IVF Diary Vol 2: 2-8 Feb 2016

February 8, 2016February 8, 20165 Comments

Medication(s) administered and dosage(s). Progesterone in Oil 1ml Intra-muscular injection, vivelle dot estrogen patches 0.1mg x2. I have failed to pierce the skin myself yet, I am so close, but I have managed to do everything else, including doing the actual injecting part…I had a couple of mis-haps, including one evening as I removed the needle, blood gushed from the injection site. The blood poured down my leg and I just managed to catch it before it landed on the nice white hotel towels. I have no idea why it happened, I guess it’s going to happen once in a while. The injection site was sore for a couple of days after that 😦

I had to put a plaster (aka band-aid) on this one after the blood gushed from this injection site! Minions to the rescue!

Medical procedures undertaken. Nil

What are my symptoms? I have had a few sharp pains and cramps here and there. All good signs I guess. I have also managed to catch a cold and sore throat. WHYYYYYYYYY??!!?!! Now the wisdom of the internet says this is an early pregnancy symptom. Well, it is the runny nose/cold part which is the symptom that can be explained by the extra estrogen caused by the pregnancy, apparently that creates a stuffy nose. Well, I have a sore throat and that can’t really be explained by that theory. Some argue that your immune system drops after implantation. Well in my case, this cold was inevitable because it was going around at work. I was the last person to catch it because it was going around mostly when I was out of office for the stimulation/egg retrieval part of the IVF. There were some remnants of the cold hanging around the office when I returned. It was bound to happen. Also, this happened to me the exact same time last year during my second IUI, excitedly thinking it was an early pregnancy symptom, I was wrong. SO I am not taking this cold as a sign of anything except for being a pain in the butt.

The night sweats. It’s gross and I hate it.

The cats have been on my lap again (two nights in a row)…I have already written about this (Can your cat tell if you are pregnant before you do) and whether it could be an early pregnancy sign. I think they can detect a change in something, whether it is pregnancy or just a change in your body temperature, I don’t know. One thing I do know, they can’t tell if the pregnancy is going to stick around or not 😦

Sushi sitting on my lap and tolerating Diesel laying next to her, it’s not a common sight

Having said all that, today I do feel a little nauseous and I couldn’t bare to eat my chicken sandwich. So who knows? May be I am pregnant! I don’t know because I haven’t tested yet!!! Yup, today I am 9DP5DT (9 Days Past 5 Day Transfer) and I haven’t pee-ed on a stick yet. I am impressed with myself! I’d like to thank a very lovely lady who I met at my local Resolve Support Group who is IVF cycling with me…she encouraged me not to do the test it out thing, and to wait it out with her!! Last time around I tested 12DP3DT (i.e. what would be tomorrow, when my period would ordinarily be due). But this time I am not testing until the evening before my Beta test (which is scheduled for Friday).

How do I feel today? You may have noticed my absence for the past week. Well I took my ‘Must keep busy during the 2 week wait’ a little too literally! Although I have been hampered a little bit as a result of work. Last week I got home in the evenings with my brain frazzled – I wasn’t doing overly long hours, just lots of hard thinking and writing. The thought of updating my blog was too much for my poor brain, so I did mindless (mindful) things such as knitting, TV watching and colouring in. I even taught Chris how to knit 🙂

My IVF knitting project 2/3 complete!

Chris learning how to knit!

We also went away on a mini road trip/city break to Charlotte, North Carolina to see the Charlotte Hornets v Washington Wizards (Basketball). My first NBA game, it was my birthday present from back in December. I had a fantastic time, I really enjoyed the experience and appreciate the very talented athletes. I think it might be my favourite American sport so far! Along the road trip we visited some random places, like a Lemur conservation, the world’s biggest chest of drawers, and a mountain that was only 350ft tall (it was a slightly misleading name of a state park!!!!). Planning a city break in this 2 week wait was perfect! (Except for the catching a cold part).

Our first NBA game!

The World’s Largest Chest of Drawers – It’s in a town called High Point in North Carolina!

Any results? Not much longer to go now!

What’s next? Beta HcG test will be 4 days from now :-s

Weight. NSTR.

Waist. NSTR.

Boobs. So, so sore and sensitive!

*Notes. I take First Response Reproductive Health multi vitamin gummies (pre-natal) and CoQ10 200mg gummies daily. NSTR = Nothing Significant To Report.

10 days of eughhh

September 18, 20158 Comments

It’s been 10 days since I started to miscarry and I am just exhausted from all the emotions and the physical madness that is going on with my body.

My 7 day post-methotrexate injection hCG blood test went very well today. My levels have almost exactly halved since monday, from 2696 to 1358, and dropped 58% overall since the injection was administered. This bodes well for successful treatment. I am even allowed to travel to Stockholm – as long as I am not having any pain. I am not going to hide it, I have been suffering with pain for past two evenings now (weird how it is mostly in the evening). Last night I struggled to sleep because of it. The 500mg extra strength acetaminophen doesn’t seem to cut the mustard, but the acetaminophen with codeine #3 I was prescribed for pain relief after my egg retrieval seems to work a bit better.

My favourite nurse drew my blood today, she asked how I was doing. I just replied ‘eughhh’. She understood and nothing more was said.

Here are two photos of my cat Diesel….sympathising with my ‘eughhh’ feeling. Chris managed to take these beauties yesterday evening in an impromptu photo shoot…..

Chris captured Diesel in beautiful way yesterday evening

What would we do without our fur babies to keep us sane?

