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

Unplugged

I’ve decided to take a little break from twitter, I plan to return soon but in the mean time I still hope to blog through my third ICSI cycle . . .

I’m doing this in an attempt to stay as sane as one can be in a treatment cycle and I think I need to unplug for just a little while.  I’ve been struggling with all the stresses in my life recently, they are all getting on top of me and I guess everything is becoming too much. Even being on twitter from time to time can increase my anxiety which is ironic, as before this is the first place I would turn to. I hope my friends on twitter understand that I need to take a break for a little while and concentrate on this cycle and do what I need to do to get through it, it feels a little selfish but I’m finding it hard to read about other people’s stories at the moment – both those with good and not so good news, all are making me feel more anxious.

My counsellor advised that I have to let go of something, at the time I had decided that I would let go of my brother/SIL situation ('You Can't Choose Your Family'), this only lasted a week or so unfortunately. Right before leaving for my bridesmaids duties he texted out of the blue after not being in touch for about 8 weeks. I won’t go into the details but I wasn’t best pleased with the tone of his texts and I realised he is not the brother I miss, I miss who he used to be.  Since the wedding he has made an attempt to resolve the situation with my parents given that their first grandchild will be making an appearance into the world any day now and he wants them to visit as soon as the baby arrives. He has also been in touch with me again to say he’d like to speak to me this week, I’m not sure how I feel about this as I have enough on my plate but I guess if he makes the call I will hear him out.

I have already accepted I won’t be meeting my niece/nephew anytime soon and I’m acutely aware there is no quick fix to this, but this doesn’t make it any easier to handle. Actually breaking news from Tuesday is that the crazy SIL has contacted my mum to pass on a message to me, to ask me not to contact my brother at the moment, I took 10 steps back in my quest to stay sane when I heard this. Seriously, I give up, they are causing me more grief than I can handle right now.

In terms of my cycle, I’m 12 days into my down reg phase, the injections are going fine, but unlike last time I am struggling with how they are making me feel, I'm literally having to just take one day at a time and I’m trying to be strong. AF has also made an appearance, as expected during down reg it was just a day or so late like last time, yet again no miracle baby here!  The pain has been awful at times but I’m getting through it. So I’m all set for my baseline scan in the next few days and then the plan is to try a different stimm medication this time, one that’s more fiddly and requires mixing so I’ll be having a demo next week.

Both Mr Moon and I are struggling a bit this time round, we feel so alone which is making us hide away a little, probably not a good thing, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to just ‘pretend’ everything is fine and we are normal when we couldn’t feel further from it. It’s difficult to be full of hope when we don’t understand why there were no real answers in Mr Moon’s recent tests. I saw Dr Angel for my acupuncture this week and she gave me a lot of useful advice, she asked me to keep an ‘open mind’ about this cycle, she’s so sweet, she didn’t tell me to be more positive, she didn’t tell me to less negative, instead something about the way she described just about being ‘open’ to the possibilities made me feel brighter.

I know many others are going through difficult times too and it makes me sad to think there are people out there just like us, feeling these same emotions, I wish I could fix it for them. I wanted to give a little shout out to one lovely lady, @ladyisis, her latest post made me cry and I can relate to a lot of her emotions, we seem to be on the same wavelength, this is the one good thing about twitter, I have found some people that I can truly relate too. Here is her blog with her latest post, please send her some support . . . Don't Look Back

On a positive note, one thing that has helped last week was meeting two tweeps, @ivfchronicles and @lilytaj, in London for the day. I can’t describe how it felt to meet two lovely ladies who know exactly how I’m feeling right now, I felt connected to them straight away. I’m so pleased @lilytaj stopped by in London on her holiday (she lives in Oz) which gave us all a reason to get together and eat cupcakes, yum yum.

Stuck in the Maze

It’s nearly two weeks since my last post . . . where have I been?

• In hiding (yep I’m hiding from ‘my’ own blog, hilarious but true)
• In counselling
• In shopping malls
• Watching Greys Anatomy
• Tying ribbons to confetti cones

I’ve had another tough couple of weeks, my only way through seems to be retract from some aspects of my life and take one day at a time. I’ve been back on twitter a little bit and so some of you may already know what I’ve been up to lately, I’m getting there slowly, but still stuck in the maze running from that black cloud.

Mr Moon has been taking good care of me with flowers and gifts, anything to bring a little smile to my face.

I am happiest at home when we’re in our cocoon where everything seems safe and I can convince myself I can do this, one step out of the door and that confidence quickly fades though. Ms Mellow, my counsellor, is trying to help me with this and is convincing me that I am indeed coping, maybe not as well as I would like (always a high achiever!) but this is ‘coping’, I have not yet fallen into a heap and not got back up again.  I’m keeping up the acupuncture with Dr Angel and I’m still doing the yoga, so keeping my head above water, just.

