I get a phone call telling me that I need to stay up until 1am Thursday morning and trigger for harvesting on Friday.

It’s now Thursday night and I can’t stop thinking about the fact that tomorrow hopefully we are creating an embryo. With any luck in 5 days we will have a couple of frosties that I will one day give birth to.

That is an amazing concept to me. I tried to explain this to Hubby, but he didn’t really get it. His response was pretty much that it was all science. Sigh… men.

Whilst I am very excited I am a bit apprehensive about the procedure and also scared that they will not get enough eggs, or something will be wrong with them, or the fertilised ones won’t make it to day 5 and be good enough.

So much to be worried about and basically none of it is in my control.

If you have time to spare a thought for me tomorrow I would truly appreciate it.

We are starting IVF

Well it has taken over 4 years, but we are finally starting the IVF process. Last Tuesday morning I had the blood tests. They called me Tuesday afternoon and said that if I could get there to pick up my meds then I could start that same night. So I have been having injections ever since, I am on Gonal F 225 per day.

I was really worried about the injections basically because I do not enjoy needles, but thanks to a tip I picked up from My Brain’s Escape I have iced the area each night and have pretty much not felt the needles at all which is awesome.

The second blood test was on Friday and they said my levels all looked good and asked me to go in for an ultrasound and blood tests this morning. So I pack myself off before 7am this morning and get my ultrasound, apparently my specialists office did not make an appointment for me, but luckily they could fit me in. There was another lady from my doctors there and she hadn’t booked her in either. We got to talking and she mentioned that this is her 3rd attempt at IVF, I felt awful for her and wished her good luck. Then prayed that we would not have to do so many attempts.

I know that previously when we have been trying other things I have tried not to get my hopes up too high, but let’s face it, IVF was our hail Mary pass so I am hoping away 🙂

I’ll have to wait I think to get final numbers from the nurses this afternoon, from memory my lining was 5-7mm (on day 7 of cycle), I had 10 follicles producing on the right ovary largest of which was 16, there were a couple of 13’s and some 11’s, 10’s and a 9, I had 11 follicles producing on the left ovary, again the biggest was 16 and there were some 14’s and 13’s as well as some 11’s and 10’s. I guess it is early days, but are those numbers good? From memory of what I have read of others posts I think they are okay numbers. The tech wasn’t overly talky so I am kind of in the dark.

Fingers crossed everything is looking awesome. So nervous man I feel like I am going for a job interview every time I go in.

I think I am getting some weird side effects from this stuff too; I pretty much always have a low grade headache which has shortened my patience. T thinks it’s funny because he thinks my swearing is hilarious, if I swear when I get really frustrated some really random stuff comes out. His favourites so far include; ‘monkey ball hair’, ‘koala’s armpit’ and ‘vagina cakes’… I don’t know where this stuff comes from.

I also feel like I am coming down with something, but I have felt this way since the 3 day of needles, I am so very tired most of the time, sometimes nauseous, but mostly ravenous, I also get hold and cold flushes.

Would love to hear any advice on whether those are good numbers and also what (if any) side effects you got.