Phase 1 complete (I think!)

For the last 21 days I have been injecting myself every morning with 0.5ml Buserelin in order to ‘down regulate’ myself. This morning I had my first scan at the fertility clinic to check that this first drug has done its job.

As I sat in the waiting room, I couldn’t help but try and guess the circumstances of the couples around me. Was this their first time, like me, or have they gone through this process several times? What stage in their treatment were they? How many have had success? It’s a funny place to be, sitting in a room surrounded with by people who are undoubtedly filled with the same mixture of anxiety and hope that I feel every day at the moment.

Once my name was called out, I was led to a long corridor which had a huge number of ‘scanning rooms’ along it. It made me feel like I was on an IVF conveyer belt! The nurse was very pleasent and, although having an internal scan isn’t the most delightful thing to have, she kept my dignity intact. She asked me a few questions about my period and any side effects that i’d had (none really – it would appear i’m one of the lucky ones) then she got her ‘wand’ out and started the scan. The idea of this scan is to check that my womb lining is thin and that my ovaries are ‘shut down’. Within a few seconds of it starting, the nurse had a confused look on her face. She asked me if I was still bleeding (I’m not). Apparently there is a collection of fluid in my uterus which shouldn’t be there. She said not to worry for now and then moved onto looking at my ovaries. There were several small follicles in each ovary but no dominant ones so that is good news and the nurse confirmed that I had down regulated. She disappeared off to chat to a consultant as I got dressed and when she came back she confirmed that there is nothing to worry about re. the fluid in my uterus. The consultant suspects it’s just a little remaining blood left over from my period and that it will disappear on its own. Let’s hope so!

I was given a lesson on injecting Menopur and have to start that tomorrow night on a dose of 150ui and I have to continue with my Buserelin injections in the mornings but reduce it to 0.25ml.

So that’s where we are folks. I’m pleased to be moving onto the next phase of treatment but a little nervous about the fluid in my uterus. Funnily enough, this afternoon I had a bit of spotting so am really hoping that the consultant was right and it was just some left over blood from my period.

Is there anyone else out there who has had a similar experience? What did it turn out to be for you? Any advice or personal expereinces from anyone else who has gone through IVF (or is going through it now), it would be great to hear from you.

I’m ready for my telling off!

It’s official, I’m a rubbish blogger. It has been soooo long since I’ve written – there is absolutely no excuse. Yes, I’ve been busy, but I still should have written some blogs. So this means that there’s loads I have to get down on here as lots has happened since my last blog post. Here we go…

5th – 16th April – We were on holiday (Las Vegas, LA & San Francisco). One word… AMAZING!
Whilst we were away though I got a call from the fertility clinic saying that the donor that we had been matched with could no longer be used. There was some problem with the sperm and it hadn’t passed the tests after it came out of quarantine. But alas, all was not lost – there was another donor that we could use and one that actually is a better match than the previous one! It’s a stroke of luck that we have managed to get another one straight away as it could have delayed our treatment.

The details of this new donor are:

• Height = 5’10″ (perfect)
• Weight = 10 and a half stone (ok)
• Hair = dark brown (perfect)
• Eyes = hazel (prefect)
• Career = a research scientist (interesting)
• Interests = sport and music (perfect)
• Other = is a qualified stone mason (not a DIY dunce then!)

My period came on 5th so I let them know and was told the drugs would be sent to me when we got back from holiday. As for my husband, we were so lucky with his crohn’s. He was quite bad before the holiday but fortunately whilst we were away, he was reasonably well – at least enough to not let it spoil his trip.

23rd April – I went in hospital for a sinus op. Not a particularly pleasant experience but not as bad as I thought it was going to be.

25th April – I started injecting the first drug (Buserelin). I can’t quite believe that I’ve finally started treatment. I was quite excited about the prospect of sticking myself with a needle!!

And that takes us up to today. That was a whistle stop tour of the last few weeks but at least it’s all down on here now and I promise to write regularly from now on. I really want to keep a record of our IVF journey (and everything else that goes on).

Bye for now!

This could really be happening!

Yesterday was our consent consultation. I wasn’t really sure what to expect, especially now that we have the issue of needing to find a donor. As it turns out, it was a meeting of mixed emotions.

The nurse went straight in with lots of questions and then started throwing dates at us in terms of starting the IVF cycle. My husband and I were obviously a bit confused as we didn’t even have a donor so how could we be talking about a date to start when we don’t have sperm! It became apparent that the nurse was assuming we had accepted a donor that had been mentioned to me earlier in the week when I’d called the clinic to confirm we wanted to go ahead. Errr… wrong! How can we accept a donor when we have no idea how close a match it is to my husband?! Things got a bit heated, with my husband understandably getting irate with the nurse. This is, after all, a very emotive situation to be in and having someone make us feel like we’re just doing something regular like ordering a pizza rather than something as major as choosing the genetic material that will contribute to our future children, doesn’t really help!

