IVF: Day 29

Today is exactly four weeks into my first IVF cycle.

On Monday this week I introduced Gonal F (225) to the injection regime. In case anyone’s interested in knowing a bit more about the regime, I’m doing the buserilin (down reg) shots in my tummy and Gonal (stims) in the top of my thigh. Mostly, the injections have been fine and don’t hurt at all.

Think I’ve been a bit heavy handed with the buserilin needles a few times have and ended up with a couple of pretty looking green and purple bruises on my tummy...oops. The Gonal needle tends to slide into my thigh fairly easily and just stings for a few minutes, otherwise it’s no trouble.

On Friday I had the Day 5 blood test first thing in the morning to check my hormone levels and make sure I’m not over or under reacting to the meds. I had to wait all day for the nurse to call with the results – think the longest I managed to concentrate at work while waiting for the results was about three minutes. Seriously, if I’m like that with a minor blood test, I have no idea how I’ll manage to get through the two week wait! Anyways, all was fine so I need to continue what I’m doing until the Day 9 scan on Tuesday morning.

I’m quite excited to see how my follies are responding at the scan. Can’t quite believe I’m this far into it. I can’t deny it’s started to feel a bit scary now I’m being monitored and egg collection is so close. I also think the injections, the hormones, the process in general and the thought of the outcome, whichever way it goes, is starting to take its toll emotionally, mentally and physically.

But I’m doing everything in my power to take this one day at a time and stay with the thought that literally in a few weeks’ time I could be pregnant...

Just want to take the opportunity to send all the luck in the world to my cycle buddies on Twitter (@IVFBlessing @IVFchronicles @ivfbabyuk & @TTC_ICSI_IVF), who have all got a very important week this week. Here’s #hoping girlies...

Until next time

Juno ☺

Personal highlight of 2010? Umm...

Lazing in bed on the first day of the brand new year , The Husband turned to me and asked what my highlights of 2010 were.

I pondered this for a while and said: I know it was at the end of the year but moving house, definitely. He said that was a highlight for him too, but what would be my personal highlight, something I was pleased I’d done or achieved for me? For instance, he said, his would be starting his hypnotherapy course. I agreed with his choice, I’m proud of him for that too.

So what about me? A personal highlight. That would be...umm...err...personal, you say? Well, obviously, there’d be the erm...umm...oh I don’t know, I give up!

That made me feel sad. Not to be able to think of one single thing that I’d consider a personal achievement in a whole entire year. It made me realise how I’d spent 2010 – basically trying to get through stuff.

It wasn’t that 2010 was a *bad* year exactly. It was our first full calendar year of being married and I’m still feeling exceptionally happy and lucky to have found my lobster (Friends reference, in case anyone’s confused). But it was a year full of challenges – a change in my responsibilities at work and good friends being made redundant that left me frustrated and unhappy in my job, the house we’d set our heart on buying falling through at the last minute and not being able to find an alternative, and of course, trying with optimism, month after month, to conceive and failing, broken-hearted, time after time.

At the end of the summer we realised things had to change. So we thought about renting instead of buying and we thought about starting IVF. And I realised I had to reorder my priorities and not worry so much about work. Instead I started to see it as a means to an end, a place that would one day pay me maternity benefit for up to a year, and I managed to relax about it a little. And suddenly it was December, and we were moving into our gorgeous little rented house and starting our first IVF cycle.

And that was 2010.

But I want 2011 to be different. Of course, if I get pregnant with this IVF cycle then I know for sure what my highlight of 2011 will be. But if, for whatever reason, this cycle isn’t meant to be for us, then I want to make sure I do or achieve something this year I’ll be proud of, so I could answer that same question on 1 January 2012 without hesitation.

Watch this space, I guess.

And for anyone following my IVF cycle, I did my first Gonal F injection today, which went fine. I’m getting to be quite a pro at these jabs now... So I’m up to two injections a day (including down reg) until retrieval which, if all goes to plan, looks set for the 17^th. First blood test this Friday to check how I’m responding to the hormones.

