The 2ww - his & hers

I was at work today and DH emailed me a surprise guest blog about the two week wait from his perspective. We don't often get the guy's point of view at this stage (plus he said some nice stuff about me) so I've published it here.

My bit, warts n all, is at the end...

His

If you’re a regular reader of my wife's blogs and tweets, then you’ll know that we’re into the 2ww of our second cycle of IVF, otherwise known as ‘no-man’s land’. There is nothing more we can do now, except wait, and hope, and pray (and eat pineapple).

And that’s the hardest part: doing nothing. She still has her progesterone to take, mercifully not through a needle the size of a lamppost this time. But otherwise, all is outwardly quiet, eerily so. Inwardly though, we’re going out of our minds (she more than me, I'm sure she won't mind me saying). I dare not think about us getting a BFP, but the alternative is simply unimaginable.

When we had our transfer done, the nice lady gave us a photo of the embryos (I was tempted to post it on Facebook as a retort to the daily bombardment of friends’ baby pics), which we've both pored over: is it fragmented, why is one bigger than the other, has it got my nose?

And like my wife, I have consulted Dr Google about various things, from ‘embryo quality’, to ‘improve implantation’ and ‘live birth rates’. One such search revealed our chances of not only pregnancy, but actually having a baby this time round.

The funny thing about statistics is that they can be easily dismissed when not in your favour, and encouraging when on your side. But what I discovered in my online search for reassurance is that our chance of a live birth, taking into account age and day-5 transfer, is 51.9% (pregnancy is 61%).

Now, 51.9% is enough of an advantage to beat the house at blackjack, it may even give you a majority in parliament, but when it comes to IVF it’s still 50/50. Do our hopes and dreams really hang on the cosmic toss of a coin?

With 50/50 odds, why am I genuinely optimistic about our chance of success? After all, statistically it could just as easily go the other way.

Well, 51.9% is massive in terms of IVF and represents our best hope yet of having a baby. Usually, the figure is nearer 25%, and of course diminishes with age.

If there was a 50% chance of rain, I’d pack an umbrella. If I had a 50% chance of winning the lottery, I’d buy a ticket, and a 1 in 2 chance of having a baby is all I need right now to feel hopeful that this is going to work.

IVF is a stressful, traumatic and invasive process, and I’m incredibly proud of my wife for the way she has coped with all the crap, the physical and emotional strain, and the terrible grief of losing a young niece during the course of the cycle.

But no matter what happens now, we’ll be ok. We’ll always be ok, because we have each other. Of that, I’m 100% certain.

Hers

As DH says, we are well and truly within the 2ww period now.

Here's where I'm at, straight up:

• massively bloated stomach, sore boobs, tired and run down (I have painful mouth ulcers and the skin on my face hurts - seriously)
• eating A LOT (latest craving is Chilli Heatwave Doritos - completely addicted - but also also eating pineapple, brazil nuts and protein to help the embabies implant and grow)
• worrying I've done too much of some things (carrying, rushing around, bending - there's no evidence I know of that any of these things are harmful, they're just things I'm irrationally plutzing about) and not enough of others (resting, sleeping, being positive - again, nothing scientific about this)
• panicking every time I sneeze or cough I've dislodged the embabies
• thoughts flitting at alarming speed between 'of course this is going to work' and 'I'm so scared this isn't going to work' - ALL DAY LONG
• keeping a low profile with friends and generally wanting to hibernate
• checking for signs of spotting every time I go to the toilet and remaining paranoid in between those times
• going to the toilet every half an hour so I can relieve my paranoia (and occasionally my bladder)
• talking to my embabies when no one is listening (at least I hope not), pleading with them to stick around so they can find out what good parents we'd be, how much we'd love and care for them
• welling up every time I think of how we'd tell my parents I'm pregnant
• wondering whether seeing two heavily pregnant women followed by a woman pushing newborn twins is a sign my ivf cycle is going to work
• wondering whether an itchy nose is a sign my ivf cycle is going to work
• going slowly insane...

I'm also doing my best to be positive (the stats DH found do make me feel better), but I can't help it, I'm so effing scared this isn't going to work. As much as I daydream about telling my parents I'm pregnant, I cannot contemplate having to tell them I'm not. My family has been through so much these last few months, this isn't just about me and DH any more - we all need this.

Either way, until the fat lady sings I'm staying hopeful.

Embabies, please stick around.

Pleeeeeaaase.

