IVF Diary Vol III: 20-24 Apr 16

April 24, 2016April 24, 201610 Comments

Medication(s) administered and dosage(s). 8DP5DT (8 days past 5 Day Transfer) PM Progesterone in Oil 1ml Intra-muscular injection, vivelle dot estrogen patches 0.1mg x2.

These injections do not get any easier!! Fortunately (for me) the past two evenings Chris has been doing the injecting part. Kudos to him. It doesn’t get any easier for him. He had a nervous laughing fit the other night after he pierced my skin and was starting to inject, and I was trying hard not to laugh at him (I didn’t want my muscles to tense up or to shake the needle around as it was inside me!!!). Nope, it doesn’t get easier.

Medical procedures undertaken. Nil!

Any results? Apart from finding out I needed to be taking iron supplements, I wrote a post about that and had a brief ‘freak out’ moment of feeling like maybe I had a chance to improve my egg quality. But that was silly, and I realise that now. I did go out and buy some iron supplements. I bought it in liquid form because I find the majority of pills hard to stomach (there is something about the pill lining they use that makes me puke them back up). Basically the supplement tastes like I am swallowing a tablespoon of blood. BLEUGHHHHHHH.

What are my symptoms? Yesterday I struggled with my OHSS symptoms. We had a nice day out watching a parade and going to a festival that celebrates NATO. But it’s really the first time I have been out and about for a significant amount of time not sitting down. We then went to the shops and after about an hour my stomach was in pain. I just needed to sit! I was also incredibly thirsty all day, nothing could quench my thirst!!! Last night I got up to pee FIVE times!!!! I also found it hard to get in and out of bed each time because of my hugely bloated painful tummy. I am a little worried that my OHSS has done a U turn and rather than getting better is now getting worse. This could mean I am pregnant though because OHSS can get worse as my body starts to produce hCG after the embryo implants. It’s something I’ve been told to watch out for….If things don’t subside today then tomorrow is my last chance to go in for an ultrasound before I am supposed to be back in DC – I don’t want to be getting worse whilst I am away from home! I am going to take it easy today though, maybe I just over did it yesterday.

How do I feel today? It has been really hard not to pee on a stick the past few days. Especially yesterday with my symptoms developing as they were I just felt like I might see a positive! And so now I have my expectations set high, I’m terrified to be wrong and see a blank white space on that pregnancy test. So I haven’t done it. I looked back and compared my symptoms from cycle 1 (BFP – positive) to cycle 2 (BFN – negative) and actually I seemed to have experienced similar symptoms in both cycles. I guess it is that damn progesterone and estrogen making me feel like this!

Chris told me that if this cycle fails he wants to wait several months before transferring our final frozen embryo. Which I understand why he feels like that. But I feel differently about it. I said we should have this conversation later and not now. I need to be positive, I need to be hopeful right now, I want this to work so so much I can’t even think beyond this. Last cycle I was OK with thinking about the future and what’s next because I knew we could always give IVF another try. This time for me is different. I know there isn’t a next IVF. I know this to me is all or nothing.

What’s next? Friday is test time – in between all that I have a work trip to DC to occupy me and keep me busy! This does mean I will be doing more injections on my own 😦 and Chris will be on his own in the house alone this week when perhaps we really need each other right now.

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.

IVF Diary Vol II: Our Failed Cycle

February 12, 201630 Comments

I had been eagerly waiting for Chris to finish work on Thursday, I had been off work ill with this cold so was getting impatient. As soon as we were both ready, I went to pee on that stick. I watched as the wet line slowly crept up the test window…it went straight past the result line to the control line without even a vague faint line. It was so white and empty. At 12DP5DT I should be seeing that line. It was all over. I cried. I came out of the toilet and just hugged Chris and told him “It didn’t work, I’m so sorry”.

So many things were running through my head. Bitter sadness at our situation. No halloween baby this year for us. No frozen embryos from this cycle despite our great fertilisation success rate. These embies were not meant to be. Anger. The anger at our failure and hopelessness. The anger at not knowing why.

