The Enhanced 2 Week Wait

May 15, 201614 Comments

It’s kind of like I’ve received my invite to join the pudding club, I’ve completed my application, I’ve done my best to fill everything out correctly, I’ve been thanked for my application and told I will be welcomed, subject to approval! But there is a pause….no one is communicating with me, my doubts are creeping in. May be they found something in my application that they don’t like. May be I won’t be joining the pudding club after all. This period of waiting is what I am calling the “Enhanced Two Week Wait”.

During this period of time, it doesn’t take much to make me stop and think about what might be. And when I think about what might be I briefly hold in the tears. Sometimes it’s tears of sadness and other times it’s tears of relief and happiness.

With the sadness I think what might happen if we look at the screen and there is no fetal pole or no heartbeat. I won’t be able to hold those tears back. The immense sadness will wash right through me. I won’t be able to not think about the injections, the pain from the OHSS, the tiredness, the surprising love for someone I have never met….all for nothing. It will be for nothing with a cruel ending that results in a horrible painful bloody mess. It will all have been for nothing.

And then sometimes I’m on the brink of tears of relief and happiness. With the happiness I think what might happen if we look at the screen and there it is…wobbling around in there – only just the size of a grape, unknowing as to how much it is loved and wanted to be held in our arms. I will feel relief that it was all worth it; that I am proud of ourselves sticking to the path on this rocky journey.

I will keep these little thoughts in the back of my mind that will continue to creep every single time I feel a pain in my uterus for the next week, reminding me something is going on down there. Just 5 more days and one of these opposite realities will come to fruition.

I am just over half way into this ‘enhanced 2 week wait’, and there is absolutely nothing I can do but patiently wait. It’s been a tough first week being away from Chris in a country where there is a 6 hour time zone difference…picking up the phone to talk has been challenging with the nature of our work, it doesn’t help. I’m becoming a pro at giving myself these progesterone injections, I even gave myself an injection without icing the area first. It turns out that it just stings a little bit afterwards so it wasn’t too bad pain wise.

I have had sporadic pregnancy symptoms, which doesn’t fill me with confidence, but I know that this is the case for many women who go onto have successful pregnancies. I just can’t help but err to the side of negativity.

Symptoms:

Peeing a lot. I have been on this plane for just 4 hours and have been to the toilet 7 times already. Boobs. They don’t like being touched or leaned on (i.e. lying on my front is painful!!) Sorry Chris, no boob touching just yet!! 😉

Nausea. I have had only a couple of instances of being on the verge of puking, but these were easily resolved as soon as I got some food in me!

Tiredness. It has been a hard week with work and travelling to Europe I’ve had little opportunity to catch up on my sleep so I am constantly yawning. I have even set my alarm a couple of times this week for 10-15 minute PKs (Power Kips).

Period type pains. These pains don’t last very long maybe a minute or two and come randomly in waves.

Actually listing out all these symptoms makes me realise that perhaps I am a bit more pregnant than I really thought I was! In addition to this I am still suffering from OHSS albeit a lot less. Twisting my torso around or bending down/reaching up still is painful. 😦

I hate to wish my time away in this life, but I really wish it was Thursday already!

PIO on the go

May 7, 201614 Comments

I had a plan!!!! My plan was to give myself the Progesterone in Oil (PIO) injection at Philadelphia airport lounge in between my two flights. I would get some ice from the bar, put it in the ziplock bag I had packed and ice my backside to numb it. I would then use the nice clean, usually quiet, restrooms to prepare and administer my injection – there are even sharps containers to dispose of my used needles. It seemed perfect.

But nothing ever goes to plan in the land of infertility!!! Oh no!!!

My flight to Philadelphia got delayed once we boarded – we sat out on the pan for an hour, then they decided that the aircraft jet engine was actually broken (just as well we didn’t take off then??!) so we headed back to the terminal and de-planed. Practically all the passengers on the flight were transfer passengers and because I was soooo desperate to pee I ended up at the back and so waited forever in the huge queue to figure out if it was possible for me to get my connecting flight to Amsterdam. By the time I got to the agent, my flight in Philly to Amsterdam was boarding…so no, I wasn’t going to Amsterdam. I explained to the agent that I didn’t mind flying the next day – but that flight was oversold already. Grrrrrr. He was going to send me to Amsterdam via London – and I would need to stay in Heathrow airport for about 15 hours before getting to Amsterdam a day later.

Ummmm no.

So I asked about the possibility of getting to Brussels – my true destination.

