Spot the Difference

I was hoping that my next blog post could be one a little chirpier for a change, you know about how I'm randomly keeping myself busy through the dreaded 2ww, tick tock, tick tock. I should be so lucky.

I've had stomach cramps pretty much continuously from Wednesday lunchtime, today is Friday and I am 9dp5dt. On the first day the cramps were different to what I've experienced before, but yesterday it was more like AF pains :-(  This morning at around 7:30am I had a little bit of spotting :-((((

I've looked it up . . . I'm sure it signals the end, I called my clinic and they said to continue with the Crinone/progesterone for now, she didn't sound too hopeful but then I guess she is used to people calling up with such news.

I haven't gone in to work today as I can't face anyone and act 'normal' . . . I've been sat here consulting Dr Google, there are stories of people who have had spotting and the treatment has still worked but with my luck of late I think I will not be one of these people.

So, I sit, and I wait.  My cat did a good impression yesterday of how I'm feeling today, perhaps she is psychic?

I still have some cramps, no further spotting as yet, I feel pretty sure that this is the end of this cycle and it makes me feel so sad.

The Waiting Game

Hmm this first week of the 2ww really has been tough, just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, it did!

We stayed up North at my parent's place as my dad was due to be discharged on Monday, we finally got the call to pick him up early afternoon. Unfortunately the morning did not get off to the greatest start . . . with all the snow we had overnight we were worried our not so sensible car wouldn't make it up the slope in my parent's street, so we'd made a plan to try move the car in the morning before the next flurry to somewhere more flat so we'd be ready to go. Whilst OH was packing the car he accidentally locked the keys in the car boot! great stuff!  He called a locksmith who couldn't open it . . . we then had the RAC breakdown people out and luckily they were able to open it, phew!  Just in time before we needed to pick up my dad (using their more sensible car!).  When we got to the hospital, his medicines weren't actually ready so we had to wait around for that and finally we got him back home and settled. After our little outing we decided actually we should just take my dad's sensible car home as more snow was due everywhere and it would be safer.

It doesn't take much snow at all to drive our country to a halt, as I type actually there are 7 jacknifed lorries stuck on the motorway not far from here!  Anyhoo, so off we toodle home . . . we get about half way and you would not believe it, but lights start flashing on the dashboard and we break down on the motorway, aarrhhhh!!!
Cue, more waiting, for the RAC breakdown again. It's mad, we never call the breakdown people ever, and we've had to call them twice in one day, I'm jinxed!!  After waiting an hour they turn up just as it starts to snow. So to be safe they tow us all the way back home.  Said car is now in the garage and is not yet fixed.

I feel like nothing is going right in my life right now, in fact all of 2010 has been really tough. Earlier in the year the company I work for announced it was closing my office(!) and the area I work in was no longer being invested in(!!). So right from February, this year has been pretty pants and since then it's been one thing after another . . . I won't bore you with all the details as it's depressing, but on top of this we have started our first IVF cycle after TTC for 2.5 years, ideal timing. 

As we're back home I thought I should go into the office yesterday (the first time in just under a week), but I think it was too soon after all the stress lately, I found it all a bit difficult really to just revert back to normal and get back to all the work as if nothing has happened or is still happening. By the time I got home I just felt so fed up that I just broke down, I'm not really sure why (progesterone? 2ww? going mad?) . . . I guess I'm just desperate for 2010 to not be a complete wash-out and I could really do with just a little bit of good news or a sign of things going my way. 

Remedy - hugs from OH <3  <3 <3  and yummy hot chocolate with biscuits.

Once I sorted myself out we nipped out in the cold to Tesco as I had the munchies and thought this would make me feel better, check out my shopping bill :-)  I didn't eat any of it, but it's all in the house now in case I need a pick me up! Mmmmm yum!

