massive update

I can't believe how long it has been since I updated this, so much has happened.

We are currently in the midst of our 2nd NHS IVF treatment and had egg collection this morning. We had 9 eggs collected. much less than last year but I have to have faith in the clinic to get us to embryo transfer. Its our of our hands now and we have the agonising wait til tomorrow mid-morning to find out the news.

I've been like a pin cushion as been injecting the stimmulation drugs every day til Tuesday, then also had injections to stop me ovulating as well as clexane to help prevent clotting. Clexane leave nasty bruises so I look like I've been beaten up!
I'm also taking 25mg of prednisolone a day and 75mg of aspirin.
Last monday I had an infusion IV of something called intralipids to try and suppress my killer cells. A nurse came to the house to do it which was good. If the cycle works we have to have another few of those infusions.

I have also had something called LIT - which is leukocyte immunization therapy. The theory is to expose me to my hubby's leukocytes so hopefully my immune system won't fight them off. It was the most painful thing I have ever had done and I have to do it again in a week's time.

Don't even get me started on the cost of all this. We addded up that so far on tests and these treatments (bare in mind IVF is funded currently) we have spent over 5k!!!! If this doesn't work and we end up going private for it all with all the immune stuff and an IVF cycle it'll cost us about 15k.
Trying not to think about the money as hoping we'll get pregnant and then not have to worry.

Feel like luck is not on our side though and feel that its going to be a big deal to get through tomorrow hearing if any have fertilised. Surely it must be our time........

update!

I'm so rubbish at updating this blog, I swore I'd keep up to date with it when I started the monitoring cycle and hear I am 6 weeks later having not updated so here goes with updates copied from a forum I post on!!!!:

I had the mid cycle scan and the doc said 'wow that is one good sized follicle waiting to rupture'!! Thought I was about due to ovulate and my lining was nice and thick. Had to try and BD at my parents last night - not good, but managed it this morning instead - hope we've not missed the boat!
We then went and had karyotyping (chromosome) blood tests on both of us, an oestrodiol test on me and then the full lot of immune bloods, so I am now £1300 and 21 TUBES OF BLOOD LIGHTER!! 21 I nearly faineted when she got all the tubes out!Have to phone the clnic today as yesterday when we got home I had a surge on the OPK so now need to arrange extra blood test for progesterone.


I had my progesterone bloods on the friday as requested and am fuming as on the monday I phoned the lab and they hadn't even recieved it, so I got one of the girls in work to recheck it that day and I had the result that afternoon. The level was 45 which I believe to be good??? Anyway the ARGC said yes I had OV'd - I knew that anyway but hey ho! They advised long protocol for me whereas with my current clinic I did short.

we had our follow up on the 4th june to sort our 2nd NHS free go in Wales. Have had nearly all the London bloods back and thankfully they are almost all normal other than one killer cell level which is slightly raised, this is called CD56, they are hoping it could be treated with prednisolone steroid which thankfully my local clinic are prepared to try so we can have the free go. London also want me to have clexane but Swansea want me to clarify that as he's not too sure about doing that. So basically I'm starting stimming with my next period due end of June, doing short protocol again and aiming for double blastocyst transfer.
Excited now and glad to be able to give it a go locally for free before moving onto London if needed.

BUT........
Went to see this other consultant yesterday, Dr Gorgy in London who sugessted even more tests so another £1100 lighter we agreed. I'm getting terribly obsessive about finding out what the problem is and I want to cover all bases. However we are due to start treatment in Swansea next week, AF due in next week, but I'm worried that we should postpone for a month and wait for all the results to come back in case something is wrong. But another part of me wants to get going, we've waited so long and my drugs are arriving on fri and I just want to get going.
Any thoughts?
one of the tests checks for high up infections through the testing of menstrual blood so the results wouldnt' be back til I've almost finished stimming - if something is detected I'd need aggressive antibitoic treatment and this couldn't really be done then.
Hopefully nothing will be picked up but I guess if it was and it was something that couldn't be treated quickly and we get a BFN I'll be forever gutted.
Was just so excited to start this month, I could cry.

monitoring cycle has started

So with the arrival of my period yesterday I can now start the monitoring cycle in London. I phoned them this morning and they have booked me in for a mid-cycle scan on the 17th of May, as its a monday we can have our immune bloods done the same day. These are the ones that are getting sent off to America.
I had the first lot of bloods done this morning. They were FSH, LH, prolactin and oestrodiol. I then have to fax the resulst over th the ARGC clinic asap. I may not be able to get them til Monday though so we'll see.

I have also had my forms to fill in about our 2nd free go in our current clinic. Someone I know has had her follow up already very quickly and is starting treatment this weekend, so fingers crossed we may get our follow up soon. I'm really hoping if anything shows up with the tests that we may just need a slightly higher steroid dose which they can give us at our current clinic. I want the free go because of the cost but then also don't want to go through the heartache of a failed cycle if we really need more intensive treatment which we can only have in London.

