Shattered dreams

After doing a whole series of pregnancy tests last week in the lead up to my OTD, my period arrived on Friday (the day before I was due to test).

I feel devastated and, if I’m honest, really cross that I let myself get so hopeful that it would be our time this cycle. We both got swept away with the optimism of the nurses at the clinic when we had our embryo transfer done and I was convinced we’d be celebrating this week. What an idiot I am!

3 cycles done, 3 times getting to blastocyst stage (5dt) and 3 times failure. So what next? If I got my way then we would just keep going again and again and again as many times as we need until we get our family! My husband on the other hand is already talking about adoption. Whilst this isn’t something that am ruling out, I’m not ready to go down that road yet. I so desperately want us to experience a pregnancy together and welcome a newborn into our family.

We have 1 precious embryo on ice so at least we have a FET in the pipeline and we have decided that we will definitely do another fresh IVF cycle in the hope that it works or, at worst, gets us some more frozen embies to add to the one we already have. The thing that is whirling around my head though is why have our 3 cycles so far failed? What will be different on our 4th go? Each time we have treatment, everything seems to go well up until the point of a pregnancy test. I get a reasonable number of eggs, good fertilisation and embryo quality has improved with each cycle. For some reason though, implantation obviously doesn’t occur. And I want to know why the hell not?!!

So… I am doing what I do best, I’m looking for a way to fix this issue. After extensive ‘talks’ with Dr Google, I’m thinking that it would be a good idea to have immune testing to rule out anything there that might be stopping the embryos from implanting. I know that my fertility clinic doesn’t support this so I plan to go elsewhere (probably to Dr Gorgy in London). I imagine this could be an expensive process but if it saves us the heartache of wasted cycles in the long run then it has to be worth it.

I need to believe that there is a reason why IVF hasn’t worked for us yet and that it is something that can be fixed. I need to believe that we will get our happy ending eventually.

Call the POAS police!

Oh dear, impatience has got the better of us!

I am currently 5dp5dt and yesterday and today I been feeling a few twinges and mild cramps. I am desperately trying to stay positive and praying that this is our little embryos implanting but I’m nervous that it could be the first signs of my period coming.

It was totally ridiculous to think that doing a pregnancy test today would show anything other than a BFN. Not to mention the fact that the test I used expired in November last year and it was the middle of the afternoon so my urine was really diluted. We did the test anyway and lo and behold, nothing! I’m trying not to let it bother me as I know it was too early to test really but there’s still a part of me that is worried that this cycle might not have worked.

I’m going to leave it 2 days and test again on Tuesday morning and then again every morning until OTD. Please, please, please let us get the result we want this week.

As close as we’ve ever been

I now have 2 beauties on board and 1 in the bank! I couldn’t be happier. 

Today’s embryo transfer was a massive success compared to our previous cycles. The drive over to the clinic was nerve-wracking as we were trying to prepare ourselves for the same news as we’ve had both times before – poor quality embryos. I was also stressing about the fact that my bladder was fit to burst and we always seem to be late going in, making the full bladder all the more excruciating! This time, we were early so we did have to wait but we we’re actually called into the transfer room on time. The news that came next, I really wasn’t expecting…

We have 2 really good quality embryos – both expanded blastocysts and graded 4AB. We also have one other that, whilst not as good as the other 2, is good enough to freeze today (I didn’t even know that they froze them on day 5 as I’d always been given the impression that they left them to day 6). The other embryos are still developing but are much slower and more ‘scruffy’ than the embryologist would like them to be so she’s going to leave them overnight and see if any are suitable for freezing tomorrow – I’m not anticipating they will be.

The fact that we have 2 great embryos and 1 suitable for freezing must mean that we totally made the right decision about changing our donor. It also means that there isn’t a problem with my eggs (something that could have been the reason for not getting to good day 5 blasts). I also think I have definitely responded better to the Gonal F than the Menopur. The only other thing I can think of that is different in this cycle is I have religiously taken Pregnacare Conception daily (rather than just folic acid in previous attempts). Whatever it is that’s worked better this time, we are in the best position that we’ve ever been in.

The embryologist and nurse gave us a full-on lecture about the risk of multiples if we put 2 back in, due to the good embryo quality. She actually said that if we fall pregnant, there is a higher chance that it would be twins than a singleton! We are both aware of the risks, and know that they are potentially very serious (and devastating), but we’ve always said we would have 2 transferred if we had the option and with this being our 3rd go at this, we’re going to take the leap of faith. I have read so many stories where women have had 2 perfect blasts put back in and then only one has implanted – not to mention all the stories where 2 are put back and it’s a BFN at the end of the 2ww! I just pray that we have success this time.