After the attacks in Brussels I booked my flights via Amsterdam because there were still no direct flights with my preferred airline – American – from the US to Brussels. But the agent said…hmmmmm I wouldn’t have thought about sending you to Brussels instead of Amsterdam, but if that is what you want then I can get you there via London tonight. So I accepted the challenge of the additional transfer in London and decided what the heck, I’ll go to Brussels airport (I guessed it wouldn’t be that bad). From that point onwards I was just unlucky with every flight and barely made the connections. My plan to do the PIO injection in a nice clean restroom went out the window, I was going to have to do it on the transatlantic flight.

I ended up doing the injection in the teeny weeny aircraft toilet. Fortunately I got some ice so I was able to numb my backside whilst I prepared the injection. It was pretty challenging to do all of this in the teeny toilet with no flat countertop space…., plus I just get the general heeby geebies about aircraft toilets (people are just so gross in them and never clean up after themselves -sorry grumpy frequent traveler whining!!!). Then there was the turbulence! Everything went slipping everywhere…the progesterone bottle…the needles…the alcohol swabs! Aghhhh!!!! Finally once I got the injection drawn up and ready to go, I got all flustered thinking about people waiting outside and wondering why the hell I was taking so long! So it took me a couple of minutes to mentally – wooooohhhhsaaaaaaahhhhhh – breathe – relax.

I waited for the turbulence to calm down and I managed to finally give myself the injection and pierce the skin without any issues. But of course it takes a few minutes for the oil to be injected because it is so thick…and whilst that was going on the turbulence came back! I was hopping around the toilet trying to balance on one leg and not tense up my butt and leg muscles whilst the needle was still in it. Very challenging indeed.

I then remembered it was the day to put on new vivelle dot patches (estrogen) on my tummy, as I was doing this I dropped everything on the floor. Gross.

But despite all this, I barely had any blood after this injection (impressive considering all the joltyness), and I was super proud of myself for not completely freaking the f*** out.

Having said that….I don’t want to have to do that ever again!! I do not recommend to anyone doing this injection on the go. I did the Lupron one in the plane toilet before and that was easy compared to the Progesterone. If I’d been more organized I would have asked my doctor for some progesterone suppositories for the days I am travelling.

Anything to keep this little one growing inside me 🙂

PS.

If you are interested to know – my unexpected trip to Brussels airport wasn’t too bad, but it did trigger some thoughts. I thought about that day as I went to pick up my luggage. I thought about how that day there were many customs border staff stopping practically everyone to check their bags as they left the airport. I recall that how at that time I laughed because I was one of the lucky ones who did not get my bag rummaged through. But today as I went through customs there was only one man. I thought about how if I had been stopped by customs that day, I probably wouldn’t have been upstairs in departures when the bombs went off. It was then weird to walk out of the baggage area to see the boarded up area from where the damage had been caused from the explosions upstairs. I recalled the images of this area in the media and matched it to what I saw today. A shiver went down my spine as I tried to find my way out of the airport to the train station. No starbucks for me today. The route to the train station today brought us out through the parking garage I had found myself in immediately after the explosions, not knowing where the hell I was or where to go. Today I found myself thinking back about my whole experience. It was very solemn…but I was OK.

Unable to adult today

May 5, 201624 Comments

I woke up really early this morning-like 4AM early!! I wanted it to be Wednesday already! I wanted it to be our second beta day so we would have at least an inkling whether this pregnancy is viable or not. I was anxious and felt numb…this feeling continued throughout the day. It was a feeling of indifference towards life.

Somehow I drove myself to the clinic. I got out of the car and realised I had no recollection of driving there or what route I took!!

The nurse could tell I was anxious. And she was right, I was!! I wasn’t up for even the small talk today.

I simply could not adult today.

I decided to work from home in the afternoon just in case it was bad news. We learned this from our first IVF cycle when I was at work when I received the call saying it was not a viable pregnancy- we were naive and didn’t expect it!! But this time the nurse called with good news. She gave me my hCG level – 2871. Chris and I had checked before hand what would be a good figure to be doubling nicely and that was 2300, so I breathed a sigh of relief, trying to hold back the tears. She told me my estimated due date – 1st Jan 2017 and to come back for an ultrasound from 16th May with my doctor.

As soon as I got off the phone I burst into tears. It wasn’t tears of happiness or tears of sadness, but a bit of tears of relief and tears of fear of loss – the fall seems greater now. I hugged Chris, he couldn’t quite understand what all my tears meant, but he just hugged me. I know it should be a happy time, but it really didn’t feel like it. This is what infertility does to a woman. Insecurity hides in all sorts of places.

