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 ☺

Illegal sex before IVF – don’t try this at home

Been feeling guilty as I haven’t blogged for a while but to be honest I haven’t really known what to say. Possibly because I haven’t really known how I’ve been feeling.

But now I have something to update on. We went to see the nurse yesterday for our IVF coordination appointment which means going through the hundreds of forms, the timing, the meds and learning how to do the injections. She had some sort of speech impediment but I won’t hold it against her, she was patient and nice enough.

We were in there for well over an hour going through everything. It’s quite a lot to take in and it was fairly surreal to sit there inspecting the syringes and looking at the different vials of liquid, thinking that in about a week’s time, I’m going to be piercing my own skin with those needles and shooting that stuff into my own body to fuck with my own hormones.

During the session, we had two scares about not being able to start IVF this cycle – firstly because my last cycle was so short (20 days) it brought everything forward and she thought there may be a problem with the timing of the scans and blood tests and the clinic being closed over Christmas for a few days. But she checked and it means I’ll just have to stay on the Buserelin (hormone suppressant/down reg) for a few days longer until they do the first scan.

But I have to take full responsibility for the second scare. I had a minor episode on Thursday where I came back from therapy with my emotions all churned up and didn’t know what to do with them. So I did the only thing a self-respecting, messed-up infertile about to start IVF would do – I got drunk. At 4 o’clock in the afternoon. And when The Husband came home after work, we had drunken, unprotected sex. Which is illegal during the pre-IVF cycle.

The nurse gave me a very disdainful look when I told her (about the unprotected sex, not the drunkenness), asked if I hadn’t known I shouldn’t have done it and said it was unlikely we’d be able to start this cycle now because the drugs could affect the embryo if I happened to get pregnant.

I felt very, very ashamed as I’d known from reading the paperwork we should have been more careful and couldn’t believe I’d been so reckless and irresponsible. But at the time, I think that was exactly what I wanted to be. I’ve been so bloody careful about what I’ve been eating and drinking, the supplements I’ve been taking and the timing of sex for so long now, I think I just wanted to say fuck you to all of it. So I did.

The nurse carried on staring at me disdainfully and let me squirm in my chair for a while, then she swanned off to check with the doctor. I breathed a big sigh of relief when she came back and said it was ok, the Buserilin wouldn’t harm the embryo after all. And if life happens to throw me one massive amazing mindblowing curve ball by making me pregnant the cycle I start my IVF treatment, then I’d have to immediately stop the Buserilin and start shovelling in the progesterone quicksmart.

So even this cycle, I’ve inadvertently (and definitely naughtily) given myself a teensy tiny bit of hope. Don’t try this at home though people.

And in the meantime, I move house on Friday and do my first injection on Sunday.

Until next time.

Juno ☺

CD1 – The IVF Cycle

Yesterday, I had hope.

In the morning I spied some pinkish/brown spotting and Dr Google told me that yes, this could be implantation bleeding. As I was only at CD19 and there was no more bleeding during the day I held on to the teensy bit of hope that maybe, just possibly, my body had finally done what it’s supposed to do and just in time too. Yeah right.

This morning, I got my period.

Well, that was a short cycle. Makes me think I probably didn’t ovulate after all. Who knows? Who cares? It’s done.

So it’s CD1 of the 18^th cycle since I started trying – The IVF Cycle.

I called the nurse at the clinic to ask if they’d still start my drugs on CD21 bearing in mind how short my cycle was. She suggested I start them on CD17 instead to make sure I get in a few days before my next period starts.

After checking the calendar, I realised this means I’ll be starting the drugs pretty much on the date we’re supposed to move into our new house. I was hoping to be in and settled for a week or so beforehand.

But what the hell. Bring it all on.

Until next time.

Juno ☺

No final shot

I thought my blog this week would be about giving it one final shot before starting IVF next cycle.

Sadly, I don’t seem to have been given that shot as I don’t think I ovulated this month. Sod’s law really as I tend to ovulate most months.

Usually, it’s somewhere between Days 12 and 15 so I started testing on Day 9 just to be sure and was convinced my body was giving me signs I was going to ovulate soon. The Husband and I had all of the sex (still enjoying that bit at least ☺) and I carried on testing through to Day 16. But I never got the smiley face.

What was more weird was that my boobs had started getting sore around a week after my last period. I was really confused by that one and of course one tiny part of me thought ‘maybe I’m pregnant!’. It would have to have been a miracle pregnancy to have survived a period but stranger things have happened. Plus, I have the warped mind of someone who’s been TTC for too long.

So on Day 14, with boobs still sore, I did the only thing a desperate, sad, confused girl who’s been TTC for 17 months and is staring IVF in the face would do – in the space of one pee, I tested for ovulation AND pregnancy. Yep. Oh the shame...

And the results? Both negative. Double whammy.

So either I ovulated and somehow missed it or I just didn’t ovulate. Either way, it means I’m not taking progesterone, which means a much shorter cycle, which means I start IVF sooner.

So here I am, CD18, mood dropping faster than a ton of bricks, waiting for my period to come. I can’t deny I’m scared shitless of what’s around the corner but I have to put my trust in the fact there’s a very good reason for all this and that the result will be worth it.

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 ☺