Four little fighters

We had six eggs collected yesterday and today we have four embryos.

I'm proud of my body for doing what it needed to do through all the crap that's going on at the moment.

We have four little fighters.

We're still in the game.

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.

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 ☺

6 out of 8 ain’t bad

I feel like I’m now into the heart and soul of this IVF process. This is definitely the part that requires the most reserves of energy and strength.

On Wednesday afternoon, the clinic nurse called to let me know my egg collection was definitely set for Friday and that we needed to be at the hospital for 11am. As there’s roughly 36 hours between trigger and collection, I was instructed to do the trigger shot at 12.30am that night – or technically the following morning...

The injection itself was fine, it didn’t hurt any more than any of the others, but somehow it just felt different. To me, that needle was loaded with emotion and significance. After all, this was the final push to get my 10 follies to release their eggs, which could soon become embryos, which could one day become our baby or babies.

I didn’t get much sleep that night.

Thursday was injection-free but I was very nervous about what the next day would bring. On Friday we got to the hospital half an hour early but annoyingly they were running really late so we weren’t seen until 2pm. Those were a looong few hours during which DH was asked to produce his ‘sample’ and I was asked to verify my name and date of birth by about 50 different people. I started to doubt it myself after a while.

The collection team were lovely – the doctor, the embryologist, the handsome young anaesthetist and his assistant all instantly put me at ease. Having been nervous that I might be too ‘aware’ during the procedure, I actually had a lovely little sleep and woke up as they were finishing.

I felt fine after the sedation. As the local anaesthetic and painkillers wore off during the day, I felt a bit tender but didn’t have any pain and 48 hours later it’s almost back to normal. And the best bit – they collected eight eggs from my 10 follies! The wait for the embryologist’s call the next day to tell us how many had fertilised was nerve-wracking. We were incredibly relieved and happy to find out six of the eight fertilised. Yay!

And now we wait again for the embryologist to call tomorrow morning to tell us how the six are doing. If at least two are still going strong, we’ll have a 5-day transfer at blastocyst stage. If the quality isn’t so great they’ll ask us to go in for the transfer tomorrow. Once we know how many embies have survived and their quality, we’ll make the decision about whether we transfer one or two (but we’re leaning towards two if we can).

It’s weird to think a part of us is in a lab in west London, while we’re getting on with life as normally as possible in Hertfordshire. I can’t imagine how it’s going to feel to have those little embies put back inside of me, and I’m afraid to imagine either outcome when we test a couple of weeks down the road.

So, I’m taking this one step at a time and for now I’m praying hard those six little embies are getting stronger by the hour and that we’ll get some good news with tomorrow’s call.

Until next time

Juno ☺

Will that be one egg or two?

Had the Day 9 scan today to check how my follicles are responding to the IVF meds.

A retroverted uterus (tilted backwards) and a bowel trying to hog the limelight didn’t help proceedings and the nurse had to manoeuvre that implement in ways I didn’t think would be possible.

Still, we got there in the end and it turns out I have 10 follies maturing – six on the left and four on the right. I know some people get lots more but it seems like this is an acceptable number. Suppose it means we have a chance of getting up to 10 eggs collected...unlikely but possible!

The surprising news was that the follies have developed quicker than anticipated and some of them were already up to 16 or 17mm – which means they’re pretty much at the size they need to be for egg collection. So EC has been brought forward from Monday to Friday this week.... Fuck. And shit. This is the bit of the process I’m most nervous about as it’s the most invasive but now I’ve had time to process it, I have to say I’m relieved it’s happening sooner - at least it will all be over by the weekend.

So I inject the Buserelin and Gonal one more time tomorrow morning, and the clinic will call me tomorrow afternoon to tell me what time to do the trigger tomorrow night. Then Thursday is injection-free – might just stab myself with a fork a couple of times so I don’t get withdrawal symptoms...

And now The Husband and I need to think about how many embies we’d transfer if we have the choice. I’m 38 so I’ll have the option of transferring one or two. Bearing in mind my age and my ever decreasing fertility, we’re both leaning towards two. Plus, we’d both be happy with twins. Actually, I think I’d be over-the-effing-moon with twins! But we’re not quite decided yet as we know there are risks with multiple pregnancies/births.

I’ve had some amazing advice on Twitter but please please please let me know if you have any info or advice on this – need all the help I can get!

Thanks lovelies.

Until next time

Juno ☺