IVF # 2

Yep it's round 2! My husband and I saw our fertility specialist on Wednesday and we have a new protocol for our second IVF cycle. For our first IVF we had a long down regulation cycle with the oral contraceptive pill for one month followed by the nasal spray, 100-150u of Gonal-f and then prednisolone, progesterone and clexane after the embryo transfer. This time around we will be doing what our clinic calls a "Clomid/FSH cycle". As I am already over halfway into a monthly cycle I will start taking Primolut tomorrow for 7 days. I should then get my period after which I will take two tablets of Clomid per day for 5 days plus 200u of Puregon for 7 days. I will still be on Prednisolone and Clexane if and when we get to embryo transfer stage. The doctor said that he is hoping for quality rather than quantity this cycle as he was not happy with my egg quality last time.  I am hoping so much that this new protocol will produce a much more positive result. We are both on new supplements through a naturopath- I am on a high quality prenatal, fish oil, activated B-6, a probiotic and Vitamin-D drops, while my husband is on CoQ10, fish oil and a high quality paternal vitamin. My acupuncturist is away for 6 weeks but is due back the week we should be going in for egg retrieval. I feel a little nervous but mostly excited to be doing something again after 2 months off. I am in a good headspace this time around and even though I am not looking forward to the crazy hormones I am feeling...ready :)

Feeling good :)

Time is passing. I find that being busy has made the days go quicker and even though I'm impatient to start the next IVF cycle I am trying to enjoy each day and be grateful for what I have. I have always had a tendency to concentrate on the destination and in doing so I often miss the beauty of what is happening right now. I'm enjoying the simple things in life a lot- a relaxing bath, the feeling of being stronger each day after I finish my workout, cooking a nice meal, watching a movie on the couch, having a clean house, paying a bit more of the mortgage, spending time with friends, getting a cuddle from my husband. I feel good- and even if tomorrow is not so great I'll take what I can get :)

Life goes on...

I always try and steer myself away from writing depressing, self-pity posts (even when it gets really rough) but I'm not going to lie...infertility sucks. BFN's suck. IVF is hard. Not being pregnant is harder. The rollercoaster of emotions is a hugely unpleasant ride and I find it difficult to remember the time before all of this when life was simple. When looking forward to an event or party was the biggest thing happening in my life. I find myself wondering what I even did before we started trying to conceive? What did I like doing? What made me the happiest? I've always been a person with big goals and plans and it is so frustrating waiting, waiting, waiting.....This whole process is by far the hardest thing I've experienced yet I know that there are so many people experiencing far worse. People that would love to have my life. I hate to be ungrateful and so I make a concious effort to remind myself how lucky I am to have a job, a house, a husband, and food on the table. It would be so great to know for sure that we will definitely have children so we can get off the "what if" train and just enjoy life while we wait as the uncertainty is a killer! But life has to go on and so we are both focusing on being healthy and doing whatever we can to try and make the next IVF a success. Best of luck to any of you out there who are trying to conceive no matter how far you are into the journey.

Beta result IVF#1

It's officially a BFN. I had my BETA blood test this morning and received the results over the phone just before 5pm. I've teared up a few times reading text messages from close friends and family but otherwise I've resisted letting myself get too depressed. I'm trying to be positive and look forward to the next cycle- which should be around August/September. I've a long hot bath and eaten heaps of chocolate to make myself feel a little better and as I write this I have to say I don't feel as bad as I did earlier in the week after my negative home pregnancy test. That may change as I see pregnant women over the next few days and weeks but I'm really going to focus on being healthy and happy in preparation for IVF#2. Infertility sucks but it definitely won't beat me...

11dp2dt BFN :(

Today is 11 days past our 2 day embryo transfer (11dp2dt). I have had no urge to test until this morning.  I woke hot and sweaty in the middle of the night and felt I just had to do a test to stop the constant back-and-forth in my mind of whether the cycle had worked. I had not felt positive since the transfer and felt even less hopeful when none of our three remaining embryos lasted past the 4-cell stage. I didn't cry when I saw the BFN. I haven't cried all day. I have tried to understand what emotion I am actually feeling and although anger, sadness, confusion, fear, jealousy and hopelessness are all swirling around I have decided that in the end I just feel tired...so so tired....and empty. This process is so long. I hope I look back one day and it all feels like it flew by but right now I feel like time is passing at a snails pace for us while everyone else whizzes right past. I want to press pause on all the people with kids or pregnancies and yell "STOP!. WAIT FOR ME TO CATCH UP!!!!". I am worried my body rejected the embryo as I had felt quite tender in the breasts until my fever-like symptoms last night. I keep racing through the possible reasons for a failed cycle but right now I just want to curl up in a ball and go to sleep...

Embryo transfer and status of remaining embryos...