I’ve also kept myself occupied with bridesmaid activities, my dress is being collected today and the celebratory activities have already started last weekend, only one more day at work and I’m off, yay. I have made some beautiful confetti cones with bits of ribbon tied around them in bows, if you know me in real life, each one has been meticulously made, checked and double checked for perfection.

In other news, Mr Moon has a new job (woo hoo) so this is great to have some good news amongst all the bad. We had our chromosome karyotyping results back too and these are all clear. We’re just waiting on one more test for Mr Moon and then I’ll ask him to write a blog post on all the latest results he’s had.   In celebration of Mr Moon’s success I treated myself with Mr Moon’s money (ha haa) to a shopping trip to the Pandora shop and have a new bracelet with charms, I find a girl cannot have enough charm type bracelets :-)

I’m getting closer and closer to cycle 3 . . . the day after the wedding we will rush back home so I can administer my first down reg injection, how’s that for timing!  I wanted to start after the wedding so I could shift that horrid IVF bloat and have some bubbles to celebrate on the day, the way the dates have fallen means I literally start the next day. I haven’t given it much thought yet, guess I know the drill now, I’m sure the nerves will settle in on Sunday though.

By the way, @toofriedeggs posted this great article on twitter today about The Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Paul Ford, an alternative view on this whole IVF business, a good read if you fancy a peek.

It's Good to Talk

Hmm, I haven't written in a while . . . kinda feel a bit in limbo some days . . . a bit lost, I seem to have no new words really, just the same old same old, so it's taken a little while to drum up some inspiration. One of my last posts, Three, was a bit sad, I still feel like that but I've made some steps to help find some zen in this maze I'm stuck in.

I had my first ever counselling session and met Ms Mellow . . . I wasn't really sure what to expect so I went with an open mind, some tissues and hoped for the best. The reason I have sought counselling is that I have reached a new level of stress, it's difficult to pretend I'm fine all the time when about 75% of the time I'm actually not ok, I'm just acting, it's easier that way.

She summarised everything I said back to me and instinctively picked up on a lot of the emotions I had felt at the time, she 'got me', which was nice, sounds silly but it actually made me feel relieved that she didn't think I was a loony. What she actually said was that she was surprised I was still standing given everything I had been through . . . right from our first investigations, to frightening tests and results, serious family health issues, my office closing and starting a new job, losing my brother through my SILs false accusations, all the waiting and the small matter of going through IVF twice, pumping myself with drugs to only find that neither cycle worked with no real answer why and no clear way forward.

Ms Mellow said something has to give, that I can't continue with all this on my shoulders. I think I'd come to this conclusion myself, as the thing I have already let go is the brother / SIL saga, I don't have the energy for it and as hard as it is, I have to accept I have lost him for now. I still cry about it at random times, even today still, but I guess this will get easier with time and hopefully I will get to meet my future niece/nephew some day.

One thing Ms Mellow said that really resonated with me is that it seems whenever I talk to anyone about my troubles or how I am feeling, whether that's Mr Moon, my friends, or my mum, that I am always thinking of them and what's going in their life too and by doing this I'm not truly saying how I feel, just skimming over it.  For instance, I guess I don't want to tell Mr Moon all my fears because it will upset him too, I don't want my mum to worry about me even more than she already does and I don't want to be a burden on any of my friends too much, they have enough going on in their own lives. So I sometimes I tend to skim over details, avoid topics, or be distant and hide away, I guess they are coping mechanisms. She explained that by speaking to her I don't need to temper what I'm saying or worry about what she thinks as it's one place I can speak freely, a safe place.

Cycle 3 is right around the corner too, I'm not sure what I think about that though, I'm not sure if I'm ready (will I ever be ready to put myself through another fresh cycle?) and so I'm on auto-pilot. Before that I'm lucky enough to be a bridesmaid for the first time in just over two weeks and so that's something to look forward to and focus on.

In other news I have been to two Hatha Yoga classes now, I like it!  I found this cute picture, it's the Half 'Moon' pose, hope I get to do this one soon :)
I even went for a run the other day and have started daily sit ups (can you tell I'm on the bridesmaid final countdown!).




Oh, I've fully immersed myself into Greys Anatomy too (thanks @ivfchronicles, @lilytaj and @ladyisis). I'm already onto Season 3 and LOVING it, makes me laugh and forget about my worries for 45 minutes, so it's no wonder I'm addicted to watching them back to back, it's kinda nice to escape.