Feeling pretty low generally, I'm sure its probably hormonal but I spent most of last night crying. I'm fed up of seeing happy baby announcements on facebook and really feeling like I'm being left behind and that this may actually never happen for us.
Its so shit!

GP appointment

Went to see GP today to discuss about them doing osme of the bloods for the monitoring cycle at the ARGC.
He has given me forms for the bloods for day 2-3 and then the post ovulation ones. This saves us 2 trips to London and a few hundred quid so thats good. He is also going to find out about us having karyotyping bloods done too.
So just have to wait for my period now and can get going with the monitoring cycle at least. Just want to get the immune bloods done now so we can see if there is something wrong there. Then hopefully we can get planning our next cycle.

Of course, it would be much better if my period would never come and I got pregnant on my own!

ouch

After about 5 days of spotting and managing to convince myself that my period may not be coming after all, it turns up. Been awake for hours in agony and its heavy now, so definately out of the running this month.

LH and FSH

Just been reading through all our fertility stuff and came across some bloods I had done a year ago.
My LH on day 3 was 7.7 last year and this year it was 3.8
My FSH on day 3 last year was 5.3 and this year it was 7.4.

I know that if the LH is higher than FSH it can be a sign of PCOS, which would make sense for me but why has this years results gone in completely the opposite direction??
Also rather disappointed that my FSH has increased so much, Its creeping closer to 10 so my eggies are probably dropping in quality. Just wondering if that change is normal in a year?

It'll be interesting now to see the scan on the monitoring cycle to see how polycystic I now am.

bad dreams

For a couple of nights I've had dreams that I've been shot or had a gun pointing at me. In one of them I was definately shot, and in my dream I expected to have died instantly and was wondering why it was so drawn out. It was quite disturbing, may have to look up the meaning of that.
Last night I also dreamt that the results from all the tests we'll be having came back and I was told I basically would never be able to have a child. Thsi has upset me loads because I am scared that actually may be the case. All I keep obsessing about is my friends who have babies and who is going to say they're pregnant next, another announced hers last week. One is getting married in a couple of weeks so no doubt she'll be the next, while all the time I'm left behind facing a childless future. Maybe I need to stop comparing myself to everyone else?
We are loking for a house now as we have accepted an offer on ours and we are considering a family as a factor when looking for houses but actually that may never be necessary. We want a better house and where we are possibly moving to is a lot more expensive than where we are now which means bigger mortgage. I was lay in bed this morning thinking how if we get too bigger mortgage we won't have any spare cash for further IVF treatments or even tests. But then I don't want to live in a smaller house than what we have now.
I seriously need to win the lottery!

easter sunday

Have eaten lots of chocolate - have about 6 eggs - yummy!
However, have started spotting today, and had big temperature drop this morning so guess its all over for another month again. Just as I start to think it may have worked this happens, every month, again and again.
Still, must try and be positive as now we can start to plan for the monitoring cycle next month hopefully.

so bad at this

After saying that I couldn't be bothered because I had so many months to catch up on, I've still been terrible at updating, really must try harder to update more regularly.
So, this week we went to London to the ARGC clinic which is one of the best in the country. We want to get a 2nd opinion about everything whilst waiting for the next free go in Wales. The wait could be at least 6 months and we don't really wann sit twiddling our thumbs wasting another 6 months if potentially there is something else going on which stops us getting pregnant.
My charts lately have been prefect so all things considered we cam't understand why I never even get a whiff of a positive pregnancy test.
You can see my charts here if you want to be nosey........

http://www.fertilityfriend.com/home/1c73d7

In preparation for going to London I asked my GP to run loads of blood tests for some immune problems and thyroid, all these have come back normal which is great. My hormone profiles on day 2 of my cycle have also come back normal which is all very reassuring but also leaves me even more perplexed as to what the problem is.

The doc we met at the ARGC was lovely and explained what they could do there. He suggested we have the next level of immune bloods whcih can check for things like killer cells which may be fighting off a potential embryo.
They can do something called a monitoring cycle which they recommend everyone has so they can best plan the cycle.
This involves:
day 1-3 bloods - to check FSH/LH, oestrogen and prolactin.
day 10-12 - USS just have a general look around. and at the same as this would probably have the immune bloods done (these are about £800 and go to America).
6-7 DPO - progesterone level - this will be interesting for me as I wonder if my progesterone support isn't enough.
Hysteroscopy at end of cycle if possible - this is where they put a camera inside the uterus to have a good look round. I've had a HSG before but apparently this is the gold standard for identifying any uterine problems which may prevent implantation.