Of course, there is always a chance the pregnancy test could be wrong, but the odds at this stage were not in my favour, I’m not that naive.

Thursday night I woke up every hour with our negative result on my mind, and finally at 5AM I woke after a dream about being stuck on a sinking nuclear weapon ship that I helped to destroy by providing intelligence about it (I was a spy in my dream!). And as the ship started to sink, one small rescue boat was filling up quickly with other people, there was no room for me on it, I shouted out, “please save my frozen embryos. Please, all I want is for you to make sure they are born and grow up knowing that I was their mother, and I loved them.” I woke up in a cold sweat with tears streaming down my face.

For all our failed IUIs, the clinic never made me go in to have a beta blood test if I got a negative. For IVF, everyone has to have a blood test. I now know what it feels like to go to that blood test with a heavy heart, knowing it is pointless. The idea of not testing and waiting to get the results by phone whilst at work horrifies me, so I am glad I tested the night before to prepare me for the worst, and be with Chris at the same time. I am not brave enough for that.

Today when I went in for my blood test I got the new nurse. I knew she was new because she was literally shaking as she took the blood from me, and then afterwards proceeded to spill my blood from the end of needle all over the table. She also asked me some very awkward questions, in a sweet naive way, so I could tell she was a newbie around here! But I wasn’t in the mood for being polite and quaint, so I cursed myself as I left, telling myself it was typical for that to happen to me of all days!!!

I got THE phone call from my doctor not long after lunch when she confirmed what I already suspected. A negative result. She basically ran through what happened during my cycle – 14 eggs collected 11 mature, 11 made it to Day 5, 2 reasonable blastocysts transferred on Day 5, and then none made it to the freezer. She said that my egg quality was not looking good and we can talk about it some more at a later date when I am ready. I thanked her, put the phone down and immediately picked up the phone again and called the clinic to schedule a consult with her for next week.

What next? Chris and I talked about possible next steps, but it was foggy. I looked at my calendar and figured out if we did another IVF cycle when it might be. The thought of going through all of this again to end up with nothing seems terrifying. They say you should try at least three complete rounds of IVF before considering to changing tactics. In the UK, depending on where you live, you may only get 2 rounds of IVF with the NHS, but there is lots of research that suggests 3 rounds is the magic number. My bets are on. We don’t seem to be able get enough embryos to freeze so there will be no point in trying for genetic testing, I am betting my doctor will suggest donor eggs. This is a path we are unlikely to go down (which I will expand upon for another time). Or donor embryos, which we know little about. But before we even consider any of that we still have one frozen blastocyst from our first cycle, so we also need to think about that too.

It’s devastating to get this far to have nothing to show for it. I hope that at the least we will learn something more about our infertility.

Two week wait fun times planning

January 4, 20169 Comments

After two years of trying to conceive unsuccessfully I reckon I am getting quite good at this two week wait malarky. Admittedly, I’m a bit rusty at it. So in light of my previous post where I declared my new year’s resolution: I will embrace time, I decided to start thinking about my next two week wait for IVF cycle 2. Now, I know that I will not be doing anything ‘extreme’ or ‘partying like it’s 1999’….but that doesn’t mean I can’t plan for some fun! right??!

Evening Fun Activities (i.e. post work)

Self-Pampering – Mud mask, jacuzzi bubbles bath, trashy magazine, a bar of chocolate (something fancy like) cosy pyjamas and early to bed.

New food (2 nights) – Cook or bake something outrageously random for dinner that requires some new cooking skill! Like working with pastry or something equally different. Glug it down with a random new TV programme from Netflix or Amazon Prime. Sadly no alcohol to glug.

Fun with friends – hang out with friends, either invite them over for take-away (take-out) dinner or try somewhere new together.

Fun with family – I can’t really do this well, but I will spend some time writing a couple of letters to my family back in the UK.