I am grateful to make it past stage 2! I am hopeful enough that I have now reinstalled the pregnancy tracker app I briefly used before. I am even going to go out tomorrow to buy a couple of new bras because I no longer fit into my current ones. So don’t get me wrong, I am quietly happy. We both are! It’s just not easy-I know many of my fellow bloggers will get that, but I’m not so sure my friends and family will understand so easily.

My symptoms have mostly been tiredness and constant yawning! At the weekend I had to have sleep in the car whilst Chris waited patiently with me before we headed into a museum, and then Sunday I had almost a 2 hour sleep in the afternoon! I’ve found it rather challenging to stay awake at work this week! But a friend told me about a privacy room at work that maybe I could use to go have a quick 20 minute snooze during the day. My OHSS is getting slightly better but I’m still very tender under my ribs/upper abdomen area, twisting or moving too quickly isn’t fun, and the bloat hasn’t reduced yet. When I look down I can barely see my lady bits (so I get a sneak preview of what it will be like woth pregnant belly!!!)

I am preparing to travel back to Belgium on Friday – flying via Amsterdam this time because American are still not running direct flights to Brussels airport from the US. I’m a little relieved about this because I’m not too keen on seeing that place again just yet. This will be a longer trip then my previous ones to DC so it will be 9 days in a row of thise evil progesterone injections to give myself 😭 I’m not looking forward to that!!! But hopefully this trip will make time fly by quicker so it will hurry up and be time for my ultrasound!

(These pictures are titled “progesterone by candlelight”!!! The power went out, so we made do! It was actually quite challenging)

Re-blog: Share Your Story!

May 1, 2016Leave a comment

Day 6 of the Bloggers Unite conference!!! Whaaattt?? Time is flying by for National Infertility Awareness Week…! Morgan from onprayersandneedles.com tells us about opening up about her infertility journey with her blog. It’s a brave thing to do, but some days I wonder how I would have managed to make it through this infertility journey so far without my blog and meeting so many inspirational women. Read more of Morgan’s story below!!

Hey Girl Hey! My name is Morgan Libero and this is my blog to help promote awareness and provide support for all things infertility related, with a whole lot of realness and a little bit of humor (believe me, every bit counts). We’re surrounded by the most loving and tight-knit support system of family and […]

continue to read more here… #niaw – Day 6, Bloggers Unite Conference – Share Your Story! —

IVF Diary Vol III: 29 Apr 16 – Stage 1 complete

April 29, 201669 Comments

Medication(s) administered and dosage(s). 13DP5DT (13 days past 5 Day Transfer) Prove time! PM Progesterone in Oil 1ml Intra-muscular injection, vivelle dot estrogen patches 0.1mg x2.

Medical procedures undertaken. Beta hCG blood test – AKA THE PREGNANCY TEST!

Any results? We are pregnant! Last night I got back from DC, Chris was already at home, I asked him – “Are you ready to do this?”. He nodded nervously. So we went to the toilet together and I peed on the stick, turning it the wrong way round so I couldn’t see the window. I left it on the counter top for a minute or so, and we turned it over together. 2 lines! Woohoo!!! Except it was kind of a weird experience. It wasn’t quite like last time when I was really excited. It was like….OK, this is a good step forward….but now we have to wait and see what my levels come back tomorrow.

the test line was darker than the control line!

Today the doctor called with my results (it wasn’t my doctor who called) – he is a straight talking kind of man. There is absolutely no beating around the bush with him, he tells it like it is (he gave me the news that our first pregnancy was not viable and he was pretty blunt with us). He said he had positive news! OK I like positive news! He then mumbled something about my hCG levels, I asked him to repeat what he said because he wasn’t clear (he has a foreign accent), he said it was a nice high level that they like to see of 485! My progesterone and estrogen levels were good too. When I got of the phone I was a little disappointed, I was hoping for a little higher being 13DP5DT….but then after a while I reminded myself that this first number doesn’t matter so much (it’s higher than last time so that’s good!), it will be the next number that tells us the likelihood of this pregnancy having a chance!

What are my symptoms? So I have pretty much been certain I am pregnant since the return of my OHSS symptoms earlier this week. My belly sticks out ridiculously – I have put on 7″ round my belly. The area beneath my ribs and belly button are painful if I bend over, or try to get in and out of bed. I am feeling nauseous – not sure if that is pregnancy related or OHSS related. I couldn’t eat more than 5 spoonfuls of my porridge this morning. I have had lots of sharp pains. I’ve also had period type pains. I have an unquenchable thirst. I am peeing about 30 times a day.

