Strike Three

I can't believe we are here again, with another failed ICSI cycle under our belt :-(

There was no third time lucky for us despite our perfect looking blastocyst.

I think we're still in shock, we feel numb and incredibly sad that it's over, again. I'm unable describe the disappointment or understand why we continue to be tortured for over 3 years now, it's incomprehensible.

I cannot believe 'this' is my life, surely this is just a nightmare and I'll wake up sometime soon.

 

Blast Off

 

Amazingly, we have 'blast' off,  what a ball of nerves Mr Moon and I have been this morning . . . worrying, wondering and waiting. There is no call on Day 4 and no call on the morning of the transfer so we arrived at the clinic this morning completely in the dark as to what awaited us. It wasn't until I was lying in the operating theatre that the embryologist told us the progress of our embryos -

DAY 5 UPDATE

• 1 good blastocyst - transferred
• 2 not so good blastocysts (not suitable for freezing)
• 3 embryo's pre blastocyst stage / morulas (will be checked on Day 6)

A huge sigh of relief to have finally made this stage to blastocyst for this first time. In cycle 1 we had a Day 5 transfer but our best embryo had only made it as far as the morula stage, in cycle 2 we had a Day 3 transfer.  

We had the good blastocyst transferred and now we wait some more, but for the time being we are enjoying being happy :-)

Wake Up Call

After our miraculous 100% fertilisation:

DAY 2 UPDATE

• 9 embryos growing
• 7 are very good

DAY 3 UPDATE

• 7 embryos growing
• 3 are good, 4 are average

Mr Moon and I were so anxious waiting for that call this morning! So so so pleased that we still have some embryo's in the running, as there are 3 that are 'good' the clinic suggest a Day 5 transfer as they can't decide which one has the most chance of success. As this cycle is a funded cycle and the latest rules for our Primary Care Trust are in effect we can only transfer one embryo this time round.

Yesterday I suffered some unexpected pain episodes from my egg collection procedure from 2 days ago. On my drive into work I experienced some pretty sharp intermittent stabbing pains and I struggled to get into the office. It was all a little scary at the time but after a while the pain subsided to a more constant pain but much less intense. I rang the clinic as this hadn't happened on my previous cycles, they suggested paracetamol and more water and to come into the clinic if it got worse in the afternoon, luckily it started to subside by the evening. I'm left with the odd painful twinge and so hopefully it's passing and never to return!

Although this is turning out to be our most promising cycle so far, we are both feeling very cautious about the whole thing, but I guess that's to be expected after our last two cycles. it's hard to let your mind imagine that we can get to the next stage, we can't take things for granted, we can simply hope for the best.

To re-cap on our last cycles in terms of Day 3 vs Day 5 transfer:

Cycle 1 (Bourn Hall Clinic) - We had a Day 5 transfer, after starting off with 8 embryo's by Day 5 none had progressed to the blastocyst stage, the best we had was a morula so it was a few hours behind and we had this one embryo transferred. No embryo's survived to freezing quality.

Cycle 2 (Herts & Essex Clinic) - We had a Day 3 transfer as there were 2 of the 6 embryo's that already stood out from the rest and so the clinic advised to have the two put back that day, we'll never know for sure whether these embryos progressed to the blastocyst stage, but we assume not. No embryo's survived to freezing quality.

We won't receive any more wake up calls now and my Day 5 transfer is scheduled for Saturday, fingers crossed that when we arrive at the clinic there is a moon-blast waiting for us to come home.

Ten Out of Ten

Top marks for us, I really can't believe it, we had our fertilisation report today -

DAY 1 UPDATE

• 11 eggs collected
• 10 mature and suitable for ICSI
• 10 embryos!

After a sleepless night, I feel a tad silly now for worrying that this cycle had produced the least number of eggs as we now have the most number of embryos at Day 1 from all our cycles and 100% fertilisation. Our last two cycles have been around the 60% fertilisation mark, so this feels like a bit of a miracle.  The embryologist also mentioned that Mr Moon's sample was borderline normal, yay, another first. So we're happy for today :-)

It's really early days, and I remain cautious as we're still not sure what will happen at Day 3, will our embryo's deteriorate like our past two cycles, or could we be third time lucky?

Egg collection yesterday was uneventful, I was super nervous beforehand like usual but all went fine with the stabbing of the ovaries! I didn't have the anaesthetist Mr Smooth this time, instead we had Mr Smiles . . . what is it with these anaesthetists, are they all on happy drugs?  I'm still a little tender today but taking it easy, hopefully this will have passed by tomorrow.

So we wait, worry and wait some more. 

Fried or Scrambled?