The Cat’s Meow: Helping us through our infertility journey

June 9, 201513 Comments

I’m not sure what I would do without my two cats – Sushi and Diesel. These two feline friends have helped us along our journey through infertility. How? Well there are three main ways….

1. Stroking a cat has been scientifically proven to be therapeutic during stressful times. Although Diesel, our ‘terror-quisitive’ cat runs away if you were to approach him for strokes, but he will happily to come to you for strokes. Many strokes. In any shape or form. Very therapeutic. For both human and cat alike!

2. Cats like to help you read important books like “The IVF patient’ guide to IVF” or “It starts with the egg”. They want to make sure they are helping you every step of the way…

3. We can learn a thing or two from cats. For example, they help us to learn how to just chill out and take it easy. When things don’t go our way or we get a bit stressed, take a leaf from their book. Look – it’s easy!!! Just stretch, lay back and relax.

Now this is how you chill out. Just stretch, lay back and relax!

Anything else I’ve missed?? How do your pets help you on your pudding club journey?

Can your cat tell if you are pregnant before you do?

March 27, 2015March 29, 20157 Comments

Several months ago I googled ‘can cats tell if you are pregnant?’. My female 3 year old cat, Sushi, was being overly affectionate just around the time I was coming close to pregnancy testing time. It turned out I wasn’t pregnant that month, so I kind of forgot about it and didn’t think much more of it. But two nights ago I had BOTH of my cats on my bed snuggling up to me. This is very unusual because Diesel, my male 9 month old kitten, tends to push Sushi off the bed as soon as he realises she is on the bed with me. So as it is close to pregnancy testing time again, I wondered about this question again and decided to research a bit more into it. So what did I discover? Can cats tell if you are pregnant?

The Research is thin. It is evident that cats can detect smells and vapours that are invisible to humans, after all they have 10 to 20 times more sensory receptors in their noses than humans (but not quite as many as dogs, who are far superior in this respect). But I have yet to find any evidence that associates a cat’s ability to detect pregnancy – I could not find anything that even looks vaguely scientific. I even tried google scholar, but found little of significance. There is, however, a lot of discussion online about the subject, and is well discussed in forums and pregnancy related websites, the evidence is purely anecdotal.

Cats detecting cancer. So what can cats sniff out? Apparently, cats can detect cancer. It turns out that there has been some research into understanding dogs’ talents in sniffing out cancer, but evidence for cats’ ability to sniff out cancer is again, anecdotal. This is mostly because you can train a dog, but it’s a lot harder to train a cat! So research can be difficult to undertake with cats in this respect. However, there are stories about cats who have detected cancer before the owner even knew about it. For example, Fidge the cat constantly lay on her owner’s right breast for two weeks. When her owner went to the doctor, they found a pea sized lump in her breast, which may have killed her if it had not been for Fidge.

Amazing stories of heroic cats using their nose. On my scavange for evidence I came across some other lovely stories of cats who have saved their owner’s lives with the use of their ‘spidey senses noses’.

Oscar. In time, staff at the nursing home began to rely on Oscar as an “early warning system” announcing to those present that it was time to notify family and increase hospice services for those close to death (More about Oscar here).

Basil. As gas fumes leaked from the kitchen stove top, Basil began to swat his owner’s face as she lay in bed, trying to get her to get up and recognise the problem. After an hour of his persistent behaviour, Basil’s nose saved the day.

Tee Cee. This cat can detect when his owner is about to have an epileptic seizure attack. Tee Cee sits next to his owner and stares at his face, indicating an episode is about to occur, allowing him and his partner to prepare for the attack in time.

So, my dear cats – are you clever enough to detect pregnancy before my pee stick does? Just a couple more days to find out for sure…Watch this space!

Diesel – the ‘Terrorquisitive kittie’

Sushi AKA ‘lady muck’

Half way through the two week wait and feeling low…

February 23, 2015March 2, 20152 Comments

So this is it…the half way point in the 2 week wait (AKA the 2WW). I am feeling a little low. It is probably as a result of a mix of things – first of all, being stuck inside all weekend behind a computer, second of all, I am impatient being in the middle of the 2WW, thirdly I am fed up with the progesterone suppositories leaking everywhere. Is there a chance that my feelings are related to hormones and medications? Maybe, I can’t tell.

Diesel don’t look so worried, it’s gonna be OK

My lowness hasn’t been helped that I had two course projects due this evening. Both were programming assignments….the first project I developed a web app that uses the CDC’s most recent data on Assisted Reproductive Technologies (Here is some info on it). I was unable to fully deploy the app online before the deadline. It worked perfectly yesterday on my computer and all day today I have bee trying to figure out why it won’t go live. Sooooooo frustrating. Hopefully my graders will see my code and be generous.

My second project was a little dull, statistics and investigating relationships in cars between Miles Per Gallon and transmission types (amongst other things). I completed my report, but in the last hour before the deadline I could not get it to convert to a pdf file. Such a simple task. I am gutted. I will have to re-take this module as it counts for 60% of the grade.

I will admit that I have screamed and cried at my computer several times this weekend. I am not very good at not being in control of it!

Our cats, Sushi and Diesel, have been overly affectionate the last couple of days. I am sure they can sense when we are down or ill.

Next week is a new week, no more snow, warmer temperatures, back to some gentle exercise, and the end of the week we are having friends over to watch rugby, eat some bad foods, and play some board games. Something to look forward to. With all that fun it will then be time to take the test. Which incidentally, will be the same day as our 3 year wedding anniversary – it would be a good present to ourselves if we got the big fat positive. Monday Monday!!!