Go for launch!

Another BT & date with the dildo cam this morning (thankfully only about 8 women waiting this time) - and we counted 7 follicles, 2 on the right and 5 on the left. Of those there are three good ones at about 19.5, 19.5 and 18mm. Endo thickness has risen to 8.1. I'm stoked! It's our best yield in about the last 4 cycles. God I hope they all have mature eggs in them & that hubby's frozen sperm hits the mark!

The nurse rang about 4.30pm (I was getting worried they'd forgotten about me!) to say I'm booked in for my egg collection at 8am on Thursday - cycle day 17. So tonight I'll have the Trigger injection (Ovidrel) at precisely 8pm. This morning was my last dose of Luveris, Gonal-f and Cetrotide. Thank the Lord!! My belly looks like a pin cushion! I feel so bruised & bloated, my tummy is still upset now and then, and I just feel blah! 

So we're go for launch!

It's really scary just how positive and hopeful I feel. Dangerous even.

4th anniversary

So on this very day 4 years ago, we drove to the clinic, met our doctor in a sterile room wearing funny hats & robes & shoe covers, and "picked up" our future child. Of course we didn't know that this would be our child.. we hoped, but after one unsuccessful ICSI cycle and the second resulting in a miscarriage at 9 weeks, we were a little nervous & cautious. It took me a long time to get over the fear of losing that pregnancy. I just had to make it to my 6 week scan, then I just had to make it past 9 weeks to last longer than my m/c, then I just had to get to the 12 week scan so I could announce it, then I just had to get to the 19 week morphology scan.. once that was all clear, I was happy but not content yet. I think once I'd made it past 24 weeks (the so-called safe point) I really allowed myself to enjoy being pregnant.. I started "looking" pregnant & embraced my blooming body. I loved being pregnant... everything was amazing to me, even with all the aches, pains & the not-so-pretty symptoms. I lapped it up. I didn't want it to end. It was something I feared I would never experience in my lifetime.. & something I wasn't sure I'd get to experience again.

This week we hope to get another shot.

After about 15 (?) more disappointments, I wish I could say we're numb to the process. Unfortunately I still dream of that little bubble in the screen turning into a huge part of my life. I don't think hubby feels the same. He doesn't allow any real hope to creep in. I get it. He's protecting himself, it's how he copes with this crazy, artificial world. But I need the hope. I couldn't put myself through all this without it. So we battle on.. & hope we win the war.

___________________________________

UPDATE: After waiting in an even busier clinic this morning (well, actually outside the clinic, in the corridor, as there was no room) for 1.5 hours (!!!!!) I finally got my ultrasound and blood test done. I have to say I felt really sorry for all the nurses & sonographers.. they were flat out & all patients were pretty peeved with the ridiculous wait times. Anyhoo, the scan showed 7 follicles & a 7mm lining. The nurse called before lunchtime to let me know that my FS was pretty happy with 3 of them at 17mm, 16mm & 14mm. He wants me to go for another blood test & scan tomorrow morning (kill me) and I might be having the pickup op on Thursday or Friday (I'm hoping Thursday!). I don't think my endo thickness is great so I'm a bit worried, and trying to research ways to naturally increase it. It seems orgasms & exercise are the order of the day :-) 😝

CD13, 10th day of stims

TMI warning!!!

Ugh... SUCH a dodgy tummy today! :-/

Yesterday my stomach was rumbling really loud at work & I just thought I had a bit of wind from something I ate.. but then I had to rush to the loo last night.

Then this morning was my first opportunity in FOREVER for a sleep-in - I'd demanded that DH look after DS in the morning for a change so I could get some much-needed rest. BUT.... I had to get up & go to the loo. I was not well. I crawled back to bed after doing my injections at 8.30am & tried to get more sleep but at first I was in too much pain - stomach cramps, headache, nausea, - then that started to subside but my little guy was making a racket in the lounge & the neighbour's boys were stomping around upstairs so I gave up. Mind you, I still enjoyed lying around in bed until 11am.

I lazed around on the couch but eventually I had to get ready for work as I started at 2pm, training up for a new role. This was NOT the best day for me to have to concentrate. I was sweating for the first hour or so but luckily I came good. Then tonight the diarrhoea struck again. 

I remember this happening last round & I was freaking out about my egg retrieval. It must be related to the medications. Fingers crossed my blood test & ultrasound show some serious progress so I can have my egg collection soon & stop these meds. Plus my belly is getting sore from the 3 injections a day & all the bloating!

IVF clinic comparisons (Australia)

Someone just posted this link on an IVF Facebook group I'm in & I thought it was really useful.
Sorry, it's only for Australia.. hopefully there's similar sites out there for other countries.

http://ivfcompare.com.au

It's worth noting, though, that with clinics that appear to have multiple locations in the one city, e.g. Genea in Sydney, some clinics are only for blood tests and ultrasounds. You usually have to have an initial appointment in the CBD (or main location) with a nurse to sign up, go through and collect your medications. You may also need to have your procedures (egg collection and transfer etc) in their city day surgery. So make sure you keep that in mind when choosing a clinic based on location, and ask these questions.

For us, IVF Australia was much more convenient as everything was done in Greenwich & they had an (albeit small and poky) car park. Bump also did everything in Mosman & had a great car park, plus they had a courier deliver all your medications to you. With Genea, I get my monitoring in St Leonards but everything else requires a trip to the city on public transport which I find a bit of a pain (no car park, even for day surgery pickups, although there's VERY limited street parking out front).