So now I am in what is probably the most difficult part of this whole process - the 2 week wait (2ww), or for us, 11 days. Now we just wait. I plan to do my bit to help our precious little embies settle in and implant by eating healthily, drinking lots, doing gentle exercise like walking the dog and trying to stay as stress-free as possible. The rest is down to nature and a dollop of luck hopefully.

Wish us luck!

This chick had a lot of eggs!

It would appear that all of that discomfort was for a good reason. My scan last Friday showed 11 follicles ranging from 7 – 16mm; by Monday their sizes were between 9 – 20mm and then today’s egg collection produced a massive 19 eggs! For me that’s a huge number of eggs (I know for other people that might be average), its more than I could have imagined. The surprise when the clinic told me… I think I asked them 3 times to double check as I was coming round from the sedation!

We were at the clinic for ages afterwards as there was a problem in the lab and delays with spinning the sperm. This, obviously, sent my stress levels sky high but after 2 hours we were finally seen by the embryologist and it turns out that the first batch of sperm didn’t thaw out well enough so they did another batch. I’m glad for the wait now, at least we know that we got some good sperm. Now I just hope that there is some ‘jiggy action’ taking place in the lab tonight so that tomorrow morning’s phone call about fertilisation rate beings good news!

Ok ovaries, I hear you!

9 days into stimms and my ovaries are flipping killing me!

I never experienced this amount of discomfort on either of my other cycles and it started early, after about 5 days on the Gonal F. I have no idea if this is normal or not but I can’t help but feel a little anxious about what tomorrow’s scan will show. Yes, of course I’m hoping for lots of lovely follies but I’m nervous that what I’m feeling is mild OHSS.

I’m not normally a hypochondriac, it’s just that I feel so different this time, in terms of discomfort, that I’m letting my paranoia get the better of me! The first two cycles went like clockwork – except for the negative pregnancy tests at the end! I’m scared to death that something will go wrong with this cycle and it will have to be abandoned.

Hopefully tomorrow I will find out that it’s all nothing to be concerned about and we’re on track for egg collection sometime next week.

In other news, tomorrow is also D Day for my husband. He’ll officially be getting his redundancy notice in the morning, although he should be getting another month to source a job in the company before he has to leave. It’s going to be a rubbish day (and month probably) for him and I wish there was something that I could do to fix it but I’m sure he’ll soon be sorted with a brand spanking new job, ruling the roost again!

Stage 1 complete…

I am officially down regulated… yay! I had my scan on Monday which showed that my uterus lining is thin and my ovaries are ‘quiet’ – just as they should be after 3 weeks of injecting Buserelin. There was a dark patch on the scan showing that there was some fluid in my uterus but the nurse wasn’t worried about this, saying that it was probably some remaining blood from my period. Sure enough later that day, I had some spotting so I guess it’s all gone now. I had this same thing on my first cycle so it didn’t concern me too much.

Tonight I started my second drug, Gonal F, on an initial dose of 262.5iu. I asked the nurse on Monday about why I was taking Gonal F instead of Menopur this time. She said that the clinic has gone back to using it for everyone, not just me. They feel it gives the same results as Menopur with less faff (they are pens rather than vials we have to mix ourself).

It does make me a little nervous that we are using a different stimulation drug this time round. What with changing the donor, not needing ICSI for this donor sperm and then using Gonal F, I worry that we are changing too many variables all at the same time and we won’t be able to properly evaluate the cycle if it fails. I know that sounds really pessimistic of me; hopefully it won’t fail and therefore won’t be an issue. I am trying to be positive, really I am, but I am also a realist. If it doesn’t work, I know that I am going to want to understand why and this will be tricky when there are a few things that are different in this cycle. Which one will I blame and want to fix?!

So, I have 10 days of injecting the Gonal F before I go in for my next scan to check on how busy my ovaries have been. Let’s hope the answer will be “very”!

Healing thoughts please!

Warning: This is a Crohn’s post and contains details that are not for the squeamish!

6 months ago my husband had his pan proctocolectomy. 6 months and he is still not healed from the operation!

Whilst the removal of the colon has made him feel a million times better than he was, he still suffers everyday with an deep, open perianal wound that constantly drains a mucus type discharge. More recently this has gotten worse and he has felt slightly under the weather so he had an MRI scan a couple of weeks ago. This showed that there was a collection in his pelvis that needed draining and his colorectal surgeon wanted to do this and have a proper look at what else is going on in there.