Meet some new people – go to one of my local social and sports club nights, make an effort to be sociable!!!

Crafty and creative (2 nights) – do some knitting (including teach myself a new stitch and practice it), start/continue my new painting (it’s a secret what I am planning to paint!!!)

Date night with hubby – Trip to cinema or rent a DVD with lots and lots of popcorn and some BIG SNUGGLES.

Blog focus night – discover some new blogs and write a new blog post (perhaps from my collection of ideas I have left over from NaBloPoMo 15).

Weekend Fun Activities

Well there is potentially only one weekend I will need to keep busy for!

Road trip to Charlotte, North Carolina (to include going to a Basketball game, a walking tour, perhaps a nice meal out and a trip to Lemur Land on way back!!!!). I am pretty excited about this road trip. My Birthday present was tickets to see the Charlotte Hornets play the Washington Wanderers. I don’t support any particular team, I just really wanted to see basketball game!!! It was perfectly planned by Chris.

I looked back at all my previous blog posts that were tagged with the 2 week wait (2WW)…I think the key for me is to keep myself busy, even if it means I am just ‘planning’ to relax and pamper 🙂

Ohhhh I should also mention that I have ZERO home pregnancy tests in the house! I used them all up last time and did not replace them. So no sneaky testing will be happening this time around!!!

Do you have any other tips for the 2WW?

Trying not to cry at work is HARD

August 28, 2015August 28, 201526 Comments

On Tuesday, after my second beta test, I went home from work early so that I could receive the good or bad news in private. But my results had not ‘come back in time’, so not knowing when I would receive my results, I went into work on Wednesday. I was busy running around the office preparing for a one day workshop I was leading the next day when I received the phone call. You may know already that the news was ‘not good’. Receiving news like this whilst at work is difficult. My eyes were welling up when I dashed to the toilet quickly, passing one of my senior bosses and trying not to look him in the eye. I called Chris and had a good old cry – lucky there are not many women at my work to gate crash my pity parade. Chris said he would come to my work for a hug and he would be there in about 30 minutes. So I collected myself, and headed back to my desk. A colleague of mine who had promised to provide me some input to my project report for about 3 weeks decided to tell me he was not able to do it and he was going on leave the next day. Let’s just say, this was the wrong time to be telling me this. My attitude initially to him going on leave was….”and…..?????”. I had waited some time for his input and my report was already late. I said “No worries…..” in a very sarcastic and mean tone. Then my friend walked past us happy and bubbly….realised she had just interrupted something and asked if she should go, to which I nodded. Anyway, I was clearly in a grump.

After 40 minutes of being really pissy one minute, and on the verge of tears the next, Chris arrived at my work. We had a big hug and cry together in my work car park (parking lot). Chris stayed for a coffee, and we decided we would work from home for the rest of the day. I went back to my desk to finish off my preparations for the next day when my colleague (who I had been grumpy to) asked if everything was OK? So I told him about my phone call. I held back the tears as I said it, but said it was OK, I was going home for the afternoon, which he agreed I should do. I felt a little bit bad for my pissyness, but I know he understood that it wasn’t personal against him.

Thursday….I kept myself super busy at my workshop all day, I hardly stopped to think about anything else other than work. It was great!

Today, Friday, I had my third beta blood test. It didn’t start out great as my appointment was already eating into some ‘compulsory training’ time at work…and of course, the clinic had a waiting room FULL of patients. I was greeted by a nice enough nurse who I had never met before. I thought I had met them all!!!! In fact, it was very bizarre, I noticed that the receptionist was someone I had never met before, and all the other nurses I saw wondering around were all new. I wondered briefly if they had done ‘swap staff with another clinic’ day. V. weird. Anyway, the nurse who took my blood was pretty distracted by another nurse who was ‘in training’ (who at my last beta test, I blamed for my late result 🙂 ). They were gossiping, I did not appreciate a lack of attention when I was already upset with having to be there. Grrrr.