How do I feel today? I am excited to be moving onto the next stage! But having some reflections back to IVF cycle 1. We lived in this ignorant bliss for 5 days last time. This time is a whole lot different. We are definitely in a better position than cycle 1 so I am trying to keep positive, it’s just hard not to think about what happened to my body last time we saw those two pink lines.

What’s next? Wednesday is beta #2! Is it Wednesday yet?

The Final Countdown!!!

*Notes. I take First Response Reproductive Health multi vitamin gummies (pre-natal), 5mg Melatonin at bed time and CoQ10 200mg gummies, and Pur-absorb iron supplements daily. NSTR = Nothing Significant To Report.

reblog – Let’s Break The Internet With Infertility Awareness! —

April 29, 2016Leave a comment

I totally missed Day 5 of the Bloggers Unite Conference – bad Dani!!! I was exhausted driving back from DC yesterday (I know, excuses excuses!!) :-s

Day 5’s topic is about #StartAsking for insurance coverage. As I have the best insurance coverage, I think, in the whole of the US (I have a worldwide insurance policy) I can talk about the benefits that everyone should have available to them – I have coverage for infertility diagnosis and infertility treatments (IUI, IVF, ICSI etc), including medication – I even have coverage for Genetic testing. There is no $$$ limit, but I can only have 6 life time IUIs and IVFs. It’s quite amazing really! So I have already used up half my life time allowance. I still have to pay the 10% copay…but it is no comparison to those couples who have to pay the full amount. Infertility is stressful enough as it is without the added financial burden and bills to track and pay. It makes me mad that infertility treatment is seen to be ‘an option’ like cosmetic surgery is ‘an option’. You can read more about this at missconceptioncoach.com below

In a perfect world, the tens of thousands of women and men suffering from infertility who consult reproductive specialists every year would know that their medical treatment would be covered by their health insurance. Infertility is, after all, considered a disease as stated by the World Health Organization. Yet the establishment of an “Essential […]

keep reading more here…via Day 5 – #niaw, Bloggers Unite Conference – Let’s Break The Internet With Infertility Awareness! —

Reblog – Start asking friends and family for support —

April 27, 201612 Comments

Day 4 of the Bloggers Unite Conference at missconception.com! I don’t know who this lunatic blogger is, she is harping on about something for infertility awareness week…..oh wait….it’s me! I’m excited to be part of the bloggers unite conference this year, and very grateful to Miss Conception for hosting it!

I discuss how we opened up to our friends and family about our infertility journey and yet had never actually asked for support from them. I assumed I didn’t need it. But I was wrong. People find it hard to know how to help their infertile loved ones, so if you ask, they will leap, I have no doubt about that as we have experienced. I suggest ways you can ask for support from your friends and family. You don’t need to be as open about your infertility journey as we have, but knowing when and how to ask for support will help get you through those tough days. Click the link below to read more!!! XXX

Hi! My name is Dani. My husband, Chris and I, have been trying to conceive (TTC) since December 2013. We were diagnosed with ‘unexplained infertility‘ in January 2015. I decided to blog about our journey of TTC as I quickly realised that talking to friends and family about our situation can be difficult. It can be hard for them to […]

NIAWBLOGGERSCONFERENCE

Reblog: Be your own advocate. Listen to your gut. Know your body —

April 26, 20162 Comments

Day 3 of the Bloggers Unite Conference and Bri from dreamingofdiapers.com explains the importance of being our own advocates and asking questions to our OBGYNs and Reproductive Endocrinologists. For me I certainly have learned that Doctors can get into their set ways of thinking and have certain biases (I wrote about this a while ago), sometimes they simply forget you are first time IVF patient, generally forget things, or apply a ‘catch all model’ to your infertility treatment. So asking the right questions can help us all move forward on our path to our long desired babies. Bri is currently pregnant with her sister as a gestational carrier/surrogate, she has some amazingly interesting perspectives… so you should go check out her blog! But first read her post for National Infertility Awareness Week link below….

There are so many topics that we could talk about with the hashtag #StartAsking but my focus will be about being an advocate for yourself and asking questions to your ObGyn or Reproductive Endocrinologist. When you are trying to have a child, many questions go through your mind. Some of you ask and some […]

continue to read more here…. #niaw Day 3, Be your own advocate. Listen to your gut. Know your body —

Reblog: Bloggers Unite Conference, Day 2 – Lawmakers and Legislators

April 25, 2016Leave a comment

Day 2 of the Bloggers Unite conference! Whoop Whoop!! Here are my thoughts on today’s blog!