It's been a challenging few days. We arrived early for our embryo transfer on Friday morning (day 2) and after a short wait I was in stirrups ready for the doctor to arrive. The embryologist came in and explained the situation with our embryos. Basically they expected us to have 4-cell embryos at day 2 but we only had 1 x 3-cell and 3 x 2-cell embryos. They gave the 3-cell embryo a "7 out of 10" score and said that this was the one they would put back in. The procedure happened quite quickly- less than 2 minutes- and while I was lying there afterwards my husband and I spoke with the embryologist about the other embryos; including the non-ICSI ones that did not fertilise normally. The embryologist explained that the abnormally fertilised non-ICSI eggs contained one or three pro-nuclei rather than the normal two. He also said that he was unsure if the slower developing 2-cell embryos would catch up. I was told to continue with normal daily activity and that they would call me the following day to update me on the progress of the remaining embryos. I had to be in another city the next day for a pre-planned event and so got a lift with a friend for the 3 hour drive the same evening as my embyro transfer. I had terrible cramps during the drive and immediately regretted my decision. I was also worried about injecting the clexane without removing the air bubble but after much google searching I gave myself the injection. That night I woke in a frantic state at about 1:30am. I was extremely hot due to the fact that I had worn way too much to bed and could not get back to sleep after fearing that I had raised by core body temperature way too high and had consequently jeapordised the viability of our embryo. I stripped off my clothes and drank lots of water but remained awake for ages thinking that I had ruined everything. I tried to tell myself that it would be OK but felt terribly low all day Saturday. This wasn't helped by the fact that the embryologist called to say that it didn't look good for the three embryos in the lab who were still developing slowly (4 cell on day 3) and showed a lot of fragmentation. He guessed that they wouldn't make it to blastocyst stage but said he would call me back on Tuesday (day 6) to let me know how they had gone. So here I am on Monday night feeling pretty crappy. I'm trying to focus on what I have (an embryo inside) but can't help feeling dejected. My mind keeps jumping to the future and thinking that there must be something wrong with us to have 13 eggs and good looking sperm with only one semi-reasonable embryo and the rest abnormal. I thought I was prepared for bad results but I obviously wasn't and I am trying to process everything as best as I can without letting myself slip too far into 'pity party' mode. I wrote some positive affirmations down to keep me going and I am just hoping against hope that this little embie inside is ok...

Egg retrieval and embryologist report

Well we made it to egg retrieval yesterday. We went in with 15 follicles and were hoping for more than 10 eggs. I went into day surgery early in the morning and I didn't have to wait long to go through to theatre. The nurses were lovely but unfortunately the anaesthetist could not get a good vein and made numerous attempts at my inner elbow before trying the back of my hand. He whacked it really hard for about 30 seconds or so before finally getting success. I went under fairly quickly and before I knew it I was in the recovery ward. I was groggy for a while but with some oxygen soon perked up enough to get up and get dressed. I had to wear a pad for any bleeding but only had a little. The nurse took me through to another room where they gave me something to eat and drink. I was glad to see my husband (who had done his important job while I was in surgery). We waited for the embryologist who came through to say that my husband's sperm looked really good and that 13 eggs had been collected. He said that he would use the ICSI procedure on some of eggs as a 'back-up' and the rest would be allowed to try and fertilise naturally. He estimated that 9 or 10 eggs would fertilise based on statistics. We were both feeling positive when we left and drove the hour trip home to have a relaxing day at home. I have to say I find it difficult to sit still and so while I watched a bit of TV I also got up and did a few things around the house to keep me sane. I had minimal spotting and a little cramping but otherwise felt pretty good. This morning (the day after egg retrieval) I eagerly anticipated the embryologists call to see how many embryos fertilised. My heart dropped when he said that none of the regular IVF eggs had fertilised normally but that 4 out of the 6 ICSI eggs had fertilised. He could not give an indication of why this had happened and despite my disappointment I tried to feel grateful that we had 4 embryos. In line with the clinics policy he told me that they would do a 2-day single embryo transfer tomorrow if we had a good embryo to use. I rang my husband who was also disappointed but we both agreed that we were glad that the embryologist had used the ICSI procedure otherwise we may have had no embryos to use at all. I hope in our case it is a quality rather than quantity situation and am trying to think of people who would love to be in our position. It is confusing and worrying that none of the natural IVF eggs fertilised and my husband questioned if this is why we haven't fallen pregnant yet. We are just hoping that we have an excellent 2 day embryo to put back tomorrow and it would be even better if the other three can be frozen. I started on prednisolone yesterday and will begin the progesterone vaginal gel and clexane tomorrow. I have an acupuncture appointment before and after the embryo transfer. All we can do is hope that this cycle is successful and if not at least we have more information that will hopefully bring us our baby in the future :)