almost there

I think there's maybe just one person out there who reads this blog, and she has just given me a gentle nudge to come and update, so journey2dfuture, this is for you! And for anyone else at any time in the future who might be clutching at the straws of fertility treatments, scouring the internet for just one success story which speaks to them and their situation.

We are doing great, me and baby boy. I am 36 weeks and 2 days pregnant, and have recently travelled back to my home country to await his arrival. I sleep badly and have horrible heartburn, but apart from that I feel wonderful and am enjoying every day of my ninth month. I am ridiculously proud of my bump, overwhelmingly grateful that everything is so normal now in my pregnancy, incredibly happy that Mic and I will be parents very soon, and a teeny bit daunted of course by the thought of it all. Will I really be able to handle the lack of sleep? I think that's my biggest concern. When I imagine parenting a newborn, I picture myself handling all the other stuff ok - breastfeeding, nappies, crying, bathing, bonding - but I just can't imagine never sleeping for more than 2 hours at a stretch for months on end. I keep telling myself that everyone does it and most people seem to cope just fine, and it does calm me down. I'll be fine, right?

Mic is arriving on 2nd January, so little one has to stay put until then. I am really hoping he comes a bit early rather than late though...Mic can't take unlimited time off work and if baby boy decides to arrive 2 weeks late, his daddy will barely be able to say hello to him before he has to head home. Maybe if things are still looking stable at my next appointment (27th), I'll suggest he postpones coming by another few days. Hmmm....

Meantime I am chilling out at my mother's place, bit by bit preparing everything. I have bought pretty much everything I need for baby, started washing his clothes, arranged the cord blood collection, read all the books in the world on newborn care, etc etc. I am really enjoying the fact that I won't be going back to work for at least a year, and can put all my energy into this precious person. I know how lucky I am to be able to do that - to have a husband that can manage it financially and to have a job that loves me so much that they will take me back whenever I decide the time is right.

Honestly, I probably won't post another update until baby boy is born, so I hope my next post will be as a tired, proud, new mom!

so far.....so good!

I have been a lousy blogger these days, but it feels like for me, it's for all the right reasons. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE when people update their blogs regularly, and I'm an avid fan of several. But for me, right now, it has become more important to connect, or rather re-connect, with the real world around me. My house is much cleaner, my kitchen is getting more use, my husband is getting more of my undivided attention, I am starting to see friends more often....call it nesting or whatever you want, but I am really enjoying my electronic cut-back at the moment and have no plans to up my internet hours any time soon!

As for my pregnancy, it is going beautifully now. I feel great most of the time (with the exception of around 5am - 7am when there is no chance that I will sleep and my legs get really uncomfortable) and mainly have loads of energy. Bump is getting reassuringly bigger (see my 25-week pic below), and finally, finally, at exactly 25 weeks, I felt my first real kick, and they have been regular ever since. I had been a bit defensive about it, because everyone kept asking me if he was kicking, and all I had been feeling was him kind of rolling around slowly. OB said it was normal because I have an anterior placenta. But still, it was a relief when I finally got to feel his little punches.

My last urine test /culture showed up a UTI, although I have had no symptoms, so I am on antibiotics right now to get rid of that. But I passed the 1-hour glucose test, and my weight gain has been almost zero over the last month, despite the fact that chick-pea has grown from 680g to over a kilo, which is good, I think, as I had put on about 3 kilos in the previous month.

And here's the belly shot :)

Update, finally!

So, a lot has happened since the last time I posted. We decided to have the amniocentesis in the end. We went for our appointment but were told after the ultrasound that it would be better to wait another week, so that there would be more cells in the amniotic fluid. Another week of stress...but it went smoothly the following week. I heard later from friends and relatives that they were really traumatized by having the amnio, but actually I didn't find it too bad. Anyway, to cut a long story short, the amnio went totally smoothly and the results were perfectly fine. And it confirmed that we're having a boy! We are so stoked!

We have since then decided where I will be giving birth (it's in my home country rather than the country we currently live in), sorted out my maternity leave (I'm taking a year off) and, well, I can't hide any more that I'm pregnant, so I'm completely open about it these days. We have not bought a single baby-related item yet, but I guess it will all get done eventually. I am feeling completely fine, apart from having terribly sore legs when I sleep and just feeling a bit whacked after fairly minimal exertion. Mainly I am just in awe of my belly growing, and Mic is too. The way he looks at me when I get undressed is priceless!

I think the most amazing thing is that I have just written a completely normal, uneventful pregnancy blog post!  I finally feel like a regular pregnant woman instead of a neurotic, frightened IVF veteran. I absolutely love it.

the post-ultrasound honeymoon

Every time I have an ultrasound and am reassured that baby is fine, growing perfectly and not missing any limbs, I have a sort of honeymoon period of utter relaxation and confidence which lasts about 5 or 6 days before I start worrying again. I spill the beans to a few more people, only to regret it when the honeymoon is over and wish that I hadn't told anyone, because what if everything goes wrong?

