This is my shit

More than two months have passed since the ivf 1 chemical pregnancy debacle. I was pregnant, then I wasn't pregnant anymore - all within the space of 48 hours.

It's been a tough couple of months since the ivf but it's also been over a year and a half since we starting trying to get pregnant. Like a lot of women in my situation I've questioned so much about myself, my standing as a woman and as a wife. I've felt guilt, responsiblity and shame, and I've lost a lot of confidence, to the point where I've even found it hard to spend time with my closest friends.

I haven't been speaking much about how I feel and I haven't been able to get my thoughts in any sort of order to write about them (until now). I've also had night panics which, apart from being frightening, have affected my sleep and my mood. I can be fine one minute and then lose it completely because I left my phone upstairs or we ran out of milk.

I've put myself under a lot of pressure since the failed cycle, thinking my head had to be straight and clear before we started trying again. That I'd have come to terms with that cycle before I could move on and be properly ready to go again, or I wouldn't be giving myself the best possible chance.

But I think it's been slowly dawning on me recently that that's not the case, that maybe I don't need to 'come to terms' with that cycle - because I probably never will. We went through a process that was tough physically, mentally and emotionally. We chose to do it so we could give ourselves a better chance to get pregnant. But it failed, and no one could give us a cast-iron biological or medical reason why. Just like no one has been able to tell us why we haven't been able to conceive naturally over the last 19 months.

I have always wanted to have children and I still do. I know it sounds weird considering they were only inside me for two weeks but I miss our two little embryos. They were a part of us, we created them – irrespective of the help we got from medical science. I even loved them, right from the moment I got the call to say they’d made it. They were a bunch of cells in a petri dish in a lab across London but I loved them. I keep the scan picture given to us at the transfer in my bedside table drawer and I look at my lost little embryos every morning and every night and I wish they were still here, growing inside me.

I want so much to know how it feels to carry your own child, to bring them into the world, to look after and love them unconditionally. And I want,possibly more than anything else,to make my husband a dad. He has so much compassion inside him, he would do anything for anyone and he’s wiser than anyone I know. I just know he will make an amazing father. I hope I never again have to see the pain in his eyes that I saw when we realised the last ivf was over.

I know a lot of women in this situation think 'it's not fair' and 'why me?'. It's not really in my make up to think that way (I'm more likely to think I deserve it than anything else) but I get why they think it. There is a lot of shit in life and it comes in all different shapes and sizes (no pun intended). This is just my shit. And I think I finally realise that I don't need to understand it, accept it or be happy with it.

But I do have to deal with it, and that's what I'm doing. I now know there's no right or wrong way to deal with it, I just have to do what feels right for me. It hasn't always been pretty but somehow I've made it through these past couple of months and finally I can see a spark of light again. So I feel like maybe I've done something right. And that spark of light has helped me to think about the future, to think about doing another ivf. So I've booked an appointment with our consultant in a few weeks' time to discuss it. It's a start.

So no, I haven't come to terms with this shit and maybe I never will but yes, in my own way, I'm dealing with it.

Needles and nourishment

I went for my first acupuncture session today in preparation for ivf2. I did have two acu sessions during ivf1 but they were on the day of transfer and in the two week wait and I did them mostly because I thought I should, so not sure I got a huge amount from them. But I wanted to give my body and mind a chance to benefit from it before the next ivf cycle as I know some people swear by it.

The acupuncturist was lovely - in her 30s and South African - very gentle and thorough with her questions, especially around my cycle. She seemed very knowledgeable about everything in that department which put me at ease as she didn't come recommended by anyone, I just came across her details on a website.

Once we'd got through all the questions, she looked at my tongue, then got me to lay down and felt my pulse. Then she started putting the needles in. She did one in my forehead, one in each ear, two in each foot (one on the front and one on the side), one on each leg near the knee, a couple in my stomach (one near the belly button, one nearer the pubic bone) and one on my chest just below the collar bone.

She said from what I'd told her, her focus would be on nourishing my blood as I have very light, very short periods, a short luteal phase and low progesterone. She said she'd also work on helping to regulate my sleep as I've been sleeping very restlessly lately and I have these night panics where I wake up with a jolt, my heart's racing and I feel very scared and it takes me a while to calm down and go back to sleep.

I only felt a couple of the needles go in but on the whole I barely felt a thing. The only one I was aware of throughout was the one in my left ear which kind of ached a bit. She left me lying down with the needles for about 10-15 mins and regularly checked my pulse.

I asked her what she could tell from my tongue and my pulse and she said overall I just needed 'nourishing' as everything was a bit below what it should be. I liked her use of the word 'nourishing', it felt comforting for some reason. She also said she could feel a build-up of grief and anxiety around my lungs/chest and wanted to ease that - I felt a bit emotional when I left the session so maybe she unblocked a little something there already.

I don't know a huge amount about acupuncture, I guess I'll find out more as I go along but it's definitely a relaxing experience and a lot of what she said made sense. I suppose it also feels good to know I might be doing something constructive to help my body get pregnant. Let's face it, it needs all the help it can get... And maybe even just going means I'm getting more used to the idea of another ivf cycle.

When I read the tweets and blogs of my fellow IFers, it breaks my heart to know what some people go through to have a baby. It should be the most natural process in the world but when it doesn't work, it makes you question everything about yourself, your womanhood and, sometimes, your place on this earth. I have never felt so insecure about myself as I do now, even in a strong and loving marriage with close friends and family around me. But I see how tough all the ladies in this IF community are, many of whom go through such horrendous ordeals, make huge sacrifices and devote everything they have, every ounce of themselves - time, money, energy, health, sanity - to making their dream of having a baby come true.

