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.