New Life

My goodness life has changed. It has been a LONG time since I wrote here. Not because I didn’t want to. Life just got very crazy and my focus shifted drastically during this time.

Health journey wise I lost 48kgs and travelled overseas and was living my very best life. Every kg I lost was hard worked for. There were many reasons I wanted to undertake this health journey. One of these was to give us the very best chance of having a child. We had 4 embryos frozen and the plan was to wait until we felt my body was in the best shape (and we had saved enough) and then go back in for IVF again.

Well….. long story short… we found out last October that I was pregnant… suprise!!!

Much joy, worry, excitement, fear, etc. ensued. What can I say after 8 years of infertility and then being pregnant in the middle of a pandemic I was a barrel of emotions hahaha.

Little Miss C came into the world in May and she is perfect. I couldn’t believe it. So many joyful tears you guys. We had some initial issues with feeding which is a story I will save for another day, but generally she has just been a joy. She surprises us everyday and I still can’t believe how lucky we are.

I have missed writing here and now as I continue on my life journey as a Mum, wife, health and knowledge seeker I really wanted to get back here.

Can’t wait to share and to catch up with you all!!!

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6 year anniversary of TTC is looming

So the IUI was a bust. Unfortunately as AF was 4 days late my hopes had grown super high. I didn’t POAS because I really wanted that hope to last for a little bit longer. I started bleeding the afternoon before my bloods were done. I let the nurse know and said I was confused because I was extremely regular and I it was very weird for me to be more than one day off. Only to be told that Pregnyl can make AF late. *SIGH* I really wish they would tell you this stuff when they give you the medications. So I thought I would share it with you all so you may avoid being caught unawares…

So far I have learned that Pregnyl and progesterone (anything) can/will delay AF. Obviously everyone’s body is different, we may not all react the same… yadda, yadda, yadda 🙂

As we come up to the 6 year anniversary of TTC in a couple of months I find myself questioning everything. Currently I have been TTC for 70 months, 70 failed cycles. That’s such a burden you guys. One of the most natural things my body should be doing and it won’t. I’ve never even had a BFP. I know people who have had 3 children in the time I have been trying to fall pregnant once!

Here are some of the things I am questioning:

Should I be looking at a different job which is less hours and stress so I can focus more on a health journey? Could I do a secondment at work or ask to go part time in my role for 6 months or longer? But all my pay goes towards an IVF fund which keeps us moving foward and I don’t really know if I could afford a pay cut.

I know in myself I could do amazingly well in this industry. I have been the library industry version of head hunted quite a few times and I am a hard worker who isn’t afraid of change or leaping outside the box. But any amount of success in this industry would not mean much to me if it meant foregoing the opportunity to be a Mum.

 

Recently I have asked myself a very important question…

Would I be willing to basically blow up my life if it meant we could have children?

The answer is yes.

 

Is this something I need to do? I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t know.

 

What could this look like?

• I have had doctors talk to me before about weight reduction surgery. I have never really considered it because it just didn’t feel right and I have met quite a few people for whom this wasn’t really a long term solution and they have had to have it redone down the track. During this cycle a nurse who has had it done at the FS office chatted to me about it. I asked her about the fact that we would not be able to do IVF during this time and she said we would still be able to make embryos and bank them, but that generally they will not allow us to transfer them for a year post surgery. I am very much in two minds about this, but will raise it with my FS on Thursday when we see her.
• Leave my job or ask for reduced hours to concentrate on a health journey. This is something I have thought about quite seriously. It makes me really sad because I really love a lot of the people I work with. I would really rather not leave, but I don’t know that my job could be done in less hours. Part of me feels that something drastic like this has to happen though. I have a very sedentary life in this job and there are not a lot of ways to fix that.
  If I get the surgery discussed above I will likely have to have quite some time off anyway so who knows.
• Completely retrain for another industry. This is something I have also thought about quite seriously. In particular I have thought about going back to uni and becoming a nutritionist that specialises in PCOS, IR and Diabetes. I have looked and have found it very hard to find specialists anywhere near me. I have also thought about going back to uni and becoming an specialist in the area of Autism. My nephew has Autism and I know a few other children who are on the spectrum too and there is a lot of talk by specialists of all the restrictions children on the spectrum will have. I would love to be a specialist who works closely with children with Autism to help them work through their own individual difficulties and overcome obstacles as well as develop techniques to help them navigate everyday life. Every single person is different, having Autism doesn’t change that, everyone is a snowflake and you need to treat them as such.
  Both of these options would include more work, stress and sedentary behaviour whilst I become qualified and established so I don’t know how realistic these choices are.