So today was the day of the op. After a lot of waiting around, my husband finally got operated on and we’ve been told that behind the original wound there was a large cavity which the surgeon has now opened up. This cavity had been constantly seeping the ‘collection’ into the wound and therefore preventing it from healing. The surgeon also believes that my husband’s Crohn’s is still around and, whilst he is not unwell, it is slowing down the healing from last year’s op. His suggestion is that my husband goes back onto medication such as Humiera.

For now though, we have to continue with the daily dressing of my husband’s wound. We’ve become pros at this and have a proper little routine for getting the packing and dressing of the wound done. I’m a bit nervous about seeing it tomorrow as I’m expecting it to be much bigger and deeper after what the surgeon has done today but whatever it’s like we’ll deal with it – there’s no other option. The other thing that makes me nervous is that we’ve been told that the wound will need to be kept open so that it can drain and the way this is done is through ‘digitation’. This is basically sticking a finger up into the wound… eek!!

My husband is feeling really pessimistic about whether the wound will ever heal but I truly believe it will, eventually. I think it’s just a case of tweaking the meds and making sure there’s no where else for a collection to gather. It’s just an incredibly slow process and patience is not a trait that my husband is blessed with! I know that it’s not nice for him to have the wound but all I can think of is how bad things had got for him this time last year. Today may have set things back a little but it will get him back on track in the long run. I’m hopeful anyway, and I’m hoping my positivity will do for the both of us.

As normal as can be

I’m a week into my down regulation injections and so far I’m free from any side effects. In fact I feel the same as I always do. This is pretty normal for me – I seem to be one of the lucky people that don’t get too affected by the drugs for IVF. In both my previous cycles the side effects have been minimal, only really showing their faces as I get further into the treatment.

Reading about other people’s experiences on the ‘wonder web’ (and believe me, I have read A LOT of other blogs on IVF) it would appear that some woman really do go through the mill when taking the cocktail of drugs needed to get our bodies in tip-top baby-making shape!

It always amazes me how us gals can differ so much! How can some of us get literally every side effect under the sun and others get hardly a hot flush to grumble about? Surely if these drugs are supposed to flood our systems and take control of our hormones, the outcomes should be the same for everyone. Not that I’m complaining, especially as I’m one of the smug ones that can sit back and read the stories of woman who turn in the female version of The Incredible Hulk within days of their first injection, knowing I’m still feeling like me.

* Disclaimer: I should probably note that I may be tempting fate and, as a result, have to retract the comments in this post. For this cycle I am, as I’ve mentioned in a previous post, using a different drug for the next stage of my cycle. I have no idea how I will respond to this but I pray that my good luck and lack of side effects continues. *

Trouble on the horizon?

Life certainly likes to throw testing times at people doesn’t it! It’s obviously not enough that we’ve had 3 and a half years of poor health for my husband or the heartbreaking infertility journey that we’re still very much on. It now looks like my husband is about to be made redundant at work.

The thought absolutely fills me with dread but my husband seems quite laid back about it – I just don’t understand how he can be like that. I mean, I’m sure that he will get another job as he is a very intelligent man and brilliant at what he does but the current economic climate is not particularly healthy at the moment so the good jobs are few and far between. He will get another job, it’s just a question of when.

I am lucky enough to earn a reasonable salary in my job but I am far from being the household breadwinner! Without my husband’s income we will be in serious financial strife after a few months (less if his redundancy package is small).

So now we have something else to worry about and the timing couldn’t be worse. Stress and IVF treatment do not mix well.

The drugs are chillin’!

Yesterday saw the lorry load of drugs for our next IVF cycle delivered. It really is quite daunting when you first see the 2 huge boxes arrive at the door. Ok, so most of it is packaging but there are still A LOT of drugs inside those boxes and they only have one place to go over the next 2 months… inside me… eek!! For now though, they are tucked up in the fridge. Just chilling out and waiting to do their stuff and make my body into the baby making machine that it really needs to be this time!

For this cycle I am taking all the same drugs except for the stimming meds. This time the clinic have prescribed me Gonal F instead of Menopur; I didn’t realise this was the case until I saw the prescription last week. I have no idea why they’ve changed me to Gonal F but, obviously, I’ve done my usual and spent hours researching the difference between Menopur and Gonal F on Mr Google! There seems to be a lot of conflicting information out there. Some say that Gonal F produces better quality eggs, others disagree. Then there’s the ones that say that the extra LH in Menopur makes cycles more likely to work, others disagree. I have no idea what to believe but I suppose each woman is different and no two cycles are the same so it’s impossible to predict what difference the Gonal F will make to our cycle this time.