This is really happening.

Eek.

Until next time.

Juno ☺

Four weeks in a nutshell

I can't believe it's been exactly four weeks since I last wrote my blog (to be fair not entirely down to lack of commitment, mainly down to lack of internet in new house), but what a four weeks it's been. I'll spare you the detail but in a nutshell...

During that time we've packed up all our belongings into dozens of cardboard boxes, moved into our lovely new house, started our first cycle of IVF, mourned the sad and unexpected loss of The Husband's wonderful grandma, celebrated Christmas and started a whole new year. Phew!

It's been a lot to contend with but I’ve been doing ok (apart from having the mother of all colds this week, sniff). It's great to be in the house finally. It’s amazing how quickly it felt like home. It's been a great distraction and I'm looking forward to making it even more homely as time goes on.

Losing Grandma R was so sad. She was 87 but it was still a big shock when she collapsed from a massive stroke three weeks ago and died only hours later. She'd been my grandma for just three and a half years but she treated me like I was her grand-daughter from the day I met her and I loved her immediately. I have great memories of her and will miss her loads.

The Christmas weekend was lovely, spent with our close family and friends. We hosted 15 people here on Boxing Day which was bloody hard work but worth it to see everyone relaxed and enjoying themselves in our new home.

And IVF? I was definitely feeling anxious about it in the weeks before we started but for me, the thought of something is always worse than actually doing it. I was pretty nervous about the first injection, my hands shook and my heart was beating out of my chest but I just went for it and was fine. The needle is thin enough for it to barely hurt and after nearly three weeks of down regging, I've had barely any side effects (if anything I’ve been a bit more thirsty than usual, hair and skin have felt a bit more dry and I’ve felt hot at times but no major hot flushes).

I’ve tried not to think ahead of doing this first set of Buserilin injections. With no monitoring, minor side effects and very few people who know I’m going through IVF, it’s been easy to carry on as 'normal'. I’m not sure if I’m slightly in denial but with everything else that’s been going on I suppose I haven’t really had a huge amount of time to think about the bigger picture.

I had my suppression scan on Wednesday this week and all was at it should be ie lining was thin and ovaries were inactive but the hospital told me to delay starting the Gonal F injections until 3 Jan (Monday). They said this is to avoid weekends where possible for scans, bloods, retrieval, transfer etc. I suspect as soon as I start this next phase, it will all become a bit more real, but one day at a time for now.

I intend to post again in the next couple of days with some new year's musings but in the meantime, I’d just like to wish all visitors to my blog a very happy new year - may all your dreams come true.

Until next time.

Juno ☺

IVF – one step closer

On Friday, we went to see our lovely charming fertility doctor for the next stage of talks about IVF (he’s definitely getting more handsome each time we see him).

This session followed some tests The Husband and I had to have over the last couple of weeks to check we’re ok to get going. Thankfully, everything is fine - our HIV, Hep B & C bloods came back negative, my ultrasound showed a tiny cyst but the doc isn’t worried about it and everything else in there looked normal. Plus, The Husband’s sperm are plentiful and mighty (there’s about a zillion of them and they’re strong enough to swim through concrete - or something).

Actually, there is one small worry The Husband and I have about his sperm and my eggs. We both have an appalling sense of direction, so even though I have a good reserve and he has lots of strong sperm, what if they have no idea where they’re going? We sometimes amuse ourselves by imagining his sperm swimming frantically round the kidneys and my eggs trying to burrow their way into my liver.

Anyways...this is what we went through with Fertility Doc. We taped the session (with his permission) so I have a fairly detailed account of the discussion. It’s long but bear with it if you’re interested in finding out more about the IVF process:

1. s 1. As I have a decent reserve of eggs (FSH of 3.3 and AMH of 15.7), he thinks the Long Day 21 protocol is best for us, which is a six-week process.