Anyway I am now in that happy honeymoon place, as I had an OB appointment and u/s yesterday (15 weeks), and yes, everything is looking great. Ok, the placenta is still too close to the cervix, but doc said it's minor and I really shouldn't worry about it. It's not worse than before, so I'll take it. I can't even describe what it does for my peace of mind when I see the little mite stretching, waving and practice chewing, and it makes me so grateful to be living in this century with all its technological possibilities.

The other thing I haven't written about yet is our NT scan and bloods. The NT ultrasound looked perfect, measurements showed very low risk and the nasal bone was seen, etc. But when I got my blood results back they combined to give me a 1:60 risk of Downs syndrome, which is considered high risk. At my age it should be around 1:230. So the question is, what to do now? This is a very tricky one, and I know a lot of people have strong positions on this, but here goes. We haven't made any absolute decision, but I think that if we had a definite diagnosis of Downs, we would probably terminate. I'm not even going to get into the whole discussion of why or why not here, and I hope people will not ask me to. But basically, we have had two completely opposite pieces of advice from our health care professionals about what we should do.  Our RE, who ordered the tests in the first place, advises us to go ahead and have an amniocentesis. Our OB, on the other hand, does not trust the blood test results, says they give a lot of false positives, and says if you compare the supposed risk of Downs (1:60) to the risk of losing the baby in the amnio (1:50 or 2 %), the risk of losing the baby is greater, so he would not recommend the amnio. It's a good point. So, do we risk having a baby with Downs that we would otherwise have terminated, or do we risk losing a potentially perfectly healthy baby in the amnio? I think what we have decided to do is to do the triple test, which should give us a slightly more accurate measure of the probability, and based on that decide whether to do the amnio or not. So the triple test will be in a week, and my present honeymoon period will surely be well and truly over by then.

As for the gender of the baby, the OB gave us a 99% prediction yesterday. But I'm going to make you wait until I know for sure!

Scaring mama....part 2

So, since the scary bleeding from week 5 - week 6, my pregnancy has been completely unremarkable and sweetly uneventful. I have been lucky to have plenty of scans, including one at 11 weeks and my NT scan at 12 weeks. So far I don't think I have gone more than 2 weeks without a scan, which has been very reassuring. I have had lots of great nausea and my belly even seems to be growing already, although whether that's true baby bump or pregnancy bloating is hard to tell.

So I was quite unprepared for waking up this morning (12w6d) with stabbing pains in my abdomen, and then, lo and behold, blood. I was actually quite calm in the circumstance, but Mic was literally going round in circles with panic. He called my OB (yes! I have one of those now!) who said to come in for an emergency ultrasound a couple of hours later. By the time I got there the bleeding had lightened to spotting and the pain had subsided quite a lot, so I was quite hopeful, but still super nervous.

Anyway, all is well with the baby, nothing wrong there. My placenta is in slightly the wrong position and has a small tear in it, hence the bleeding. And, as usual, there's absolutely nothing I can do to make it better. Rest won't help, the same thing might well happen again, and it's not dangerous. That's what I've been told, so I'm going to choose to believe it!

The only thing I can do is stay on those pesky progesterone suppositories, and if the bleeding happens again and is prolonged, he'll put me back on PIO. And - the silver lining - my next appointment is in 2 weeks, so once again, the agonizing wait between ultrasounds has been blessedly cut short.

Hopefully the next time I post an update it will be completely absent of any drama and maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to tell you if the little troublemaker in there is male or female!

telling at ten weeks

We decided that if everything was fine at our 10 week ultrasound, we would tell Mic's mother and brothers and sisters. Thankfully the scan looked perfect - chick pea was upside down but little hands could be seen waving about and there was plenty of movement, as well as measuring on track. I had a really rough week at 9 weeks with nausea and extreme exhaustion, so it was a huge relief when at 10 weeks it seemed to ease up and I felt a bit more human. So yes, we took our little u/s picture and showed it to MIL. It took her a while to figure out what it was - I guess they didn't have any of that technology in her day - but she was SO happy. Of course she attributed it to us praying more and all kinds of divine intervention, but I don't begrudge her that!

So we have now told both our families and a very few close friends. I'm waiting till 12 weeks to tell my boss, and as for everyone else, there will be no announcements! They'll just have to figure it out when my belly pops. Speaking of which...I have always had a little belly anyway, but could always suck it in to nothing. Now it seems it's here to stay and although it's not any bigger than it was yet, pulling it in just doesn't work any more! I'm already using the rubber band around the button trick on my trousers, and the new bra I bought at 7 weeks is already needing replaced. I still get tired very quickly, but at least I don't have 2-hour naps at 11am any more, lol.

Feeling very blessed and lucky to be here. After 8 IVFs and a very scary start to this pregnancy, I didn't dare dream that we would ever be in this position. I'm still looking for an OB to see locally but should have my first appointment by the end of this week and start thinking about NT screening etc. I had better get a move on!

"If I can do it, anyone can?"

I'm 8w3d today and had another ultrasound this morning. Baby is looking great and was jumping up and down at a rate of knots! I also heard the heartbeat for the first time. RE assures me that everything looks perfect, and I am just to keep taking the progesterone and estrogen for another 4 weeks, and go back for another appointment in 2 - 3 weeks. I am finally starting to have some confidence that this baby is here to stay, and finally enjoying my pregnancy like I promised at the beginning!