Based on all this the Big Cheese Mr Taranissi can recommend what treatment will be needed. This could be simply a stronger dose of steroids that I've had before or more invasive and intense treatment. If its the first option then we can wait for our Welsh funding and do a cycle there for free, but obviously if other issues show up then we would probably have to just pay and do the cycle in London.

We may explore the options of having some of those bloods done locally to save travel to London, but then my GP's can be crap and I want to do it all properly so may bite the bullet and just go to London for the whole lot. However the work aspect of this is stressing me out, but I think I need to chill out a bit about that!
My period is due next week but we are going to wait for the one aftre that and then do the monitoring cycle as hopefully some of the tests will tie in with some annual leave.
Time is dragging on though and I just want to get going, it will probably be a year after our first cycle before we do another and I'm turning 30 in May and just feel like time is runnign out........

can't be bothered

I've decided that I don't have the time to try and write about the last 6 months of treatment to try and catch up with what is happening now. I want to be able to write on an almost daily basis abotu what is happening but feel as though I have loads still to write from previously.
So to give a brief history, that treatment in September rsulted in us having 2 day 3 embryos put back as our 11 embies weren't doing so well at day 3 and they didn't want to risk us not having any to put back on day 5, which is the preferred day.
on day 5 we had one blastocyst so they froze it.
But a week after having our perfect embies put back I started to bleed, I couldn't believe it was all over so quickly, it was just so unfair. The hospital increased my pessaries to 3 a day and I gave in after a few more days and did a pregnancy test to know for sure. It was positive, I couldn't believe it. The hospital changed me onto gestone progesterone injections in case the pessaries weren't doing the trick, but I carried on bleeding and after a week there was no sign that I had been pregnant. To this day we don't know whether it would have stuck if I'd have had gestone all along or whether there was some sort of immune response happening, like me body fought off our little babies.
We did a frozen cycle and thankfully our blast survived the thaw. I had gestone that time and didn't bleed at all, but the test was negative. Maybe the baby wasn't mean to be.

We have now found out that we can have another free cycle of IVF on the NHS from April although our clinic have said there may be a 6 month wait. I'm fed up of waiting. I know it sounds selfish, but its been 3 and a half years of waiting and its taking its toll on me I'm sure.
So we've decided in the meantime to go to London ot the ARGC clinic which is meant to be the top dog and have a consultation there to see if they can shed any light. I'm sure I have an immune response, maybe my body fights off sperm, or any embryo that may be formed. The only time I have a sniff of a positive pregnancy test was when we had IVF. The clinic may recommend some extra testing.
We're torn between waiting and having a free go before we do anything else because maybe it was just bad luck with the other cycle. But then I don't know if I can handle another failure if there is something else wrong. I guess it'll do no harm to have the consultation. We managed to get a short notice appointment so are going on the 31st March.

I feel pretty shit at the moment, just so so run down and tired. I couldn't be bothered to get up today and I have really lost my appetite. I'm paranoid that I've got something wrong with me, but have a feeling it could be depression. Month after month of nothing happening and the wondering of whether it ever will.

egg collection

Can't believe how long its been since I updated this, I wanted to get up to date so that I could just do a daily update but its not happening.
I had got to the point of our first egg collection.
We had to be at the clinic for 8.30am and I wasn't allowed to eat anything and only have a few sips of water prior to going. I couldn't wear make up or wash with any soaps or wear perfume. I felt stinking!! Before we left I had to put a cyclogest porgesterone pessary up my bum, which was not great!
When we arrived we were shown to a bed with a curtain round and I was asked to change into a gown and then put 2 more suppositories up my bum, one antibiotic and one pain killer.
I then got taken over to the theatre and hubby got to go off and produce his sample. Why is the man's bit so easy and enjoyable?
So whilst he was doing his bit I was lay in theatre legs wide open waiting to be sedated. They gave me oxygen as well and I can remember drifting in and out of consciousness. It was more painful than I thought it would be and lookign back I felt more out of it afterwards then I did when I was in theatre.
I think I was there about 20mins and they wheeeld me back to the bed where I passed out for about half hour. The good news was they'd collected 16 egss which we were chuffed with. Once I felt ok we were free to go. I came home and rested for the day then as I was uncomfortable. We then had to wait for the dreaded phone call the next morning to say whether any had fertilised.