 

Has anyone out there blown up their life for this? Would love to hear your stories. Advise is also COMPLETELY welcome! I would love some!!!

 

 

Ovulation Induction

What is ovulation induction (OI)? It’s a form of fertility treatment that is reasonably non-invasive where you are stimulated to produce one to two mature eggs then given a trigger to release them. You then have timed intercourse (because we all love the scheduled sex amiright?!). I would probably consider this as the next step up from a clomid cycle where you are just given some tablets then told to do it like rabbits. Clomid cycles are also considered OI treatments.

This treatment is generally considered suitable for women who like me have no real great reason for not falling pregnant naturally, those who have low hormone levels or are not ovulating on their own, but have normal tubes and a partner with a normal sperm result.

So what happens?

Well for us this has been our plan:

Day of cycle	What happened
Day 1 11 Aug	Call nurses to advise AF has arrived
Day 2 12 Aug
Day 3 13 Aug
Day 4 14 Aug	50 Gonal F
Day 5 15 Aug	50 Gonal F
Day 6 16 Aug	50 Gonal F
Day 7 17 Aug	50 Gonal F
Day 8 18 Aug	Blood test Result: change to 62.5 Gonal F
Day 9 19 Aug	62.5 Gonal F
Day 10 20 Aug	62.5 Gonal F
Day 11 21 Aug	62.5 Gonal F
Day 12 22 Aug	Vaginal scan and blood tests Result: starting to O, have sex
Day 13 23 Aug	Pregnyl trigger 8.30am Have sex
Day 14 24 Aug	Have sex
Day 15 25 Aug
Day 16 26 Aug
Day 17 27 Aug	Pregnyl again 8.30am to support
Day 18 28 Aug	Blood test

Then we are in that waiting period that all of us fertility challenged community know and love.

I decided to share our plan because a while ago Hubby and I tried to look at what this was and there were not a lot of people putting this information out there so I figured why not help 🙂

Breakthrough!

Do you ever feel like you are bashing against an endless wall of incompetent medical babble desperate for some real help?

Yup, just like this! Source: http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/banging-head

I have felt like this for at least a year. Hubby and I have been trying for a baby since NYE 2011; about 20 months ago I convinced him that we needed to seek further help. It has taken than long and a barrage of tests, most of them blood tests, checking a whole range of stuff and several different doctors for me to finally find one that listened to me.

I went to this new Doctor a couple of weeks ago and told him straight, “we can’t conceive, please help us” we:

• Stopped using birth control immediately
• Have been eating well
• Well “I” have been taking pre-pregnancy vitamins
• Haven’t been drinking and neither of us do drugs
• Have figured out my cycle
• Avoid the positions where semen is not encouraged to travel towards the uterus
• Have had Hubster checked out
• Have been exercising
• Have not killed the million people who told us to relax

Here are the conception techniques we have tried:

• Charting body temperature
• Sperm meets egg
• Mucus investigation
• “Laying low” after sex
• Combination of all of the above

Sperm meets Egg

In spite of all of this I am still not pregnant and have been putting on weight pretty steadily.

He took me really seriously, he believed me when I said that I didn’t seem to be able to get my weight in check (we are talking about a lot of weight guys!) even though I am exercising for around an hour every second day! He immediately sent me for bloods (AGAIN), but this time he was checking EVERYTHING – this was something I had asked other Doctors for several times, but apparently they didn’t actually do it. I also demanded a referral to a Gyno who specialises in fertility issues and he gave me that, I see her this Friday.

I went back for the results of my bloods yesterday and he informed me that I did not have PCOS (quite relieved), but my insulin level was scary high and I had to go on medication immediately. I mean seriously scary high you guys, people are supposed to max out at 10… I am freaking 57!!! [He was also pretty unimpressed that when I had gone to see Dr. Evil a little while back he had not put me on medication immediately – more evidence of his large douche factor!]

He explained Insulin resistance to me and all of the symptoms I have been suffering for many months are on the list;

• Intestinal bloating
• Fatigue
• Increased appetite
• Inability to focus
• Weight gain, difficulty losing weight
• Increased blood pressure – this is only very recently
• Depression

He immediately put me on Metformin 500mgs, this should not only help with the Insulin resistance which in turn will help with weight loss, but it should also aid conception.

I certainly feel like the other docs over the last 18 months have seriously wasted my time and health. If they had have been as thorough as I asked them to 10kgs ago I wouldn’t be in such a scary position now!!!

But I can see some sunlight slipping through the clouds at last 🙂