When I started this blog, it was in the hope that one day, I would be able to offer hope and encouragement to others who have had multiple IVF failures. And it would be tempting at this point to write a post to all of those people, saying "don't give up! If I can finally have success, anyone can!" But I now believe that that would be too simplistic, too unrealistic, and even a little disrespectful to some people. It is true that I have found real solace and huge hope from reading and hearing stories of other women who have gone through endless treatments and have eventually got pregnant and given birth, and I still hope that my blog will be a source of all these things to women who find themselves in similar circumstances. However, today I want to focus on those criteria that are game changers, and that lead many people down different roads.

1. Desire
Let's face it, if you are going to put your body and your pocket through endless strain, you have to have a really really strong desire to be pregnant. Many women are motivated more by motherhood than pregnancy itself and are ready to look at other options quite quickly. Some do IVF at the request of their partner and are not really convinced that it's what they want to do; others put a limit on how many times they will do IVF from the very beginning. And there are hundreds of other reasons why doing multiple IVFs is just not for everyone. I have huge respect for all those difficult decisions that people are faced with every day.

2. Money
If you don't have a good supply of money or pretty exceptional insurance (I only know one country where people have free access to an unlimited number of IVFs for their first 2 children), multiple IVFs are simply impossible. I will never cease to be grateful for the fact that we could afford this, and although we literally could have built a house with the money we have spent so far on IVF and other treatments, we really did not suffer hugely. I don't have the figures, but I would guess that the vast majority of people with infertility in the world simply cannot afford what we did.

3. Resilience
If you have the desire and the money, and have decided to go for the long haul, you also need to be emotionally tough as nails in order to deal with the constant disappointments. Although resilience can (maybe) be learned to a certain extent later in life, my feeling is that it's about 90% genetics and childhood upbringing, and therefore not under our control to a large extent. Don't get me wrong, there were times when we wondered how we would get out of bed and face the world again after another BFN, but I think we are both really blessed in that we bounce back pretty quickly. For some people, the strain would be too much to handle, and I think that is perfectly normal and an excellent reason to say "enough".

4. Medical hope
If we had been told by several doctors that we should think about other options because IVF wasn't likely to work for us with our own eggs/sperm, we would definitely have gone down another road a long time ago. We're optimistic but not crazy. Doctors, although I don't believe them blindly, do have a lot of influence over the decisions we take, and rightly so. After our 6th IVF, I asked our RE if it was him and his wife in our situation, would he carry on trying? When he said yes, he would, it gave us a pretty big boost in confidence to go on.

5.  Lady Luck
Some people get pregnant after 8 tries, some after 10, some after 17, and some....some never do. We were so aware every time we did IVF that this might never happen for us and we might end up broke and with nothing to show for it. So the phrase "if I can do it, anyone can", just isn't accurate.


I am lucky enough to belong to an online forum of women who have been supporting each other through infertility for the last 2 years. In that group, we have people who have been successful on their first or second IVF attempt; one who had a disastrous IVF which was converted to an IUI, which worked; one who had 2 failed IVFs and was just about to use donor eggs for her 3rd attempt when she fell pregnant naturally; several who have used donor sperm, donor eggs or donor embryos; one who is pursuing motherhood through a gestational carrier after several IVF failures and miscarriages; one who is waiting for an adoption placement after 4 IVFs; two who adopted first, then had their second child through IVF; one who had her first child through IVF and has been trying for 2 years to have her second; and yes, there are also those who simply stopped appearing on the board. Did they succeed in IVF? Did they choose to live child free? Did they find another road to go down? We'll probably never know. Each one has gone through a deeply emotional and personal journey to get to where they are, and anyone contemplating IVF will have to go through their own unique and often difficult journey. I wish each and every one happiness, whatever that looks like, and if happiness is not possible, the equanimity to live with the cards they are dealt.

...And still hanging on...

I went for another ultrasound yesterday, 6w0d. My RE said if the bleeding continued I should do the u/s earlier rather than later, so we went in to the clinic in the morning and waited for about an hour. The grumpy u/s technician was surprisingly sweet yesterday - Mic reckoned it was because he was there! He may have a point. The poor woman sees nobody but sad infertile women all day and does nothing but poke a wand up their vaginas from morning till night. So having a man make an entrance might have just been the highlight of her day.

Anyway, the great, amazing, unbelievable news is that our baby's heart is beating! We couldn't see it at first but when she pointed out how the little blob was pulsing away it was clear. And it was measuring a day ahead at 6w1d, so we came away quite overwhelmed. There was no sign of any subchorionic hematoma either, so they have no idea why I am still bleeding. The technician didn't seem concerned and said it's very common in the first trimester, but my RE always sounds a little more hesitant. When I called him later on he said to come in again in a week. When I told him I have to travel for work next week, from Sunday till the following Monday, he said if the bleeding is still ongoing I could come in on Thursday. Which would lead to the almost ridiculous total of 4 ultrasounds by the time I'm 6w4d.