It was trigger shot time last night, all went smoothly and hopefully I'm cooking up some good eggs in there. I used ovitrelle again for my trigger injection, and just like the last two times we had the momentary panic about the huge air bubble in the pre-filled syringe!! but it was fine, we moved the air bubble so it was closest to the plunger and then injected, and I lived to tell the tale.

In the hope to promote good eggies, I've had eggs for breakfast two days in a row now (breakfast in bed too - thanks Mr Moon), you can't mark me down for effort!

Today is my drug free day, woo hoo, and tomorrow morning I'll be back at the clinic ready to put on that lovely hair cap for egg collection. C'mon eggies! I'm still feeling pretty anxious about it all . . . one day at a time though.

In other news, we went to see Horrible Bosses at the cinema yesterday, not too bad if you're thinking of seeing it. We're still getting through Season 5 of Grey's Anatomy too, jeez what a sad season :-(  Only two more episodes and we're on to Season 6 where I hear we'll meet Avery, oh yes, hello Avery :-)

Tick Tock

I was back at the clinic again today, Spy Moon got a photo of my chart when I was left alone for a moment, if I was being watched on any cameras I can imagine they fell off their chair laughing watching me get out my camera phone super quick :-)

All seems to be going fine and I will do my trigger injection on Saturday with egg collection on Monday as planned, eek. My menopur dose has been dropped down again, now to 75 IU for my last dose which I took this morning. In total for this cycle I have had down reg injections (buserelin) for 27 days, and for the last 11 days of that I've also had stimm injections, way too many needles to count, but only one bruise! 

I have fewer follicles than my last two cycles, but I'm hoping trying Menopur this time may give me some better quality eggs. Looks like I could be on for about 10 eggs overall, with maybe 7 of those being mature enough for ICSI.

So my trigger injection (ovitrelle) is scheduled for 10:45pm on Saturday night, rock n roll.

Keep Calm and Drink Tea

What an interesting week so far, what was supposed to have started out as a peaceful demonstration has turned into widespread riots across the country, it’s been going on for days now and I’m truly shocked at the destruction these mindless people are causing . . . the rioting, looting and violence is still continuing today, it’s madness.

That little squirt from Big Brother, Sam Pepper, has set up a facebook group and has got #OperationCupOfTea trending.  It’s kinda cool, the idea being that we should make tea, not war. People have been posting photo’s of their cups of tea! it’s the number one trending topic on twitter at the moment, tea solves everything right, I like to think so :-)

In other pressing news, I had my first monitoring scan yesterday . . . these new waves of nausea I’m experiencing these last few days are not too pleasant, I’m sure the nerves didn’t help though. Thankfully, all was fine, one side is responding better than the other, c’mon sleepy ovary.  I’m responding a bit quicker than last time so the menopur is affecting me slightly differently and I’ve noticed that in my symptoms too. To slow things down a little and to give my smaller follies a fighting chance they are reducing my dose down from 225 IU to 150 IU, and I’ll be back there in a couple of days for another monitoring scan and egg collection is pencilled in for early next week as planned.

Dr Angel tells me that I must practice being ‘open’ and not kid myself I’m being open when I’m not really feeling it inside, so that’s this week’s task (just a small mountain to climb then!), she’s got me sussed out.

Auntie Moon

I’m on my twitter break and I have to say it feel a little weeeird, I haven’t decided if it’s a good or a bad thing yet, it’s probably a good thing as my tweets would have just been too whiny! I’ve been struggling somewhat in my down regulation phase this time, I have an array of aches and pains and generally feel pretty exhausted and down with what life continues to throw at me.

Technically I am now an auntie, my brother/crazy SIL had a baby boy a few days earlier than expected. Over the past week I have had some limited contact with my brother and I’ve been hearing filtered information through my mum, bless her, she is stuck in the middle of all this too.  As always, I am the bigger person, I haven’t mentioned the stunt my SIL played the other week that I mentioned in my last post, instead I passed on my congratulations and sent a card and gift. My parents are visiting their first grandchild right now, I don’t expect to be included but it still makes me sad as there is no resolution to this horrid situation right now.

I found out earlier this week that my dad has been told he is diabetic and is now on medication to help control this. Who keeps throwing these things at me!

I had my baseline scan earlier this week (a good old date with Mr Wandy again, oh how I haven't missed you), despite all the odd aches and pains there is nothing untoward happening in there thankfully and I started my new stimulation medications that same day. I’m trying Menopur this time (rather than Gonal F) just to see if it makes a difference to our embryos. The mixing of the powder and solvent seems quite straightforward, although some days I’m having 3 injections to be able to get the right dose from multiple bottles, ouch!  I’m having quite a bit of injection site pain, especially as the day goes on as my IVF bloat is now reappearing and stretches my tummy area!

I’m hoping I’ll start to feel better now that I’m on the Menopur, hopefully I’m growing fabulous follies inside.

Goodie Bag