After I made into work this morning 40 minutes late, I sat in on about 1.5hrs of pointless training (I am actually already trained, and didn’t know they were going to be covering this same material). You can tell it was going to be a good day for me….not. The office was very quiet today, everyone was out on travel or on leave, which was probably a good thing, but I felt lonely. So I took myself off to a quiet empty meeting room and typed up notes from Thursday’s workshop to keep me busy…but it was slow going, my mind kept wondering to my results.

At 2pm my phone rang, I was surprised because the results weren’t due back til 3pm. It was the doctor who had done my egg retrieval and transfer calling with the bad news. He said my hCG levels were 395 (actually it turns out he was wrong, they were actually 345). My first response was wow it went up again, OK – I wasn’t expecting that! But he brought me back down to earth and said he did not believe this would be a normal pregnancy, he would expect an absolute minimum level of 800 by now, and I should stop taking my medications to prevent prolonging the pain (Emotional pain he meant), he did say that I could choose to stay on the meds if I wanted to be 110% sure, but he recommended to stop them. He also told me to arrange a follow up appointment with my doctor as soon as possible. And that was it. I actually did not cry, I was just confused. Sad, but confused. I stayed in my meeting room and focused on my task at hand, surprisingly I got a lot done in the next two hours.

It is so hard to not cry in front of work colleagues, but at the same time, being there has been a good thing when I needed to divert my mind’s wondering to sad things.

As I left work I received a phone call from my doctor, she started talking to me as if I did not know my results. However, she was far more informative about my results and what she wanted to do next. She told me that she agreed with the other doctor I should stop taking the medication, there is a very very small chance (about 1%) that this might be a viable pregnancy, but coming off the meds will not harm the developing foetus if in fact it is developing. By stopping the medication my body will be allowed to do what it probably would ordinarily have done and let me bleed. She wants to see me on Tuesday afternoon for an ultrasound and another beta test to be sure I do not have an ectopic pregnancy, although very unlikely, she wants to check. It is normal if I don’t start bleeding for another 4-5 days, but in the mean time if I get any sharp sudden pains or difficulty breathing to call her immediately. She also started talking about what we have in the freezer – we have just one blastocyst that was frozen on Day 5 stored away. They won’t do a transfer with just one frozen, so we would have to do another round of IVF. Can’t even think about that right now.

As soon as I got home I took off the estrogen patches from my stomach. It feels good to not have anything stuck there, and we don’t need to think about doing an injection either. I’m trying to think of the positives here!

No results today….

August 25, 2015August 25, 201512 Comments

Before work this morning I went for my second beta test.

There was a new nurse helping out my favourite nurse.

My results have not materialised today. The chief nurse called me at 1700 to tell me she has not seen them yet and she will make sure someone calls me tomorrow.

Coincidence?

I mean, how often does this happen???

My twisted mind thought of an alternative once it had gone past 4pm and the reason that I had not yet received a phone call, was that my results have come back not good and the doctor wasn’t there to give me the news with a way ahead. Why am I so paranoid about this? Well over the last few days my symptoms have pretty much disappeared. OK so I know it is early still….but…..I took a test again last night because I was just not feeling right about it all…and the line looked much fainter than the other one BUT they are different brands so I probably shouldn’t really compare. However it was pretty faint and I would have thought my line be darker by now?

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr….I bet the new nurse messed it up and I am worrying all for NOTHING.

IVF DIARY VOL I: 18-20 Aug 2015

August 20, 2015August 20, 201514 Comments

Medication(s) administered and dosage(s). Progesterone 1ml, vivelle dot estrogen patches 0.1mg x2.

Medical procedures undertaken. Beta pregnancy test.

How do I feel today? I have written a separate post about this today as I felt that my feelings should be captured in their own space. To sum that post up…I’m cautiously optimistic.

What are my symptoms? Sharp pains, sore back and I can feel the nausea coming.