Now for the not so great news. Not only is the bleeding continuing on and off, but last night I had what I can only describe as an attack, exactly the same as I occasionally get with AF on day 1. It starts with severe cramps, then I break out in a cold sweat. All the blood rushes from my face, and within about 10 minutes I am vomiting. This was combined with new, bright red bleeding. It only lasted about 15 minutes and then I was absolutely fine and the bleeding pretty much stopped, but it was terrifying for it to happen during pregnancy. I just don't know what to make of all this, and I am hoping beyond hope that it is not affecting what's going on inside my uterus. Mic blamed himself and said we shouldn't have dome so much walking yesterday, that I had tired myself out, but I'm sure there's more to it than that.

Despite all that, I am so happy that we have got this far, and I do have a small inner voice telling me that the baby is going to be fine. So again, I am going to try to just get used to this irritation and focus on the positive - we have a baby growing in there after 8 IVFs! If that's not a miracle, I don't know what is.

Hanging on by the skin of my teeth

It's been a dramatic few days, let's say, and not in a good way! I'm now apparently 5w6d, and it has been an absolute roller-coaster already.

The day after my 5w3d u/s, I started spotting again and decided to take the day off work and rest at home. Later in the day the spotting turned to red bleeding and I freaked out. I called my RE who by that time was already away for the weekend, but he told me to go to any nearby clinic and get another ultrasound. When I eventually found one that would take me, the doctor there was so sweet. She was literally about to close and all the other staff had gone home, but she agreed to give me an ultrasound (and she wouldn't even let me pay for it afterwards!). The u/s showed basically the same as the previous day - everything still intact and measuring correct. She advised me to take 3 days of bed rest, and to switch from progesterone suppositories to PIO (Progesterone in Oil) injections. I called my RE afterwards to check this with him and he agreed.

I am so confused about the whole progesterone thing. It seems my progesterone is very low, but there doesn't seem to be an accurate way to test this, as the blood test does not measure the effect of the suppositories and oral progesterone.

Anyway, after resting in bed for the rest of that day, the bleeding completely stopped, only to return yesterday evening - less than the previous day but it was certainly fresh blood, accompanied by wicked AF cramps. This morning I has quite a bit of brown discharge but no new bleeding and no cramps, and as of now (2pm) it seems to have stopped again. I called my RE and asked him if it would hurt to continue with all 3 forms of progesterone - PIO, oral and suppositories - and he said it wouldn't hurt. So that's what I'm doing. I can go in tomorrow for another ultrasound, at which point I'll be 6 weeks. Still maybe too early for the heartbeat, and I will have to do the u/s with the grumpy u/s technician instead of my RE, but I think it's worth it just to see if we're still measuring on track and if they can find a source of the bleeding.

So, this babe doesn't intend on giving mama an easy ride, it seems. I honestly don't mind bleeding every day for the next 8 months, as long as he/she sticks around. I have read so many stories and it seems about 50-50 success/eventual miscarriage. The one comfort I have is those great betas and perfect ultrasounds so far, so I am staying somewhat hopeful, but realistic....I know this could go either way at this point.

5w3d...

And it's relief once again! The ultrasound this morning was perfect, and showed one beautiful gestational sac and yolk sac. RE was pleased and said that they don't always see the yolk sac at this very early stage. My next ultrasound is in a week and we'll hopefully see a heartbeat by then. No idea if we can expect to hear it yet or just see it.

I asked about my progesterone levels (they were a little low, 12, the day of my first beta) and he said that the blood test doesn't even measure the effect of the suppositories and oral progesterone I'm taking. He got me to do another test anyway, and also told me to take a shot of Pregnyl today, just to be on the safe side. Anyway the test came back at 15.6. Really don't know if that's normal or not but I'm just going to follow my RE's advice and chill out.

Tell me, is it terrible of me to admit I would have loved it to have been twins? Mainly because the thought of potentially going through another 8 cycles of IVF to have a second child, and being 2 years older and 2 years less fertile, fills me with something close to blind panic right now. BUT, I am so utterly and overwhelmingly grateful that we have what looks like one strong chick pea, and part of me is also a tiny bit relieved - it's hard enough taking care of one newborn, let alone two, after all, and the pregnancy itself should be a little easier (especially on the herniated disc in my back that I've had for the last 5 years). The RE said there is still a possibility of twins, we can't confirm it until the next ultrasound, but in the meantime I am assuming we have a single, wonderful life growing in there, and I'm just going to hope to get through the next week without any bleeding scares!

And here is my very last pee stick picture, I promise!

Scaring mama

I am now, according to google, 5w2d and have my first ultrasound tomorrow. Everything was going swimmingly until I woke up this morning with bad AF cramps and then saw blood when I wiped. I freaked out, especially as any "symptoms" I had seemed to have gone, my boobs looked like they had returned to their normal size, and all I could feel was AF coming on.

I am blessed to live in a town where pretty much anything is possible, at any hour, so I literally got dressed, drove the 5 minutes to the nearest lab, asked for an HCG test, did it, went home, waited for an hour and a half and then called to get the results. I calculated that if my beta was doubling every 48 hours, it should be 3344 by now, so I just had this number going round and round in my head while waiting to call. And the actual result was.....7732!