1st IVF cycle

Looking back the few months leading up to the IVF cycle did pass quickly, we had a nice holiday before to chill us out in preparation for it.
I had to phone the clinic the week before my period was due so that the medication could be ordered. This was delivered to our house at a convenient time and my husband waited in for it to arrive. It was a massive package, which was suprisingly disappointing when you opened it. There was a sharps box, 3 boxes of pessaries, another type of injection and then 3 boxes of the Gonal F stimulation drug, which we were told to put in the fridge and then take for our first appointment.
I then had to phone the clinic on the first day of my period to arrange to go in on the 2nd day for a baseline scan and then to start the drugs.
The scan went well and my lining was thin which is how they want it to be. The scans get easier each time you go, at first I couldn't bear the thought of a transvaginal scan, but now it isn't that bad at all, and they usually show you everything on the screen which is pretty cool. Then came the not so cool part - starting the injections! The nurse showed us how to prepare the stimulation drug - 112.5 was the dose I had to do at about the same time each day, and she did the first one for me into my tummy and it didn't hurt. They gave me a treatment plan and then I had to come back about 8 days later for another scan to see how things were going. I was told to increase my fluids to ideally about 2 litres of water a day and increase my salt intake.
The next morning I freaked out about doing the injections! As a midwife I give injections regularly and of course thatf ine because its not me I'm giving them to!! My husband is diabetic and so injects himself 4 times a day, but again he couldn't do them for me! So after about 15 mins and a tremendous amount of sweating and freaking out I took a deep breath and as I did pushed the needle into my tummy. Its a tiny needle as its a sub cut injection but still its not nice!! Of course by then end of the treatment I was used to it and it was fine.
At first I didn't really feel any different at all but by the weekend, about day 5-6 I had loads of fertile mucous, much more than I'd normally get and so I thought something must have been going on. I then went for a scan on the Tuesday and they were really pleased with the progress, they said I had loads of follicles developing and they looked a good size so I was ready for egg collection! They called the consultant in and he had a look at the scan and said we'd go with collection on Friday. He explained that there was a risk of having the cycle chancelled due to hyperstimulation, which can be a big problem and if that was the case they would freeze all the embryos and put them back on another cycle. I was a bit gutted about this, but as it happened it was fine.
I then had to do 4 extra injections over 2 days to stop me ovulating on my own and then do something called a trigger shot. Those injections bloody hurt and I can remember sitting in my car on the side of the road after doing my postnatal visits for ages trying to build up the courage to do the injection. I was told the times it had to be done and was panicking, but I'd do it all again if it meant I could have a baby! Then the day of egg collection arrived....

the next chapter...

We had had our initial consultation at the fertility clinic and were now waiting for the treatment to start. We had to wait a year from referrel, which was weird, kind of in limbo and hoping and praying each month that it would happen on its own and we'd be the couples you hear about who miraculously get pregnant the month before their treatment starts.
I had been charting my cycles for a while. This basically involves taking my temperature as soon as I wake up in the morning. Ideally at about the same time each day. This is then put into a computer programme that I use and by monitoring this I can see when I ovulate by looking for a sustained temperature rise. This has proved very interesting because one of the features of being 'polycystic' is that we often don't ovulate, but in fact charting has proved that I do, its just I don't fit into the classic 28 day cycle - ovulate at day 14. Instead I tend to ovulate around day19-21 of a 32 day cycle.
I don't know if this was always the case or whether the clomid kick started my cycle, but I ovulate and thats great! The charting has, of course allowed my obsessive nature to appear in terms of calculating at which point we must have sex to optimise the chances of conception and the amazing peeing on a stick to see if the hormones are getting ready for ovulation allowing me to further predict when the moment will happen. I'm sure this is not good for me!
Anyway, amongst all of this obsessing I found an acupuncturist willing to take me on! I have been going for almost a year now and I find it wonderful, a bit of me time where I relax, and have been known to fall asleep. I go to her weekly and feel much better in myself and felt much better prepared for the next step on the journey.

beginnings

So I guess I should start this by giving an idea of our journey so far.
It feels like its been a long one already and I fear it may go on for sometime yet.
We have been married for 4 years and have been trying for a baby for over 3 years now. I always thought I'd have a problem getting pregnant, like I knew deep down inside it wasn't going to be easy. So we started the 'journey' earlier than I would have maybe liked to. I was at an important part of my life and nearing the end of my degree, but just thought if it happens it happens. Of course it never did happen and as time went by I feared my gut feeling was correct.
I went to see my GP who referred me on to see a gynaecologist. They ran some basic blood tests and arranged a scan, things which could have been arranged by my GP whilst I was waiting. By the time I had all this done and had a follow up it had been a year. I was told I had polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) - no shit sherlock - my odd mentsrual cycle and increase in body hair told me that. I was given clomid to induce ovulation and sent on my way. 6 months and regular cycles with raging moods later I was still not pregnant. Hubby had a fantastic sperm result, so at least one of us was doing good!
They then decided to do a hysterpsalpingogram (HSG) to check my tubes and uterus, this showed that yes I did have them, and they looked normal.
I was then told there was nothing more that could be done and that we would be referred onto the local fertility clinic. Another year went by and I decided to start looking into alternative therapies, while we were on the IVF waiting list.
I was determined we wouldn't have to have that treatment, I didn't want it to come to that, it seems so final and if that doesn't work, what happens next?
And so the next chapter began.......