Psychopathic Hormonal Meltdown

Last Thursday I started the stimulating injections for our Flare IVF Cycle. This cycle the Dr has increased my dose and boy have I felt it. I have spent the last 4-5 days feeling like a crazed psychopathic recovering drug addict. I have felt completely irrational, out of control and an emotional basket case. Not sure whether I was having a break down for real, or whether it was the caffeine ban Kylie had imposed or the hormone injections. Today when my blood results came back high I had my answer - the hormone injections!! My E2 level was 2,442 - put in perspective, the last cycle my E2 level was 600. No wonder I have been crazy out of my mind. The clinic nurse reassured me I wasn't going mad, it would be the huge dose of hormones that pushed me over the edge. I am really starting to feel like I am carrying around a pair of grapefruits in my pelvis to add to the hormonal craziness. From tomorrow I have to reduce my injection dose for the rest of the week and our day 12 scan is next Monday to assess follicle number and size.

Getting Back on the Horse

Well it was only 48 hours ago we found out that our frozen embryo transfer hadn't worked. Once again we were guttered. As you do when you are at work you put on a brave face and soldier on whilst breaking your heart on the inside. As I drove home the flood gates opened and the tears finally flowed. This sux - I am starting to believe that nice guys really do come last. When do good things happen to good people? Your hear that saying all the time, well when is it our time? We have spent the last couple of days feeling sad and angry at the world waiting for day one of my period to ring the clinic to find out what happens next. So this morning I wake up and yep I have my period. Suprised to be honest as the clinic nurse said may come by the end of the week. Anyway, we give the clinic a call and find out that they can fit us in for a September 1 egg retrieval if we want. Well of course we want to push on as soon as possible, so with some rearrangement of the work roster we are locked in for Wednesday September 1st. We have an appointment with the nurses tomorrow morning to collect our stash of drugs and receive my first injection. Talk about a whirlwind 48 hours - with no time to think about what lay ahead as we begin our second fully stimulated IVF cycle.

Last One Standing

Well, we have been keeping quite low key about our latest cycle which began July 12. We were planning on not telling a soul in an attempt to maybe reduce some of the pressure of that whole perceived success and failure thing. However, it wasn't as easy as we thought especially with members of both our family's asking where we were at with everything etc - I just couldn't fib and keep a straight face so I caved first! Then we thought what the heck - we have been out there about our whole journey thus far so why start being secretive now. We are so not good at secretive.

This cycle was to be a natural frozen embryo transfer of our remaining 2 embryo's. The first half of the cycle only required the antenatal vitamins and aspirin to be taken - hence the "natural" part! Scan day was Friday July 23 and the purpose of this was to check that the uterine lining was ready (7mm thick) for an embryo to implant. Mine was only 5mm and definitely not ready. I was crushed - I really started to think - what the hell is wrong with me - I just want to be gynaecologically normal for once! The Dr reassured me it was better to work with the body and cycle on this and to come back on the Sunday for another scan to see if the lining had thickened up. Sunday's scan we got the green light - yay not all was lost we would be able to proceed with a transfer this cycle. Trigger injection was Monday night - this makes you ovulate and transfer was scheduled for Monday August 2. In the mean time the progesterone injections, pessaries, gel and tablets began to help cosy up the uterine lining even more in readiness for the little embryo to nestle in and call home. The last hurdle is the embryo thaw. There is always a 5% chance that they don't survive the thaw. You get the call from the scientist the morning of transfer to let you know if you know if there are any embryo's to proceed with transfer - it is an agonizing wait. Our call came at 9:30am and Linda said one was doing really well, the other not so well so we would definitely have 1 to transfer, possibly 2, but we wouldn't know until we got to the clinic that afternoon. So doped up on Valium to help relax everything and stop uterine contractions we arrive at the clinic to find out that our weaker embryo had succumbed - such a nice way of saying it had died. At that point you don't really have any time to mourn that loss as you have have to prepare to transfer the remaining strong embryo - pictured below. The transfer was a little painful, but much easier than our last all thanks to the surgery, cranio-sacral visceral therapy and the valium. Now we wait, take more drugs and wait and wait some more - this is affectionately known as the dreaded two week wait to get the blood test to find out if all this effort has been worthwhile. I along with every other individual trying to get pregnant would love for the human body to give us an early sign - like a flashing light or nipples turning green - the not knowing is the hardest thing to deal with in this time. All you can do is keep yourself busy (work is definitely helping out there), but it is never far from the forefront of your mind. So until August 16 - you can all wait for the news along with us.