Not that I have been obsessing on betabase or anything (ahem!), but that makes a doubling time of 34.84 hours. That's good, right? It's also well above the median beta for twins on 23dpo, but I am not even daring to hope that I might get that lucky. I called my RE about it all and he said the spotting and AF-type cramping is not concerning, and the beta is very strong and just to relax and come in tomorrow as planned.

I'm so glad I did the extra beta as I would have been stressing and upset about it the whole day otherwise. Still nervous about tomorrow, but a bit less so now! I swore I would enjoy every minute of this pregnancy and I hate to be Worrying Wendy, so I am really trying to take the doc's advice and relax now. And, touch wood, the spotting seems to have cleared up already.

To my darling baby/babies: Please don't scare me like that again! (Fat chance). Love, melodramatic mama xx

Recap

Finally I have a minute to sit down and fill in the details of the last few amazing days! Coincidentally all this has happened during the busiest week of the year at work and I have literally been rushed off my feet since hearing the news.

As you know, I had literally started to get over IVF#8 on 8dp5dt, when I had some bleeding and got a negative on an HPT. After all our previous negatives, there was no way I could believe that we would somehow get a miraculous late BFP, and especially with the bleeding, I just assumed it was over. We had a few pretty down days, and were discussing getting more opinions, consulting with an immunologist and another 2 doctors that had been recommended to us.  On maybe 10dp5dt I had just a moment when I thought that maybe my boobs had got a bit bigger, but I just pushed it aside as one of those crazy hopes that always come in the 2ww (see this post on hope...). On the morning of 11dp5dt I hadn't even thought about testing, in fact I sat most of the day researching immunology and donor embryos. I really don't know what possessed me to go and buy a couple of tests in the late afternoon. It was more or less unconscious, but looking back, maybe it was because the bleeding had completely cleared up, not a sign of it, or maybe it was the watery discharge I kept feeling.

When I did the test I left it about a minute and then glanced over at it. Unbelievable. It's not snow white, I kept thinking, it's not snow white. I started grinning like a Cheshire cat and immediately went to take a photo of it. I couldn't stop staring at it. Anyway to cut a long story short, Mic came home and I had wrapped up the test and written on it "Hopefully happy birthday!" (his birthday was the next day). I told him I had got him a birthday present. All the time I was thinking it could be a chemical and it might all be over the next day, but I was so happy just to have seen those two lines for the first time.

Next day was beta day. I foolishly took another HPT before going in, thinking that with first morning urine the line was bound to be stronger than the previous day. Wrong! It looked exactly the same, and I went in for the beta feeling despondent, feeling sure the beta would come back at 20 and then keep going down. I was expecting the nurses to call back, so when I got a call from a private number and heard a man's voice I didn't even realize it was our RE. I heard somebody saying that the result was very strong, and congratulations, and finally the penny dropped!

I don't get a second beta, but I'm having my first ultrasound next Wednesday. I am an IVF expert but about pregnancy, um, no, so I am not even sure how far along I will be by then. Some say 5w3d, some 5w1d. I guess I can hope to see a yoke sac and fetal pole by then, not much more. I am strangely calm, and just determined to enjoy every moment of being pregnant. Infertility makes us constantly fear the worst, and I know there's a chance things might not turn out well here, but I am just choosing to file that fear very far away and revel in the fact that today, I am pregnant for the first time ever. I couldn't be happier, and Mic is so cute when he talks about it, his whole face lights up. And he's spoiling me, which doesn't hurt :)

It is a source of constant wonder to me that this stuff is happening inside me. I am amazed every time I use the bathroom and there is no blood, and awed when I have to go pee every 10 minutes! I feel so lucky and blessed to be experiencing this most everyday of miracles, something that billions of women have experienced since time immemorial, and yet something that for many of us is a distant dream, almost unimaginable.

Oh yes, and I did pee on another stick this morning, just to be able to see a kick-ass dark line. And here it is!

drum roll.........

And the beta is in. Cue me in total shock! Beta is 418 on 12dp5dt!

I seriously can't believe it, especially as I did an HPT just before I went in for the beta and it seemed just as faint as yesterday.

Holy crap, I am pregnant!

I have to run to work but will post a full update later.

11dp5dt...?

Ok, so maybe, just maybe, I spoke too soon! I just did a test on a whim, because AF never did show up properly and I've just had a couple of unremarkable but odd symptoms.
So what are we thinking of this? It's taken late in the afternoon with very pale pee, so the line is a bit faint...but it's definitely there!

Beta tomorrow. I am looking at this positively whatever happens....I am praying like crazy, as much as an atheist can pray, that this is the sticky one. But even if it's not, it is surely progress. I was convinced that my uterus was toxic and was poisoning all my babies. So I'm going to look at it as one step closer to our family.

Deja Vu

8dp5dt. It's all over, again. Bleeding and the HPT is negative. I can't write more at the moment, I'm too spaced out and sad, but this baby quest is NOT OVER! Join me for the next installment, coming soon.

