Cycle 9 - Update #2

We have a Blasty on Board!

At transfer, all embies were still going and they were watching 2 for freezing on Day 6.

The empathy-free Nurse told me that all 4 embryo's were A grade. I have no idea what this means exactly, but she has never mentioned any grades before so I am hoping that the extra Pre.gnyl helped and this lot of eggs were much better quality.

But, as we all know this means Sweet FA when it comes down to implantation.

This one is called Billie the Blasty. Please stay Billie, we will give you the best life you could ever imagine!

Egg Pick Up

Had my EPU on Friday with 4 eggs collected. WE did ICSI this time and all 4 fertilised, they will try to grow them to blasty so transfer should be Wednesday. I will find out tomorrow for sure. We are only putting one back so hopefully there may be at least one to freeze.

My clinic does the full general anesthetic during EPU, but I became aware during the op which was really weird. I couldn't see but I could hear people talking and hear myself groaning and wondered why they couldn't hear me. I wasn't aware of any other part of my body, but I could feel the needle [or whatever they use] piercing the wall of the vagina, I felt this about three times and it hurt so bad that when I properly came to in the recovery room I was crying. I told the doc and she told the anesthetist who said it is quite common because the level of sedation is so light.

Anyway, after I had a cuppa and a cold, tasteless sandwich they said I could get up to get dressed. Well when I stood up, a bucket load of bright red blood absolutely gushed down my legs and all over the floor. It was freaky. I felt fine, but had to stay there for another hour to make sure it was just 'pooled blood' and not an actual bleed. All in all, a very strange day!

Yesterday, I met up with a group of IVFers from my clinic and met some really interesting people. There was about 10-12 couples of varying shapes and sizes and ages. One woman was 49 [but looked nothing like it] and was having all sorts of trouble with her egg donor now wanting to be 'reimbursed' [which is illegal in this state]. Sadly, I was one of the veterans. And of course there is always the one who fell pg first time with her one and only embryo. Lucky bee-atch. But she was gorgeous too. Naturally the women chatted away like chimps immediately, but it took the guys a bit longer to warm up. I normally shy away from networking type events [way outside my comfort zone] but I'm glad I went.

Grow little embies, grow, grow, grow!

Cycle 9 - Update #1

Today is CD10

I went in for a blood test and fanny-cam yesterday. The Sonographer did not say a word the entire time which was a bit unnerving - I kept trying to look for things on the screen that shouldn't be there in case she was seeing something she didn't want to tell me. As far as I could tell, the u/s showed lots of follies [but that means nothing as I have PCOS] but there were a couple of good sized ones too.

When the nurse rang, she said I was doing well and EPU will be this Friday, which will be CD12, which sounds awfully early to me. Each cycle I am disappointed by the number of eggs I produce, I know that my Doc prefers a small number of eggs, and so the drug doses and treatment plan he puts me on is all geared towards this. I know this, but I am still disappointed - why is it so hard for me to adjust my expectations about this? Anyway, I just have to hope that my few precious eggs are especially good ones.

Due to the disastrous sperm-binding incident of cycle #8, we are doing ICSI [sperm injection] this time. DH has been taking handfuls of vitamins every day for the last few months to build up his swimmers, and now we are just going to pick out half-a-dozen or so Ian Thorpe and Michael Phelps look-alikes, and the rest will be discarded. Quite a waste really.

I always find it amazing, even though I am now a certified cynic after so many failed attempts, that a little bit of excitement and hope starts to creep in about now....

And the Angels said... Just Relax

I went to see my Chiropractor the other day, and noticed that he had a pack of those Angel cards in the waiting room. You know the ones sort of like Tarot Cards; you think of a question then pick a card which is supposed to be some Divine Being answering your question. You also know what my question was. The first card said something about having faith in your own abilities, blah, blah, blah, you just need to relax! WTF! I hate being told that!

So incensed was I that I put the card back and picked another. I asked the same question. The second card said that one shouldn't wish for unattainable things, that one should just relax and let the universe bring you what you need, or some such nonsense. Then [oh no it's not over yet my friend] my usual chiropractor was not in and the woman I saw asked lots of questions about what I was doing to reduce my stress levels! Not only did this piss me off further but now I had the horrid word 'unattainable' filling my head. Well, yes ok I am stressed now..! Can I go back to my first card?

I know stress; stress and I go way back. I have experienced stress; the kind of stress that keeps you awake all night in a cold sweat with your pulse racing, causes you to lose a lot of weight really fast even though you're comfort eating like a fool and makes your body stop menstruating for six months. These days I might notice that my jaw is tensed or that I am holding my body in a tense way at times, and have a knot-in-my-stomach anxious feeling, but this is not unusual. Show me a woman doing IVF who is not stressed... even a pregnant one! Impossible, right? So stop telling me to just relax and I'll be fine...

Cycle Number Nine

And they're off and racing on cycle number 9.

Today is CD3. I started sniffing Syn.arel yesterday and begin with the Pure.gon injections tonight. Not sure what this protocol is called but it's a short boost cycle with a small dose of hCG every second day. The extra hCG is hopefully meant to improve egg quality.

Fingers, toes, eyes, legs and fallopian tubes crossed!!

Went to a Melbourne Cup party yesterday, met some lovely people, drank some expensive champagne, had lots of laughs. DH's friend's have an absolutely gorgeous house and are known for throwing a great party [usually fancy dress of some description - luckily yesterday was just racewear + hat]. They had the usual sweepstakes and bets were made on every race, but all proceeds went to a local family [boys aged 3 and 1] whose mother had recently died of cancer. No denying it was a great cause and a lovely thing to do, but it just struck me as being very Oprah....

I am reading OvaGirl's book, and she mentions the loss of innocence that happens for infertile people and the cynicism that kicks in. Yep absolutely agree. Sad but so true...

The verdict is in...

I relented... I rang the empathy-free nurse. Thank God she had no bad news for me and she even gave me DH's results - not only of his karyotype tests but his HIV and Hep tests too. He's planning to sue of course, not for the blatant breach of privacy but for the fact that they have labelled him an "apparently normal male". I too have been tarred with this slanderous "apparently normal" brush.

Hmmm. Normal. What does this mean? I guess it means that we are set to go another round and if it fails we can't blame our chromosomes. But it will not fail. Failure has been removed from my vocabulary. This next one is the one. Its my turn *stamping of foot* I have been very good and waited somewhat patiently but now its my turn.

I should start sniffing in about 2 weeks. Woohoo. Now, where did I leave that spare $5,000.....

Nothingness

Nothing much is going on here - which I am not complaining about!

Work is frantically busy so DH is the stress ball from hell. Our house is still half burnt down and no work is due to start in the foreseeable future. We can't cycle again until we have received the all-clear from the chromosomal tests. I should ring the nurse to ask if she has the results yet but Doc said he would ring personally as soon as he got them [read; as soon as he returns from his latest holiday]. I would rather know now but on the other hand I would rather hear bad news from Doc than his unfortunate nurse who was born without an empathy bone.

So we do what we always do.... we wait... after all that is what IVF is about, for us anyway...