This 2ww stuff is rubbish, this morning I'm technically 7dp5dt, I think the trigger shot will be out of my system by now so I think I could pee-on-a-stick (POAS) now and put myself out of my misery but I'm just to scared of the negative result.  I still don't feel 100% but I'm convinced this is the Crinone/progesterone side effects as I had these symptoms before ET too, they are just less so than before. How do you handle IVF not working?  I think I will just fall into a heap, and then maybe get drunk :-(

This past week I think I have become a pro at the waiting game -

• waiting for my dad to get better
• waiting for my dad to be discharged from hospital
• waiting for the snow to melt
• waiting for my toes to warm up
• waiting for the RAC breakdown to get our keys out of the car boot
• waiting for the RAC breakdown to rescue us from the motorway
• waiting for the car to be fixed by garage
• waiting for the shed load of snow to arrive so I can get snowed in and stay at home with my duvet and hide from everyone
• and more importantly, waiting for the 2ww to be over and for someone to give me break

2ww

Well, this 2ww (two-week-wait) malarky is all a bit pants really.  
It feels different to the usual 2ww's as I'm not left wondering if the little eggie is meeting the little tadpole as I KNOW FOR A FACT they put an embryo back in there! All I need the little bean to do now is to find a nice resting place to implant in my lining and feel at home, how hard can that be? feels somewhat impossible.

I've not been able to blog for a few days as I had to travel up to my parent's place up North, my dad was much more ill than we had thought when I wrote my last post. Unfortunately he had another bleed in the brain (a different side to his first bleed) and this was pushing his brain to one side :-( He needed an urgent operation to drain the bleed and relieve the pressure. Thankfully the operation has gone well and he is recovering nicely, I'm hoping he can be discharged tomorrow and then me and OH will travel back home again (snow permitting!).  Not quite the relaxing start to the 2ww I had planned!
So back to topic! My embryo transfer was last Wednesday so today I think (still trying to get the lingo!) I am 4dp5dt which means 4 days past a 5-day transfer (although technically they transferred a morula rather than a blastocyst so maybe I should call it a 4-day transfer, who knows?).

Symptom check:
Generally - Think I still have the crinone/progestrone side effects like bloating
1dp5dt - Tried to relax, for what, maybe 2 hours, before getting news about my dad
2dp5dt - Some stomach cramps on and off all day, sore (.)(.)
3dp5dt - Cramps seem to have pretty much passed (bad sign?)
4dp5dt - Feeling pretty normal, (.)(.) not as sore any more . . . going mad!?

I'm not really sure what to make of it all, I didn't think I would over analyse all my symptoms (maybe that was silly to think I wouldn't do that as that sounds soooo like me, I love google!) . . . but I have, I've been looking up all sorts in case it's a sign, the result being that I've felt a bit up, a bit down, and a bit all over the place.

Anyhoo, I've persisted with eating the pineapple core and pineapple pieces, drinking pineapple juice and munching brazil nuts, bit sick of it now so I think I've done as much as I can to help with implantation.


It dawned on me this weekend that with blogging it means everyone following this, in real life, or in my infertility world, everyone knows EVERY step, there is no hiding. I know they are all waiting with me and wishing me well, but it does make me feel a bit vulnerable too, not sure how to fix that one.
Righty-ho, I think should do as OH says and put the laptop away and relax. . . hopefully my dad will be discharged tomorrow, the snow will magically disappear (and of course that the little bean has implanted) and we can head back home to some kind of normality. I'm a little sad that the start of my 2ww has not been as chilled and stress-free as I would have hoped, but you can't plan for these things and I had to be with my family, if my little embie makes it through all this then it must be a strong one.

Lucky 7

When 8 became 7, the Lucky 7, grow embies grow :-)

So looks like I really am still set for a Day 5 blastocyst transfer on Wednesday, yippee. I was so anxious before I called the clinic today as I know Day 3 is a big milestone to get to and I was expecting that more of our embryos might not make it.  As I spoke to a nurse she was unable to tell me any information about the grading of the embryo's and explained that the embryologist will go through this on Wednesday, so I have to be patient a little longer (boo).