3dp5dt

So, I am sitting here trying not to obsess. Obviously it's not working! I am keeping an open mind. We do have a chance this time, it could be our best chance. But at the same time, statistically it's pretty unlikely after 7 BFNs that suddenly things are going to change for us. The thing that keeps going round in my head is, if we have another negative, can I really keep on doing the same thing over and over? We still have 10 vials of frozen sperm and I just don't know if I can face another 10 cycles with the same result. And as with so many infertility stories, we don't categorically know if the reason IVF is not working is because of the original diagnosis, or whether there could be another undiscovered factor.

I guess we have three options that we might consider at this point. We could take a step back and do further immunology tests, which might take several months (tick, tock, tick, tock, goes the biological clock). We could keep on doing more attempts with the sperm we have with no further testing. Or we could try donor embryos. I think the thing that scares me the most is that I am completely ready to go down the donor embryo route, but I don't think DH is. We have been such a tight team up till now, that I really don't want any cracks to appear. My relationship with him is priority number 1, it comes before babies. At the same time I don't want there to be any resentment on either side later on - me resenting him for not letting us try DE and delaying any possibility of pregnancy for another year or more, or him resenting me for not giving our biological child all the chances it could possibly have. Maybe after all, doing some of the more unusual and controversial immunology testing is the way to go. Gives us a break from IVF and (hopefully) clarifies our options later.

I know I must sound terribly negative for someone who just transferred 3 embryos on day 5 and who has not a shred of evidence that it didn't work. I suppose I just want to be prepared. I am hopeful, but I don't want another BFN to hit me like a pile of bricks and send me into depression. I need to know that I will be ok and I will just go on with the next chapter of our journey.

Roll on next week!

horizontal, again

Today was transfer day. I was actually quite zen going in this morning, and I am pretty happy with the result. We had five in total still surviving: one absolute superstar AA blastocyst, another blast that was ok quality, and 3 stragglers. I am not naive, I know that the 3 runts don't have much chance, but I've never had a really excellent blast before. We transferred 3, and froze 2 morulas. Also a first, to have anything to freeze.

So now I'm home, in bed, and for the first time ever (3 firsts in one day!) I'm actually going to cancel all my work and stay home for a full 3 days. Docs have never prescribed bed rest for us, but our current RE recommends 3 days of taking it really easy. I'm also going to indulge every old wives tale I have ever heard: pineapple core, brazil nuts, warm feet.....I just wish we had yams in this country!

The scary day

By far the hardest day of any IVF cycle for me is the fertilization report. It's even harder than the BFN sometimes, because at least with a BFN I usually have some warning. But we have had 4 really terrible fert reports out of our previous 7 IVFs, so I'm always fearing the worst.

Anyway, we got our very best ever egg count yesterday, sweet sixteen, and yet still I was bracing myself for more bad news this morning. Cue Mic:

"Did he call?"
Me: "Nope.
Mic: "Did you call?"
Me: "Nope."
Mic: So there has been no calling?"
Me: "Nope. I'm too scared to call. I don't want to know."

Five minutes later the doc called. Eight fertilized. Not our best fert report ever, but far from being the worst, so I'll take it! Tomorrow I will hear how they are doing and if they are good enough to wait for a day 5 transfer.

So here's to hope, and it staying alive through another scary day.

  

IVF#8 begins

And we're off again.  I started with a decapeptyl shot last night, and tonight I start stims. 600 IU. Monitoring on  15th.  We had to get at least 5 days worth of meds today, and I had to drain my savings account (there goes the car insurance money I had squirreled away for next month), but it's done! I've decided I like back-to-back cycles. Not so much time to sit and brood, we just hit the ground running.

People tell me I'm strong for going through so many cycles. Well, I met a woman during my last cycle who had success on her 17th attempt, and was back to try for number 2! When I get that far, I might concede that it took some grit. Come on, 8 is still single figures! Besides, I've been through much worse than this. Six years ago, I was on the verge of divorce after only a year of marriage. Coming through that needed a thousand times more strength than IVF and caused infinitely more pain. But here I am, still married and more in love than ever. And this is a challenge I don't have to go through alone. We're a team, and that makes me, not strong, but just incredibly lucky. 

Hope...

So, as expected this cycle has ended with another BFN and yet again, I started bleeding before the beta (which is tomorrow). I think, through all my IVF cycles, I have only once actually got to beta day without a clue what the result would be. Otherwise it has been this wearily familiar pattern of cramps and eventually AF starting several days before the blood test, and me spending the last few days cursing every time I put a progesterone suppository in because I knew it was worthless. This time the cramps actually started just 7 days after transfer, so I have had the joy of feeling like I had AF constantly for the last week, and yet the spotting only started today, so I know I have another week of it to look forward to!