Anyway, to cut a long story short, it turns out that there are 2 donors that are soon to be available. One of which is no where near what we are looking for and the other a much closer match. After some ‘umming and ahhing’ (and with the realisation that the next available donor could be a minimum of 9 months away) we decided to go with the suggested donor.

So… here’s what we’ll be getting in our DNA order…!

6 years older than my husband (not an issue)
6ft (3in too tall)
11st (perfect)
Dark brown hair (perfect)
Brown eyes (happy with that – my husband has hazel/brown eyes)
Light / fair skin (perfect)
A university lecturer (hoping that means they’re brainy genes!)
Musical (well, who doesn’t like a bit of music!)

So all in all not a bad bunch of characteristics. The only one that bothered my husband was the height but on reflection decided that this didn’t matter. We accept that we have to be realistic – the chance of us finding a donor who ticks every single box 100% is slim to none. We both want a carbon copy of my husband’s genes but know that there’s only one of him so we just need to find a donor with as many similarities as possible. The key things for me were hair, eye and skin colour. All the rest could be so varied in a child anyway even if we were using my husband’s sperm – the world of genetics is such a complicated business. Hell, there are kids out there that look nothing like either of their biological parents anyway! And as for the career / hobbies bits – that stuff will come from me and my husband anyway in terms of the life experiences and encouragement we give our children. I’m sure our kids will be great mathematicians and have a golf handicap of just 5 by the time they’re 10 years old, thanks to by husband’s influence!

Once the donor part had been decided then the rest of yesterday’s consultation went smoothly. We signed a gazillion forms and then I had the lovely task of having a pelvic scan and practise egg transfer. Lovely! All of this went well though and we’ve been told that we’re good to go. I have to call the clinic when my next period arrives and then my IVF drugs will be sent to me…eek!

I can’t quite believe that’s it and that this is actually going to happen. Especially after all the set backs recently. I feel like maybe, just maybe, it’s time for us to start having some good luck. First, finding a donor who is near-as-damn-it perfect and next…. well who knows. But I hope that it looks something like 2 pink lines on a pregnancy test!

When will medicine catch up?

Crohn’s is crap. Fact!

Apologies for the bluntness but sometimes we just have to say it as it is.

As if there isn’t enough going on in our lives at the moment, my husband’s Crohn’s Disease is just relentless. You’d think that in a world where we can send people to the moon, carry out incredible transplant surgery and have the amazing technology that we do, that they would be something that could be done to stop my husband’s body from behaving so badly!

He has tried pretty much every Crohn’s drug going, including the so called wonder drugs ‘Biologics’ – both Remicade (Infliximab) and Humira (Adalimumab). We’re still waiting for Humira to work its magic but so far…. nada! Then there’s the fact that he’s got a split ileostomy. We assumed that having the infected part of his bowel bypassed and the use of a bag would eliminate the terrible ‘urgency’ that comes with Crohn’s but we were wrong there too. This god forsaken open wound that he has seems to have a mind of its own and the ‘urgency’ is still just as unpredictable and stressful for him as it was 8 months ago albeit slightly less frequent (6 times a day rather than 20)!

I just wish his Crohn’s Disease would let up. It is affecting every part of his life – his career, social life, fertility, sanity – the only thing I can promise him it will never ruin is his relationship with me. I might hate my husband’s Crohn’s but I love him with everything I am and no crappy Crohn’s is ever going to take that away!

What a difference a few days make!

I can’t deny that it’s been a stressful week with a roller coaster of emotions but I feel like the dark cloud is lifting and things are looking a little brighter.

Ok, so this isn’t how things should have worked out but my darling husband has been amazing. After the initial shock of being told that we had no sperm to work with, he took a few days to himself to reflect on what this meant. At first when I tried to talk to him about our situation he said that he wasn’t sure how he felt but he couldn’t be sure that he could love a child that wasn’t biologically his – through donor sperm or adoption. I can’t deny, this scared the crap out of me! I love my husband, more than anything in the world, but the thought of never having a family is something that would be too devastating for me to cope with I think. As much as this upset me i knew that i had to give my husband the time that he obviously needed to absorb the news of no sperm and make his own decisions about how he wanted to move forward, if at all.

Meanwhile, I did what I do best… I took to my iPad and googled ‘donor sperm’ to the point of exhaustion! I swear to god, there is nothing I do not know about using a sperm donor, in fact infertility in general, thanks to the wonders of the World Wide Web!!