How does Chris feel today? He too is cautiously optimistic too and has an occasional outburst of tears welling up. I love how he shares his feelings with me openly and honestly.

Any results? Maybe I should have put this one higher up. Yes – I am pregnant according to my beta test. I don’t know my hCG levels yet, my phone is playing up so I can’t access them at the moment. But I know that the doctor is not concerned about them. Yey 🙂

What’s next? Second Beta test scheduled for Tuesday next week.

Weight. Holding at a reasonable level.

Waist. Getting smaller!! But not for long, hopefully.

Boobs. Getting bigger!!

Hours of Sunshine 🙂 I got some last holiday sun yesterday as it was my mum’s last day in Virginia, so we headed to the beach for some dolphin watching.

This concludes Vol 1 of my IVF diary and this will be my last ‘diary entry’ (Of course I am blogging still – duh!!). It has been a roller coaster of emotions, I have learned a lot. I will share my ‘lessons learned’ of this cycle later this week. But overall, it’s not a bad note to end on 🙂

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

What is cautiously optimistic?

August 20, 2015August 20, 201549 Comments

What do people mean when they say they are cautiously optimistic? According to the Macmillan dictionary it is defined as:

Hopeful about something, but recognising the problems involved.

I think to describes nicely how I have felt about trying to conceive since we decided to make the leap towards becoming parents.

I also like this image – they say a picture paints a thousand words. Sometimes it has felt like there is a storm out there and our umbrella is going to be whipped away, but most of the time it is just like this picture.

Cautious optimism represented by an image

But for me – this picture paints accurately what cautious optimism looks like for me right now…

Two pink lines

Yes, my dear friends, this is my blue sky approaching! I took a pregnancy test the night before my beta blood test. I was very spontaneous about it. Chris came home from work, he sat down and said “So…injection or test first?”. He threw me off guard because I had been so good at not thinking about using a home pregnancy test, it was just a surprise he said it so nonchalantly. I laughed nervously and exclaimed…”No! Don’t be silly you have to wait!”. And to that, I decided spontaneously to dash upstairs and pee on the one first response home pregnancy test I had left in a drawer. It took seconds for that second pink line to appear, it appeared before I even had a chance to put it down on the work surface. Well that was not what I was expecting! So I left it next to the sharps box for Chris to see when he would start preparing my injection for the evening. I dashed back downstairs (it had only been 2 minutes) Chris had no clue what I had just done. And so we started the ritual of the progesterone injection. We went upstairs with everything needed and I lay down on the bed as if preparing myself for the injection….when Chris shouted out from the bathroom – “hey there is a pregnancy test here??” in a very confused manner. After a second or two of blank face, he almost cried, hugged and kissed me. We talked about how it was not guaranteed and we will find out the next day if this was for real or not. So we decided not to tell my poor mum who was downstairs at the time – oblivious to what was going on!!!

The next morning, my mum and I went to the clinic for my beta blood test. The nurse asked me if I had taken a test yet…I looked at her and smiled…and the nurse said ‘yey!!!’. I was busted – mum had overheard the nurse ask….so I had to tell her what had happened the night before!

And so I waited for the phone call from my doctor. When I saw the number pop up on my phone I took a big breathe. It was actually not my doctor but one of the other doctors who had been doing my ultrasounds. I answered and she said “So….do you feel pregnant?” (What a weird way to start a phone call!!!) I said “maaaaaaybe…..” nervously wondering if this was a cruel joke! And she said “Yes! Yes you are pregnant!!! Your numbers are great…..you need to keep taking the progesterone and estrogen…we probably want to see you again next week for another test….blah blah blah” (-is all I heard after that!) So that was that.

We are pregnant!