Denise blogs for National Infertility Awareness Week about how we should #StartAsking our lawmakers, legislators and researchers to spend more time, money and effort to find ways to improve infertility care. She makes some really interesting points in her blog post – currently only 10 clinical trials related to infertility are listed on www.clintrials.gov in comparison to 4126 trials related to breast cancer (BTW – the statistics for breast cancer is 1 in 8 women will develop it at some point in their life time. Yes – I know infertility doesn’t kill! But in terms of trying to understand a disease it is an interesting comparison of levels of research). Denise also struggles with unexplained infertility – great minds think alike! (See my post from yesterday) Take a look at her post below….

Three years, three surgeries, two doctors, four donors, one biospy, eight IUIs, one fresh IVF cycle and one frozen embryo transfer later and we are still on the road to parenthood. We knew this was not going to be easy but never in my life did I believe it would be this difficult. As we […]

…continue reading…. #niaw Bloggers Unite Conference, Day 2 – Lawmakers and Legislators —

Thank you to Chiemi at www.misconceptioncoach.com for organising the conference! It’s been great to meet other like minded bloggers 🙂

Why can’t we make a baby? #NIAW

April 24, 20165 Comments

Why? Why me? Why can’t I make a baby like all my other friends and family? I have so many questions about why after almost 2.5 years of trying to conceive and failing miserably, month after month. What have I done to cause this? Why won’t my body just get pregnant? What am I doing wrong?

It’s human nature to want to know why things happen. But these are the type of questions that run through my head round and round, continuously ever since we decided to grow our family. I have yet to answer any of these questions. It is exhausting.

Chris and I are 1 in 8 couples of child bearing age in the US that struggle with the disease that is infertility. We tried the good old fashioned way – sex – for 11 months before we went to seek specialist help from a reproductive endocrinologist doctor after we discovered that Chris’s testosterone levels were “below normal”. It turned out for us that testosterone levels do not actually matter that much when it comes to fertility. Chris actually had super sperm, and lots of them! But it did lead us to start the typical tests for diagnosing infertility.

We thanked our lucky stars that all our test results came back normal – there was nothing seriously wrong with either of us. In fact, we passed all our tests with flying colours, we were top of the class! But this put us into the category that 20% of infertile couples are diagnosed with – unexplained infertility. This meant that the doctors could not tell us why we hadn’t been successful so far in trying to conceive the way they teach you at school. We were about to embark on a journey that was going to take us beyond what they taught us at school – we were going to try to get pregnant with medical assistance. We were heading into the world of the unknown. We knew little to nothing about infertility.

At first it was difficult to explain to our friends and family why we were seeking treatment, because there was nothing ‘technically’ wrong with us. The infertility was inexplicable! It was embarrassing, it was awkward to explain. So this is why I started this blog, to help us get over this difficulty in explaining what we were doing and why, as well as helping to explain our feelings about our disease in general.

Unexplained infertility in someways has been a good thing – there is always hope that this treatment will work. But ultimately it is difficult to accept that there is just no known reason that this isn’t working for us. In some cases, going through medically assisted treatment for infertility can reveal the explanation of a couple’s infertility. But in our case, after 3 IUIs (Artificial Insemination) and 3 cycles of IVF (In-Vitro Fertilisation), 1 suspected ectopic pregnancy, and over $90k of medical bills we are none the wiser as to why we do not have a baby in our arms yet.

Conception is a wondrous act of nature, but it is also an incredibly complex process – there have to be many stars in line for a healthy baby to be born. For something that is the very basis of our human race’s existence, we still know very little about the disease that prevents us from growing our families. It’s incredible, right?

I am currently in the dreaded two week wait of our third (and final) IVF cycle. If this cycle fails, apart from being devastated, I do not know how we will ever be able to move forward without knowing why this has happened, why medical treatment didn’t work for us. Our infertility will never leave us.

For National Infertility Awareness Week (NIAW), the national non-profit infertility organisation Resolve is promoting this year’s theme #StartAsking. The theme is about promoting the questions that we want to be answered, whether this is asking for our Employers to provide insurance coverage, asking for legislation that supports family building options or asking our friends and family to support us. For me, the one question I have and want to raise more awareness about is to:

#StartAsking for more targeted research on unexplained infertility.

Perhaps if we can understand more about how or why some couples are infertile, then better focused medical interventions can be developed to defeat infertility.

I want answers!!!! But we won’t ever get answers if we don’t talk about infertility and unexplained infertility. It shouldn’t be a secret. We can do this by speaking openly about infertility, by getting organisations like Resolve to help raise our community’s voice and build awareness.

If you would like to know more about infertility, please visit Resolve.org.

If you would like to help, you can contribute by fundraising or donating for Resolve. Or just comment below with your questions and thoughts to join in the discussion!