Over the weekend, we started to discuss everything together and consider the prospect of using donor sperm. My husband had been thinking about the possibility of it for a while apparently as he had suspected we might find ourselves in this situation. That’s not to say it wasn’t a very sad shock to have the reality confirmed. After time together we came to the decision to go for it with the donor sperm. My husband says that he wants us to have a family together and at least this way the baby would be genetically ‘half of us’. I am so proud of my husband for being strong enough to accept this, it must be incredibly difficult for him. If possible it has made me love him even more.

We had our counselling session at the clinic this afternoon which I felt went well and was helpful. It was great hearing my husband share his thoughts on it all to a complete stranger (he’s not normally one to open up) although i’m not sure he enjoyed it – he’s not into the ‘airy fairy counselling stuff’! So the next step is a phone call to confirm we want to proceed and then our consent consultation next week. After that, who knows!

I am feeling more hopeful that we may get our dream of a family one day. Fingers crossed.

Snakes and Ladders? More like Snakes and Snakes!

It has taken me a few days to be able to write this. I think I needed some time before I committed my thoughts to our blog.

The worst happened on Tuesday. My husband had his SSR and they didn’t find any sperm. So that’s it, there’s no way that he will be able to biologically father a child. The only word that can describe our feelings on this is ‘devastated’. I am just so truly sad.

I love my husband so very very much. I have dreamed, since the day I first loved him, about the family we would have together. I wondered what our children would look like, what their personality would be like and the kind of adults they would grow up to be. It breaks my heart to know that we will never have a child with his genes. I feel like I am grieving the loss of the children we could have had together.

Of course, this doesn’t mean the end for our family. We live in a world where we have other options. The doctor, after telling us the bad news on Tuesday, said that we could move onto using donor sperm. Just like that – so simple! Except it isn’t. Both me and my husband need to get our heads around the idea and the implications of this. The rational part of my brain knows that any children that we have will only ever be ours, no matter how they come about. I know that it’s more than a bit of sperm that makes a person a dad but the idea still saddens me and it raises lots of questions. Namely, how will we both feel about a child that has been conceived using donor sperm? Will we be able to see past it? Will my husband be able to love the baby as his own? If we can’t do these things then we can’t go down this route.

Then I think about the journey we will go on. From choosing the donor together, to the fertility treatment, the positive pregnancy test, scans and birth. Going through these experiences will make it all so real that we are in this together. As the child grows, picking up our mannerisms, using us as role models for their own life, it will be clear that we are the parents, no one else – and how could we do anything but love this child that we have nurtured together!

So as sad as our news this week has been, it doesn’t signal the end. We are still at the beginning.

Showered with envy

I went to a friend’s baby shower this afternoon. It’s the first time I’ve ever been to one so, although I could have a good guess, I didn’t know entirely what to expect. In honesty, I mean what to expect in terms of how it would make me feel given our current situation on the baby front.

I’d like to say, just for the record, that I’m thrilled for my friend. Today was all about her and the exciting new chapter she is about to start in her life. But I’d be lying if I said that there isn’t a tiny streak of envy running through me.

When will it be my turn?

Space hopping

So today my friend calls me to say that her boyfriend has asked her to move out of their house. Apparently he needs ‘space’. He has assured her that this isn’t The End – they are still together just not living together for the time being, just while he gathers his thoughts and gets that much-needed ‘space’.

I can’t help but think about how wonderful it would be if life was really that easy. If, when the going gets tough, we could simply state that we need a little ‘space’ and all of the so-called problems in our life would move out for a while. Hell, maybe we could evict them for good!

With this in mind, I am going to request that my husband and I have a little space from our tenant that is Crohn’s Disease. I feel that it has over stayed its welcome and, quite frankly, is crowding us. We would like some time (space) to enjoy being us. We don’t need anything fancy, just us. And while I mention it, I hope I don’t seem greedy in asking for Crohn’s friend, Infertility, to take a hike too.

Thanks very much. I look forward to our new-found space together.

Sometimes we just need to wallow

It’s been a couple of weeks since I last posted, sorry. Life has just passed me by a little bit recently. For some reason I seem to have fallen into a bit of an emotional slump. I am severely lacking in motivation for, well, pretty much anything at the moment. I’m not entirely sure why this is – a combination of all sorts I’m sure.