Can I put my umbrella away yet? Of course not. Some people may read this and think I am ungrateful or maybe even conceited, but they probably are people who do not understand what infertility can do to the mind. I’m not sure at what point in this process I will take ‘Congratulations’ with a smile. Please understand that I appreciate your kind thoughts and sentiment, I know you are really excited for us….just don’t worry if I don’t respond with an excited smile. Getting a positive pregnancy result after IVF is an awesome step in the right direction, I feel so lucky that we have got this far, but I can’t get excited about having a baby just yet.

I am cautiously optimistic about this exciting step…I’m just hoping it isn’t a false summit.

On being PUPO at P-1 Day (Prove Day)

August 19, 201524 Comments

I officially have the status of being Pregnant Until Proven Otherwise (PUPO). I can ‘enjoy’ this status for about 24hrs longer because tomorrow morning I have my first ever beta pregnancy blood test. What is a beta pregnancy blood test? This is a blood test that will reveal ‘quantitatively’ the amount of hCG (Human Chorionic Gonadatropin) in my blood (hCG is the hormone that is produced when a woman is pregnant).

The last 24 hours have been interesting. Yesterday I thought my period was about to happen. I discovered a bit of dark brown spotting….I freaked out. Then I thought perhaps implantation bleeding? But surely this is way too late for implantation bleeding and unlikely to be possible??! (Remember I have an upside down uterus so perhaps the blood from the implantation has taken a while to ‘gravitationallly’ find its way out! Perhaps it is not impossible?!?!) But then I had horrible aches that felt like a period for several hours afterwards. I felt that it was all over. I went to bed last night pretty much expecting to wake up to my period flowing. I even got upset when Chris told me I should go to bed with a pad and knickers on. I shall not surrender!!!! But no!!! Cruel Aunt Flow teases me!!! Nothing has shown itself since.

Last night I had a weird dream. I basically took three different home pregnancy tests. The first was positive, because I couldn’t believe my eyes, I took a different brand…and it came back positive. So Chris made me take this crazy test. The results were really hard to interpret. The lines looked like inter-twinned ladders and required knowledge of matrix calculus to understand it, and so we argued over whether it was positive or negative. It was positive.

Today, I have been aching like my period is about to arrive, however, I have been experiencing those sharp pains again like in many of my other previous 2 week waits.

The problem with being PUPO is that the progesterone injections and estrogen patches I am being ‘topped up with’ each day to help make a cosy and attractive womb to Huckleberry and Huckleberina are probably causing all of these symptoms. So I am not going to think too much about it all….I remain as I mentioned in my previous post – indifferent.

Lots of people have been sending their love and support over the last few days, and for this we are truly appreciative for the kind thoughts.

So….all that is left to do now is…Prove! I’m excited, nervous and scared all in one breath…or maybe it’s just the drugs!!! Who knows?!?!

Ohhhh just one last thing I will levae you with to make you smile….here is the spectacular bio-luminescent plankton we observed on Sunday. Chris did a great job of the pics! I hope we didn’t use up all our luck this epic weekend of fun!

the bio-luminescent plankton

IVF DIARY VOL I: 15-17 Aug 2015

August 17, 2015August 17, 20158 Comments

Medication(s) administered and dosage(s). Progesterone 1ml, vivelle dot estrogen patches 0.1mg x2.

Medical procedures undertaken. Nothing!!!

How do I feel today? I am 11 days past my 3 day transfer. I am very close to ‘prove’ time…I am feeling sadly indifferent about being ‘PUPO – Pregnant Until Proven Otherwise’.

Time has flown by this weekend – it was quite an epic weekend. First of all it kicked off with a games night with friends – we played Risk – I didn’t win 😦 But it was still fun (Did I mention I hate losing??)!!! Saturday day time we took a trip to the ‘not so Dismal’ Dismal Swamp. The conditions were glorious.

Dismal Swamp – How did it get it’s name???!!!