Despite the constant disappointments and the repeated early warnings, I have to say that I have discovered that hope must be by far the most resilient of human emotions. It goes like this:

7dp3dt - AF cramps start. I think: "oh, that's odd, that's never happened this early before. Wonder if it's a good sign?"
9dp3dt - boobs stop being sore: I think: "ah well, seems it didn't work this time."
10dp3dt - still cramping but no blood. I think: "In previous cycles I've always started spotting by now...maybe this is one of these pregnancies people talk about where they felt exactly like AF was coming right before their BFP."
11dp3dt: do an HPT. Negative. I think: "Oh well, it wasn't to be. They were rubbish quality embryos after all."
11dp3dt in the evening: I start urinating frequently and get diarrhea. I google "11dp3dt BFN 12dp3dt BFP" and diarrhea as pregnancy symptom. I think: "Maybe it's not over yet?"
12dp3dt: still no blood. Urinating frequently. AF cramps GONE. I think: "could I have a miracle on my hands?"
13dp3dt: spotting starts. I think: "Crap. Anyway, never mind, we'll start IVF#8 right away."

And that's really what it's like! It's quite incredible that all my attempts at gritty realism fail so miserably as soon as I get a tiny thread of hope. The only thing I have learned, really, is not to verbalize any of these crazy thoughts, at least not until it's over, so I can keep a fraction of my dignity intact.

Mic and I have a kind of unwritten rule these days that we don't talk about any of this stuff in the 2ww. He might ask me once, "so when will we know?", but other than that we just try to forget about it. I don't know how this works for him, but any woman who has done IVF or is even TTC naturally will tell you it's completely impossible to forget. But for me, not talking about it is the closest I come to forgetting about it, so I'll take it!

So, our next step is, I'll go for the beta tomorrow (I ALWAYS go for the beta, even when I'm 100% sure it's a bust. You know, just in case). And I'll call my RE and ask if I can go straight into another cycle without taking a month off. If I have to take a month off, it will probably end up being 2 because I have a work trip at the end of May and it would probably clash, so I really hope he agrees. We'll dig deep into out pockets again and just bite the bullet. We have decided, for now, to just keep trying with our 11 frozen sperm samples until we run out of them, and then think of other options. Having potentially another 11 BFNs to look forward to is quite a thought. But hell, it's just another year. And of course, there's always the little voice of hope, saying "It might work you know. Maybe next time."

Deja vu

Well, there's no pretty way to say this. Of our 10 eggs retrieved, 8 were mature and 2 fertilized. By day 3 they were 4 cells and 5 cells, so we put them both back right away. For anyone not familiar with IVF, by day 3 embryos should ideally be around 8 cells, and 4/5 cell embryos have a dramatically reduced chance of implanting. There is still a chance, and google is full of success stories of course. I know, theoretically, there is a chance, otherwise I wouldn't be cutting caffeine, faithfully taking all the luteal support and cancelling my schedule for the next 3 days. But, we have been in this place so many times. IVF#1 produced only 2 embryos, and IVFs #2 and 3 only 1 each. By the time we got to IVF#4 and 5 we were over the moon to be able to transfer 5 and 6 great embryos, and we really felt we were making progress in IVF#6 when we managed to go to day 5 and transfer a blastocyst and 2 morulas. Now we're back to square 1, and have no idea why.

The only thing I can think of is this. The day before egg retrieval, our RE called and said, why don't we try using fresh sperm, and have the frozen as a backup. I said, but Mic has stopped the shots and has restarted the testosterone, so surely there won't be any viable sperm in a fresh sample? He said, not necessarily, because it takes several months for any effect to be noticeable, so we don't lose anything by trying, and that way we might save a frozen sample. So we agreed. The day of retrieval, we were told that the fresh sample  had not been enough and they had to use the frozen as well. Yesterday we found out that the ones that survived had been fertilized by the frozen sperm. So, my theory goes, the fresh sperm were just really poor quality and we should never have tried using them. On the other hand, the frozen were obviously not that great either. But who knows, really?

My mind is already moving on to what happens next. We are booking a phone consult with a urologist at Cornell. I am already thinking of what I should be cancelling in the summer in order to cycle again. And although Mic is as determined as I am to continue, I don't know how long we can keep on at this, financially. I will pick myself up, I always do, and life is too beautiful to be depressed for long. But I think that the main long-term effect of all these treatments is that I feel my life is shrinking. I used to have so many activities and exciting things going on, and gradually they are being postponed or cancelled or just given up on, to make room for treatment cycles. I know it's not good for my mental health, but my biological clock is about 3 years to midnight and I feel we have to keep pushing on. And there you have it. All my weaknesses exposed!

Watermelon woman

Just a quick update. I trigger tonight. In the unlikely event that anyone reading this isn't familiar with the IVF procedure, this is the final shot before egg retrieval, which matures the eggs to their final stage and triggers ovulation 36 hours later. I have been on pretty huge doses of stims this time (600 IU for the first few days, then reduced to 450) and my belly does indeed look a bit like a watermelon (the size, you understand, not the color ;)) but otherwise I feel quite ok and I don't think I'm in any danger of hyperstimulation. Which makes me think 2 things. Firstly, isn't it unfair that while I'm going through my 7th IVF which is, let's be honest, statistically likely to fail, my belly looks like that of a pregnant woman, giving rise to the inevitable questions from those that don't know better?  And secondly, why am I, at the age of 36 not hyperstimulating on such huge quantities of drugs? I always have a little guilty voice at the back of my head about my few, but fairly heavy, years of smoking. Did they ruin my eggs for good?

Ah well, for better or worse, I am about ready to lay!