That's just my comparison on convenience. As you'll see on the website, IVFA & Genea are the most expensive with Bump bulk billing most things. Bump wasn't for us as they provide quite standard treatments & I needed a more "out of the box" approach after so many failed cycles. I think a lot depends on your specialist also. My FS at IVFA was great, got us pregnant twice, but after the birth of our son, just kept using the same protocol despite no change in results. We moved to Genea for a new approach & they have great success rates. The FS I went to is well known for second opinions & has tried me on a couple of different drugs.. I guess if that doesn't work then at least I'll know we tried everything.

Hope this helps!

Mixing injections (for dummies)

I remember the first time I had to mix my injections. I'd done about 8 cycles with premixed pen injections, so they were simple. Then I was given the powder & water vials to mix myself & I freaked out! I had no idea what to do! The nurses thought I had done it all as I was a bit of an IVF "veteran".

So here's my little IVF community service:

This is my Luveris. 

I get two vials - one is water for mixing and the other is powder (which is the actual drug):

Flip the lids off the vials & discard:

Place the largest needle onto the end of the syringe & remove

the plastic covering:

Poke the needle through the middle of the rubber covering on the vial of water:

Turn the bottle upside down, pull the needle out a bit so the tip is underwater, & pull out the syringe plunger to remove all the water (you may need to pull the needle out a bit more as the water level goes down):

Inject this water into the vial of powder & swish side to side until it's mostly dissolved (do not shake it up, you want to avoid bubbles). Then use the same process above to draw the new solution back into the syringe. Place the cover carefully back over the large needle & remove. 

Attach the small needle, remove the plastic cover, push the plunger VERY CAREFULLY & SLOWLY to remove most of the air from the syringe. Be careful not to squirt all of the solution into the air! I try to keep a thumb in the way so I can't accidentally push it all the way. Pinch your skin & inject into your tummy. This one can be a bit ouchy so I sometimes ice the spot first to numb it a bit.

Now this is my Cetrotide. It's a very similar process, however the water is already loaded into the syringe.. you pull the White plastic cap off and instead of pushing the large needle onto the syringe you actually screw it on, then pull the plastic lid off. After injecting the water into the vial of powder, mixing and drawing it back up, you place the plastic cover back on the needle & unscrew it again. Then screw the small needle onto the syringe, remove the air & inject into your belly. 

Hopefully this all makes sense!

You might also want to use the alcohol wipes on your belly before injecting. 

I understand these tips might not apply to other medications.

Anyway, feel free to ask if you have any questions & I'll endeavour to answer them.

Happy injecting!

First scan & blood test results

Cycle day 11, day 8 of injections:

This morning I had to have my blood test & first scan. I went to the local clinic just after 8am, figuring I'll get it done early & have just enough time to go home & make my lunch before walking to work (which is 5mins away)...... WRONG!! I walked in & it was standing room only! It's a tiny waiting room & it was full to the brim! There's usually only about 2-3 other women in there, if that, but this time there would have been about 15! It seems that people have been diverted to other branches for their tests until the fire and water damage is repaired in the city headquarters. What a nightmare! I was in there for about 45mins. I had to duck off to the toilets to do all 3 of my fiddly bloody injections (lucky I brought them with me!). A lady went into the cubicle next to mine & just sat there, listening to me unwrapping everything & clinking bottles. God knows what she must have thought!

Anyway, I only have 3 follicles - 10mm, 8mm & 6mm (or thereabouts). My uterine lining was around 5mm. So I was told by the nurse this afternoon to keep stimming over the weekend & come back for another BT & ultrasound on Monday. This cycle really isn't looking much better than the last few. And despite googling my head off, I know deep down there's nothing I can really do about it now. It's all up to fate.

Anyway, on the positive side, the nurse told me the day surgery in the city should be back up & running on Monday. One less thing to worry about!

Fertility under fire

Yesterday I found out (thanks to a woman on Facebook) that there was a fire at my clinic on the weekend.. apparently there was significant damage caused to the reception area, day clinic & day surgery, but stored embryos, eggs & sperm weren't affected. This woman was told her transfer couldn't go ahead as planned this week & if her one embryo wasn't deemed strong enough to freeze they would let it expire. I'm horrified & distraught for this lady. Like me, she gets very few eggs collected, then is lucky for them to fertilise, so this new development is a huge blow and may cost her the chance to conceive another child. Thinking of her this week x

I haven't yet heard if my procedures will be affected next week. I was going to call but I'm assuming they're flat out making other arrangements for this week's procedures, so I'll give them a bit of space. I go to a smaller clinic close to home for monitoring on Friday so I might wait to ask them. Hopefully the repairs are fast-tracked & all is sorted again by then.

Today I started taking Cetrotide. So that's 3 injections every morning! My belly is already tender! And what a production it is every morning, mixing the powders and water! Why can't the Luveris & Cetrotide come in convenient pre-mixed pens like the Gonal-f?? And why do the needles have to be so fat and so bloody ouchy going in??!! I'm ok with needles, the Gonal-f is a breeze, but these other two....

God I hope they're all doing their thing in there.. I'm nearing the end of the road. I really don't think I can do this anymore. I feel optimistic, kinda, but if we only get one egg, or even one embryo at the end again, I think it's time I accept defeat. Perhaps someone's trying to tell me something. Perhaps I AM being too greedy wanting another child. Perhaps I'm not even being the best Mum to him & I need to work on that. He really does deserve my undivided attention and a healthy & strong mum. Pumping all these hormones for this long can't be doing me good. I've got some hard thinking ahead of me.