Saturday evening we went to see Cirque Du Soleil’s Kooza. I AM SO LUCKY!!! You may recall that I originally booked front row tickets for my Mum as a Birthday present for the 6th August – which ended up being the same day as my 3 Day Embryo Transfer. Because I was on doctors orders for 24 hour bed rest I was unable to go 😦 But then an amazing act of mother nature cancelled this show because of a lightening storm. Thank you mother nature!!! So we re-booked our tickets for this Saturday….and it was AMAZING!!!! Any other circus will never be the same again….these people are just so talented – the story, choreography and music FABULOUS!

Chris doesn’t like ‘Selfies’ (It’s not a selfie, but a groupie!!!)

But the amazing weekend didn’t end there! Sunday we headed to Back Bay Wildlife Refuge and False Cape State Park for a bike ride where we saw mother nature in her awesomeness again. Afterwards we had a dinner sunset picnic on the beach, followed by a hunt for bioluminescent Plankton. The plankton was lighting up the dark skies of Sandbridge beach’s ocean water in an amazing luminous green colour. As you walked on the wet sand the ground lit up with luminous green beneath you (A bit like in Avatar!!) I wish I could show you some pictures, but there would be no justice in the photo, you just had to see it with your own eyes to appreciate what an amazing phenomena this is!

I also completed my 4 week online course on Data Visualisation…it kept me a little distracted, but honestly it was a mistake to sign up for it with everything going on over the last 4 weeks. If it had started 3 weeks later it would have been good to keep me distracted in the 2 week wait rather than working when I was struggling to recover from the egg retrieval!!

We bumped into a friend at the supermarket on Sunday who has previously sent us a private message of encouragement after our facebook announcement of our Embryo Transfer. I nearly burst into tears as she gave me a big hug and wished me lots of sticky vibes. So lovely.

As you can see I spent a lot of time having fun this weekend, but I was not distracted from the fact that I was sad at times for absolutely no reason at all, I cried over the smallest things, and I argued with Chris over the smallest things. DAMN DRUGS messing with my emotions!!!

What are my symptoms? The sharp pains have subsided over the last few days, which makes me think waaay too much that this IVF hasn’t worked. Apart from the growing boobs and the emotional schizophrenic Dani, I have no other symptoms.

How does Chris feel today? Chris has put up with a lot of my random outbursts of tears and overly aggressive and defensive approach to every day occurrences. He has been worried about me, of course. He is very hopeful and talks to huck and huck, telling them to bury deep and grow strong. He helps keep me mostly sane about all this.

Any results? No.

What’s next? Test time! I will do a home pregnancy test at some point before my blood test on Wednesday. I know they are not wholly reliable after IVF but I want to have some kind of expectation before hearing the results over the phone.

Weight. NSTR

Waist. Still not quite back to my normal waist size 😐

Boobs. NSTR.

Hours of Sunshine 🙂 The sun has just not stopped shining this weekend…if sunlight is as important as they say they are for egg development then my eggs are getting BAKED!!!

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

Period Pants (The trouser variety)

April 24, 201511 Comments

I took a home pregnancy test last night just to be sure. I had a bit of spotting so I was still holding onto hope. But at the same time, I didn’t want to take another progesterone suppository if I didn’t have to. No matter how much I squinted at the test this time, there was nothing but white space. I awoke this morning to the fat lady singing. And no she wasn’t a beautiful opera singer, rather the heavy ugly type, and a little bit out of tune too. And so the period pants come on. Both the knicker type and trouser type, just to be clear.

Our appointment with our doctor to discuss the next steps is scheduled for 4th May, the earliest appointment possible. I am looking forward to it, but mostly I am looking forward to not trying to conceive this month. After 17 months, its time for a little break. Time for some alcohol (just a bit), exercise (a lot), some dangerous sports and diet (just a bit because I’ve put on a bit of weight the last few months, time to get into that bikini!!). No more temperature taking, no more peeing into a cup, no more hormones, sex when we want to and hopefully a little less pain. Doesn’t sound so bad, does it really?

Ps. Oh and if anyone tells me it will happen now we are relaxed I’ll punch them in the face. Sorry.