It not only humbles me, it gives me strength and courage to keep on going until my dream comes true too.

Getting back on that horse

I’ve tried so many times to update my blog but I’ve generally got as far as the opening sentence, stared at the screen for a while, closed the document and then hit ‘Don’t Save’.

I just haven't known what I want to say. It’s now nearly seven weeks since IVF 1 failed and there’s still a fairly jumbled up mess inside my head. I feel so differently day to day, usually a mix of numb, sad, anxious and fearful. And this past week I've started to feel that overwhelming longing again, that ache in my heart.

Seven weeks on and my instinct is still to crawl into a hole and hide. Not great.

But I'm pushing myself to move on. I need to get my head straight and my confidence back so I'm ready to tackle another cycle. After all, in about 10 days I'm turning 39. Eek. Tick tock tick tock...

So I'm starting to speak to and see my friends and family more, I signed up for some volunteer work with local elderly people and we've decided to start trying naturally again. I'm going to back off from the alcohol, eat more healthily again and get reacquainted with those pre-natal vitamins. Yep, I'm getting back on that horse.

But most importantly, I keep reminding myself of what's good in my life. My Twitter/blog family are an amazing source of never-ending support and I'm incredibly lucky to have close family and friends around me. But at the centre of all of this is my husband. He's been an absolute rock these last couple of months and has kept me going. I am hugely grateful to have him by my side.

Well, I seem to have written something resembling a blog.

Onwards and upwards.

We were pregnant for a weekend

I thought it was about time I tried to get my thoughts in order. It's been nearly four weeks since ivf #1 failed with a chemical pregnancy.

We were pregnant for a weekend. My first ever BFP. And even though I was spotting and the line was so faint and I just knew it didn't feel right, I wanted to believe it so much that I ignored all the alarm bells.

So we cried happy tears, we got excited, we talked and we planned - the next few weeks, the next nine months, our entire lives.

And the next day, the Monday morning, came the bfn. I've never peed on so many sticks in such a short space of time as I did in those few days.

But the blood test confirmed it. I'd been pregnant but I wasn't any more. At least one of our beautiful embabies, maybe both, had tried really hard to make it but they just weren't strong enough.

Since then I've been mostly numb. I haven't shed many tears. I've been avoiding people close to me. I've been listening to loud music. I've been throwing myself into my job. I've been going through the motions of everyday life.

Sadness, shame, guilt, responsibility, fear, failure, anger, exhaustion are all mixed up together in a big tangled messy heap.

I feel like I'm on the outside looking in. I feel like I don't know how to be.

I know if I'm going to find the mental and physical strength to do this all again some time soon, but more importantly to believe it can work, I need to pick my way through that tangled heap and try to make some sense of it.

I'm working on it.

3-day transfer, 2 embabies, 1 long wait

As I become ever more hormonal and ever more nervous about the results of this IVF cycle, I’m finding it more and more difficult to process my feelings and thoughts so I thought I should get out a quick blog post now.

I kind of skipped a step when I posted the letter to my embabies last week so I’ll do an update on what happened on the day of the transfer.

This time they called when they said they would, at 8.30am. I’d been thinking about our six embies loads over the previous couple of days, wondering how they were doing , and answered the phone hoping to hear some good news.

Unfortunately though, it wasn’t great. I was told only one was still good quality, one was average and the rest were below average and that I had to come in as soon as possible for the transfer as there was no way they’d survive to blastocyst (5-day transfer) stage.

I was upset, feeling a sense of loss about our poor little embies that didn’t make it but knew I had to stay strong to get through whatever the day would hold. So we got ready and went straight to the hospital for 10.30am. I started drinking water before we left in the knowledge I had to have a full but comfortable bladder for the actual procedure.

We got to the hospital on time and got to see the embryologist pretty quickly. He told us we had one good quality embryo at 6 cells and two average (not one, as I was told on the phone) at 4 cells. The rest were below average. He recommended we transfer two – the good one and one of the average ones but said unfortunately none of the remaining embies would be good enough quality to freeze. No frosties = no back-up plan. Rats.

We were happy we could still transfer two though, and went back to the waiting room to sit tight until we were called through. Along with six other couples. For AGES. We waited and waited and my bladder got fuller and fuller and I got more and more uncomfortable.

Two hours later, the last of the other couples went through and I was by this point doubled over with discomfort. I was finally called through, got changed into my gown and went through to be scanned. The ultrasound showed my bladder was full to bursting so I was allowed to go and relieve myself a bit – phew!

The procedure itself didn’t take long at all and really didn’t hurt. I’ve had more uncomfortable smear tests. It was amazing when they brought the embies through from the lab, I couldn’t believe what was about to happen. It was over in minutes, they showed us the white streaks on the monitor where the embabies had been set up in their new home and said all had gone well.

At that point I felt a surge of emotion, so proud to have our two embabies back inside me, determined to do whatever I could to keep them safe.

As I was being wheeled out of the theatre back to the cubicle to rest, one of the embryologists gave us a photo of the embryos to take with us and told us both had grown to 7 cells at the time of transfer. Yay!

I rested for 20 minutes (and went to the loo about three times), got dressed and we made our way home to start the longest wait of our lives.

And here we are, still waiting. This is tough. The longer it goes on, the more energy I have to put in to just staying on an even keel.

Forgive me if I don’t give an exact date on here but it’s not long now. I cannot imagine how I’ll feel whichever way it goes – either outcome will have such a huge impact on our lives.

I will of course update after the event – in the meantime, thank you all so much for your support on here and on Twitter, it has helped more than I could ever have imagined.

I just hope I have some good news to tell you.

Until next time.

Juno ☺