After that phone call, dare I say it, I felt a teeny weeny bit excited, the first time ever since starting this cycle. I'm so proud our embryo's have made it this far and hope they all keep strong till my transfer day.

I couldn't concentrate on work this afternoon so I did a sneaky bit of research about embryo's and the different stages and came across a useful website, www.pregnancyivf.com that explains it in simpleton terms:

Day 0  Egg retrieval day. 

Day 1  Eggs checked for fertilisation (looking for the presence of two pronuclei)
Day 2  Embryos that have successfully fertilised should be at the 4-cell stage or more.

Day 3  Embryos should be at the 8-cell stage or more. 

Day 4  Embryos will be at the compacted morula (16-32 cell) stage.
Day 5  Embryos will be at the blastocyst stage of development.

The most important stages in development are:

• Fertilisation
• 4 to 8 cell stage
• Morula to blastocyst stage

More hurdles to pass then! I also hope that I have some quality embryo's left to freeze too, apparently only 10-20% of patients have good quality embryo's to freeze, I'm not sure how true this is or what the cut-off grade is at my clinic to qualify for freezing, will cross that bridge if we get there.

Anyhoo, I will call the clinic again tomorrow and hope my Lucky 7 are still having fun in their petri dishes waiting for me.

Grow Embies Grow

Since my egg collection on Friday I have been busy recovering :-) I even would go as far to say that I feel rather upbeat too and excited about the next stages, now there's a first.

My Weekend:

Lots of attention from my lovely OH tick

Lots of rest tick

Lots of nice food including breakfast in bed tick

Caught up with lovely friends and family tick

I waited anxiously to call the clinic on Saturday at my allotted time to find out how my ickle eggies were doing, the day of egg collection is classed as Day 0 and so Saturday was Day 1 -

Day 1 Update
15 eggs collected
13 suitable for IVF/ICSI

8 embryo's growing, grow embies grow!

Phew! we have 8 little embies growing, thank goodness for that!  My paperwork from the clinic says to expect 70% to fertilise, so depending on how you look at it, of the eggs that were collected 53% fertilised, and of those that were mature and suitable for IVF/ICSI, 60% fertilised, so not too bad I suppose, I just hope they all survive now and are of eggcellant quality :-) Dr Google tells me that grading of the embryo's takes place around Day 3 so I hope I can find out this information when I call tomorrow. 
The clinic I am with usually transfers on Day 2 / 3 or Day 5 (blastocyst) and when I called they said I had enough embies to go forward for a Day 5 transfer (yippee) which is Wednesday (so back to work I go on Monday then). I would have really liked to have called again today to see how they are doing but the clinic were strict on the next update being on Monday, boo! I feel all protective over our little embies!

Whilst it's so nice to not be taking any injections or nasal sprays any more, I haven't fully escaped from all the drugs yet, after my egg collection I started taking Crinone, a progesterone vaginal gel, lovely! 

I have to 'administer' these once a day now in the evening and then walk around for 10-15 minutes to help it get absorbed, just what you want to do when the winter evenings are drawing in, but anyway my OH has said we can go out for a walk each evening along the river by where we live and so maybe it won't be so bad to get some fresh air. So far the side effects I have had have been sore (.)(.) and a bloated stomach, very attractive.

I've added another photo we secretly took, this is my chart of how my follicles were growing, fascinating for me, but maybe that's just because it's my follicles :-) I'm no expert but this chart also shows my endometrial lining thickness, I've just asked Dr Google and it varies what the ideal thickness is at this stage, some say between 8-13mm, and others say 7-12mm, so whichever I'm on the lower end of the range and hope I have a hospitable environment for our little embie. I have all my limbs crossed in the hope that our 8 little embies survive and get stronger each day, grow embies grow!