Mind Games

You would be forgiven for thinking that after 6 failed IVFs, I would have got the balance of hope and/or resignation completely figured out by now and I would just know which one was best. After all, as the Arabic saying goes, even a donkey will learn with enough repetition. Dear reader, I am sorry to tell you that, at least for this particular donkey, it doesn't work that way. As each cycle nears, I play this little game in my head, trying to decide which strategy to take. Shall I go for absolute certainty it's going to work, a.k.a the Secret, the law of attraction or whatever you like to call it? Or, since that didn't work last time, shall I just wrap myself in an emotional cocoon, knowing fine well it's not going to work so I may as well just protect myself from the inevitable? Or, my favorite, but by far the hardest - detachment, just shoving it under the carpet, not dealing with it and trying ever-so-hard not to even feel any feelings whatsoever.

I am blessed, as an IVF patient, with a fairly zen disposition. I mean, I'm no monk, but I'm also not a drama queen, and I have found that whichever strategy I choose, the resulting emotion after a BFN is more or less the same. I have maybe 30 seconds of tears, a couple of down days, and then pull myself together and count my blessings (the only major difference is that each time we are a little poorer, which weighs on us both). I have to point out that I am incredibly lucky that my husband want to have children just as much as I do. I know a lot of women struggle with this on top of the medical issue, and it definitely makes it harder for them. We have our differences about the process - I was absolutely ready to try donor embryos after our last failure, but Mic just isn't in that place yet - but I am constantly grateful that we are on exactly the same page in terms of our absolute determination to carry on. We even have a little hand signal we give to each other when there are just no more words, which loosely translated means "we'll go on and on and on and on".

At least I have learned one thing from our 6 IVF attempts. I do NOT analyze symptoms in the 2 week wait! I have literally had every early pregnancy symptom known to man, and not so much as a hint of a BFP, so nowadays I just silently curse the progesterone and try to think of something else.

As for my emotional strategy for IVF#7, I'm still working on it. But for now, I am super-confident about just one thing: we will be parents one day. Maybe this time, maybe not. Maybe with our own DNA, maybe not. Maybe through pregnancy, maybe not. But it will happen.

Introducing....IVF #7

Well hello there world. I have never blogged in my life, never even been tempted. But as I trawl the internet looking for stories of hope from other people who have done as many IVFs as I have, I find that there are remarkably few out there. I know for a fact that loads and loads of people do this many cycles and more, and I found myself wishing that more of them would write. So I just decided to put my money where my mouth is and start blogging, in the hope that one day, I might have some good news to share which will give another person hope when they need it most.

Just to fill in some background, we have been TTC for the last 3 years. We were lucky enough never to have had the months and years of trying on our own before a shock diagnosis - Mic, as I will call him here (Mr. Infertile Crescent!), has known since he was a teenager about his hypogonadism and azoospermia, and I went into our marriage fully prepared. Actually, that's a lie, I was blinded by love and wasn't even sure whether I wanted kids or not, so it seemed so insignificant and I was sure that we could cope with whatever was thrown our way. Anyway, to cut a very long story short, we left it until 4 years into our marriage before deciding that the time was right to start.

A year and a half after Mic started hormone shots for sperm production, there was still no sperm in his ejaculate. We went to a new RE who advised increasing the dose, but also booked us in for our first IVF/ICSI attempt in August 2010. They did a minor surgery to aspirate sperm from the testicles, which was successful, and gave us our first ray of hope.  I'll try to be brief now, because chronicling the details of all 6 attempts would be mind-numbingly boring. Here goes:

IVF#1: Sperm aspirated.
            7 eggs retrieved, 2 fertilized
            2 day transfer of 2 embryos
            BFN

IVF#2: A few sperm found in ejaculate. Fresh sperm from ejaculate used in IVF #s 2 - 6.
            9 eggs retrieved, 1 fertilized
            2 day transfer of 1 embryo
            BFN

IVF#3: 7 eggs retrieved, 1 fertilized very late
            2 day transfer of 1 embryo
            BFN

IVF#4 (new clinic): 11 eggs retrieved, 8 fertilized
                              3 day transfer of 5 embryos. Nothing to freeze.
                              BFN

IVF#5: 10 eggs retrieved, 8 fertilized
            3 day transfer of 6 embryos (please don't judge me!). Nothing to freeze
            BFN

IVF#6 (new clinic): 14 eggs retrieved, 7 fertilized
                              5 day transfer of 3 embryos. Nothing to freeze.
                              BFN


And now.....drum roll.....when AF arrives within the next few days, I'll be starting IVF #7. I'm not even going to start on the emotional aspect of it all today. Just to add that we have done male karyotype, chromosomal y-deletions, RPL panel, thyroid tests, and hysteroscopy, which have all been normal, and this time, just for fun, we have added 2 endometrial biopsies. And we are BROKE (we pay out of pocket for every single treatment).  But still, life is full of blessings. This has become like a motto, and although sometimes it is hard to remember, it is so true. We are still happy together, both have jobs which allow us to pay for treatment, we have seriously lovely families, go on holiday every year, we're healthy in most other ways....there are so many things to be grateful for.

If you're reading this, thanks for stopping by!