2. I’ll be injecting Buserilin for two weeks from Day 21 of my cycle. As I understand it this will switch off the part of my pituitary gland that produces the hormones which stimulate my ovaries - effectively mimicking the menopause but without affecting the eggs. At this point, I could experience the joys of hot flushes, night sweats, sleep disturbance and mood swings (yay).

3. At the end of the two weeks, I have a blood test and scan to see if the Buserilin worked. If it has (let’s hope so, sounds like I don’t want to carry on taking that shit for longer than I have to), I start with Gonal F injections to stimulate the ovaries again to produce (hopefully lots of) eggs.

4. The Gonal F injections will also last for two weeks, during which time I’ll have bloods and scans on Days 5, 9 and 12. These should show how my follicles are developing – hopefully neither under- or over-stimulating. By Day 12, I should be ready i.e. I should have lots of lovely healthy eggs waiting to be collected.

5. Assuming that’s the case, I then go into hospital where they give me a light anaesthetic and shove a thin needle up my lady bits to collect the eggs from the ovaries. The Husband also comes in to give a sperm sample. Then they introduce the eggs to the sperm and hope they really really like each other and want to get it on (as The Husband’s sperm are good, it’s unlikely we’ll need ICSI and will go with conventional IVF).

6. They then leave eggs to grow and develop and hope around 50% will fertilise. The length of time they leave them will depend on the quality and quantity of the embryos. If we’ve only got a few that are good quality, they’ll put those back around 2-3 days later. If I’ve got lots of good quality embryos (more than five) it becomes survival of the fittest and they leave them for up to five days to get to blastocyst stage. By that stage, they know which are the best ones to put back so we have the highest chance of success.

7. At this point The Husband asked if they screen for imperfections, genetic problems etc. Fertility Doc said in a way they’re screening just by seeing which survive and which don’t. They’re screened on the basis of morphology i.e. what they look like under the microscope, how quickly they’re dividing etc. He then spoke about a much more in-depth, experimental screening which involves making a tiny hole in the egg and taking away a small sample of genetic material so they can analyse the genes and chromosomes. They don’t think this affects the egg but it’s such a new process, they don’t really know yet. There are only two clinics in the UK and two in the US that do it and they’ve only done about 40 of these procedures in the UK (for anyone who’s interested in finding out more, it’s called Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis/Screening). They only recommend it for people who have tried IVF unsuccessfully 3 or 4 times or for women who are heading towards their mid-40s and have a higher chance of genetic abnormality in the embryos. But be aware, it doubles the cost of the treatment.

8. Back to my embryos...if they get to blastocyst stage, they’ll put back the best one or two (our decision at this point). This isn’t under anaesthetic as it should just have the discomfort level of a smear test. Once the embryos are safely back in, the progesterone support begins. We had a bit of a discussion here about whether I’d take suppositories or progesterone in oil (PIO) injections. As I have a short luteal phase and on occasion have had breakthrough bleeding on progesterone suppositories, he advised going for PIO – old-fashioned injections in the backside which, he said, ‘hurt like hell’ but which are necessary if we don’t want to take a chance of the lining breaking down (yay again). I may need to start these one or two days before they put the embryos back in depending on which day they’re put back.

9. And two weeks later you find out if you’re pregnant – simples!

After our discussion, we had a chat with the nurse about timing. We won’t be able to start this cycle as our egg collection could clash with the four days the clinic is shut over Christmas for deep cleaning. So it looks like we’ll be starting the following cycle which would mean injections starting around Christmas day. At least the clinic will be really really clean though.

Between now and then we go for a session with the nursing team to learn everything we need to know about the drugs and injections. We’ll also get a 14-page consent form where we sign our lives away.

And that’s where we are. How do I feel about it? As though I’m heading towards a dimly lit path signposted ‘The Unknown’. I hope as I travel along the path, it will progressively get brighter and that something – or someone – very special will be waiting for me at the end of it.

Until next time.

Juno ☺