One of my major downfalls is my impatience. I am one of those people who once I’ve made my mind up about something, I want it yesterday. This personality trait isn’t particularly conducive to IVF. Everything is a waiting game and it’s a game i really don’t want to play. I decided a long time ago that I was ready for a family. My husband, thankfully, felt the same so we were good to go. Except that nature/fate/health *delete as appropriate*  had different ideas. I know that there are millions of people who are in the same boat as us, having to enter the stressful world of assisted conception and sadly there are many who have bigger problems than us both in fertility and health wise. This doesn’t make our issues seem any less hard though. It just seems to be one thing after another that goes wrong or jeopardises the start of our IVF cycle. I feel like I’m running a marathon and someone keeps moving the finish line further and further away.  It’s mentally exhausting.

Next week, my husband has his SSR (surgical sperm removal). I’m trying very hard not to contemplate the negative outcomes of this. They simply have to find healthy sperm. That is all.

Today I had the results from a CT scan I had a couple of weeks ago. I suffer from reoccurring headaches and sinus problems and it turns out I have a deviated septum and a conchal bullosa (whatever that is!!) and I need an operation to fix it. As soon as the consultant said it, my first thought was “Will this push back our IVF treatment?”. I now have something else to stress about! Providing the SSR next week is a success, I am banking on us being able to start our cycle towards the end of April. My sinus operation is booked for 23rd April. Argghhh!!! The down regulating drugs that I will have to take initially for the IVF are in the form of a nasal spray and there’s no way I’ll be able to take them straight after having my operation. So…. I’m wondering if I can down regulate using injections instead. I know this can be done but I will need to see if my fertility clinic allow it. If they don’t then that will put our treatment back yet another month.    Is there anyone who’s reading this who has done the injections rather than the nasal spray? If so I’d love to hear about your experiences – how did you find doing all of those injections? It’s certainly not something I relish the thought of but if it means one less month of running this marathon then I will.

This post feels like it’s bordering on a whine fest. Apologies for that. I’m just finding life, and the hurdles in our way, very wearing.

My husband’s health, whilst he is loads better than he was a couple of months ago, is still very up and down. This is stressful for him and my impatience is starting to rise its evil head. Impatient, not with my husband (although he probably feels like it is at times, poor guy), but with his illness. It is always there. Even on a ‘good day’. I want him to be better now. Not soon, NOW. Hmmm… patience is a virtue.

Then on the other side of my ‘patience fence’, IVF is dominating practically my every waking thought and we haven’t even started the treatment yet! What the hell will I be like then?! I’m hoping that it will actually be a bit easier because at least then something is actually happening. Maybe then the finish line will find a spot it likes and I will see it in the distance. Who knows… I might even reach it!

Ok, rant over. I’ve decided I’m going to give myself a little while longer to wallow in the emotional rut I find myself in at the moment and then I will force myself to snap out of it. It’s not helpful and makes me feel worse but I just need to feel sorry for myself for a bit. But for now, I’m quite simply fed up. Fed up of waiting for things to look brighter.

I’m thinking that March can be a fresh start for my positivity. Watch this space!

Thanks for listening.

Going, going, gone!

On Monday my husband had his appointment at the fertility clinic to have another sperm assessment and then a freeze in prep for when we start the IVF. Initially we were worried that he might find it tricky to ‘do the do’ after having his op last week but I was thrilled to hear that he hadn’t had a problem and was able to produce ‘the goods’. Yay!

Our joy was short-lived however because on Tuesday morning my husband was told that there were no live sperm in his sample at all!  That means he went from a count of 2m in July to 0.5m in November and Om now! Not good.

In my opinion there can only be one thing to blame and that is the dreaded Crohn’s and everything that has happened to my husband over the last 6 months. The timings of the reduced count down to zero tally up with the treatment he’s been having recently. I fear that the surgery he had on his perianal area has damaged part of his reproductive system. Who knows if it will ever repair itself!

The doctor at the clinic said that we had 2 options. We could wait 6 weeks then have the semen assessment again to see if there is an improvement or we can try SSR (surgical sperm retrieval) although this may take 4 weeks or so to get an appointment. Well if we go for a repeat test and that doesn’t show an improvement (which i really don’t think it will) then in total we are looking at 10 weeks minimum before we can move forward with the IVF process. Argh!!

We chatted about it last night and have decided to go straight for the SSR. I have my fingers and toes crossed that the docs manage to get what they need so we can start our IVF. If they can’t get any live sperm by this method then i think we run out of options – it’s either donor sperm or the realisation that I will never get to experience a pregnancy. Both of these options make my blood run cold so I’m trying very hard to not let the thoughts enter my mind. There’s no point worrying about something that doesn’t need to be worried about yet!

I hope with all of my heart that the SSR is a success so we can get busy with this baby making business (with a little helping hand from the wonders of science).

I’ll keep you informed.

PS. If there is anyone out there who has experienced SSR, infertility due to no sperm, success stories etc then we’d love to hear about them. Please do leave a comment.