We Can Do Hard Things!

The last couple of weeks have hands down been two of the craziest and toughest I've ever had.
The emotional effects of going through IVF are so hard to deal with and there were time's during the injections that I started to want to throw in the towel.

The first injection was Gonal F which is a follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) which increases the numbers of follicles and stimulates their development around the ovaries.
Generally on a natural cycle a woman will make 1 follicle on each ovary....in my case I ended up with about 5 on one side and 7 on the other.
I had to use the Gonal F pen for 5 nights to begin with and it had to be administered at 7pm.
Yes 7pm which meant that no matter where I was I had to do it!
The first time was the worst as I had worked myself up about it all day beforehand. I sat there staring at it for a good 20minutes before even attempting to do the jab. It's one of those things....you know that you've got to do it but you literally have such a mental block when it actually comes to putting the needle into your skin.
After a hell of a lot of tears and harsh words from both me and Kenny at eachother, I just done it. I knew that if I didn't do it then I was pretty much blowing the only chance I have of creating my own family, it's probably one of the worst feelings ever.
Once the needle was in (initially it stings) it didn't hurt at all.....it itched a little afterward and I sat laughing through tears at how stupid I had been.

The next few injections with this pen were a breeze not really a problem.
After 5 days of this I had an ultrasound which showed some good developments and I was told to start my Cetrotide injections in the evenings along with my Gonal F.

Cetrotide is a drug used to block the signal in the pituitary gland which tells the body to release the eggs.
This keeps them at the ovaries to mature for longer.

This injection has been horrid to do..... I would inject myself with the Gonal F first as it was the easier one and then I'd mix up this
shot.
I became a pro in the end and if ever there was a time to feel like a druggy this was defo it.
You have to take the biggest needle and attach it to the syringe, push the liquid into the powder filled vial, wait for that to dissolve, draw the fluid back up, then change the needle to the smaller one (which was longer than the Gonal f one I might add), then get rid of air bubbles and finally then stab myself with it.
I found this injection more intimidating just because it was a syringe. The needle itself didn't really hurt that much but the after burn was soooooooooooooooo bad. It made my whole stomach red and it was painful.
By the 3rd day of doing these my stomach was so sore that I would get really worked up about doing them again. I had done so well conquering my fear of needles but there's a time when you feel like you've just had enough now and I was at that point.

You can see in the image to the right all the little scratches and puncture marks from the injections.
I wasn't bruised on the outside at all but by the 10th/11th injection my skin was so sore to touch that finding a spot that wasn't tender was impossible and this is what made it more unbearable.

I'm just glad that I've got through them, no doubt I'll get given more at some point soon but I am very proud that I managed to overcome this.

We really can do hard things!

IVF 2014

Baby In A Box!

So it's Official.....we are starting our first round of IVF imminently. 

The box containing all of the medication needed to create our 'Miracle' came yesterday.









Pretty scary stuff!
   

If you aren't nervous about your passion, You aren't passionate about it!

I've not posted on here since April.

Sometimes you just need some head space away from all of the craziness that infertility brings....this has most certainly been the case and we were also waiting for our referral to be sent off to Bourn Clinic.

We waited 10 weeks for the papers to be signed off by the specialist at the main hospital, it became so frustrating that I started to doubt if this was ever going to happen.
Luckily once Bourn finally received the documents they were much quicker to get things going.

We were sent an appointment for a seminar which we had to attend before we could have treatment.

On the day we got to Bourn at 2.30pm and was met by a friendly receptionist who showed us around the main building and left us in the canteen to get ourselves a drink.
When I say canteen, this is not like your school or work canteen.....this is a small room in a Victorian manor with carpet, posh sofa's and amazing views of the landscapes outside.
It took us 15 minutes to work out how to use the fancy coffee machines and I did nearly give up at one point but I knew that we had to familiarize ourselves with them one way or another as I would probably be spending quite a bit of time in this place over the coming months lol.

So we get our coffee's and sit down for 30 minutes in the posh canteen whilst watching all the other couples wrestle the drinks machine.
Afterwards we were ushered into the main room which was set out with a projector and rows of chairs which had all been taken barring the one's right at the front. "How typical is that?" I thought to myself.
So there me an Kenny are shuffling down this aisle past all of these other couples who are probably feeling just as scared, anxious and nervous as we are but all I could think was that we looked the the classroom boffins sitting bang at the front.
We take our seat and I instantly notice how unbelievably hot it is in the room. I have a banging headache anyway and now I am sat in a semi dark room, with no air-con, next to a projector machine that is blowing out hot air on the hottest day of the year so far. BRILLIANT!!!!

They hand out the paperwork and an information pack to each couple and we begin to flick through the hundreds of pages. You could cut the tension in the room with a knife.....I sat there wondering if they all felt like I did inside? A mess who just wished that this was a bad dream.
A woman at the front then introduced herself, she is one of the main doctors and for the next hour we were taken through a slideshow of information and a biology lesson in reproduction. At one point I kept feeling like I was going to black out...I kept going clammy and dizzy from the heat in the room, well maybe it was the heat or maybe it was a combo of that and extreme nerves?
If I didn't know about how the reproductive organs worked before hand I certainly do now.

Our first consultation is coming up and I am petrified, being told in fine detail what to expect is helpful in some ways but not in others....I feel like I'm already counting down the days until I have to stab myself in the stomach with needles.

I feel that so far I have been very open about my journey through all of this process as I feel that it could help someone else in the same position who is scared or dosen't know what to expect. I am just getting to the stage now though where I don't know if I should start keeping things more private?

Hope is all I have & stories like this keep me positive

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Health/Family/Our-two-little-miracles-Cambridge-mum-tells-how-IVF-has-given-her-the-family-shed-always-dreamed-of-20140422093021.htm

Another testimonial post about Bourn Hall

http://blog.bourn-hall-clinic.co.uk/ivf-baby-makes-mums-day/

Bourn Hall Tops The IVF Success Rate Charts Again

Our chosen IVF clinic has hit the headlines this month by topping the success charts yet again.
This is really good news for us but I'm wondering if all of the exposure will make others want to be referred there too?? Will this mean a longer waiting list?

 

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Health/Health-news/Cambridgeshires-Bourn-Hall-fertility-clinic-tops-the-success-charts-20140401064155.html

Bourn Hall Vs Barts

Over the past few weeks we have had the tough job of deciding which hospital we would like to be referred to for the IVF process.

 

We have had to weigh up the pro's and con's of each of our top two clinics but finally came to a decision.

 

BOURN HALL CLINIC CAMBRIDGESHIRE

 

We decided that for us Bourn would be easier to get to and better for me in general as it has a much more relaxed atmosphere than Barts.

I am a really stressy person and getting on and off trains into central London would just tip me over the edge.

 

We Originally picked Barts as we thought that being in Central London it would be one of the best hospitals we could go with in the UK but since looking further into it all we felt Bourn had more to offer us.

We visited the Cambridge Clinic a few weeks ago and was highly impressed by the friendliness of the staff. The hospital itself is well maintained, quiet, clean and comfortable which is just right for us.

 

In November last year Bourn Hall hit the National Headlines for it's high success rates.

The video is below:

 

 

RESULTS ARE IN! Everything you want is on the other side of fear.

April 1st - the day I had been dreading for weeks.

It's a crazy feeling when you are sat in that waiting room trying to prepare yourself for the worst but hoping that it will all be fine. 

I had been convincing myself for weeks that this was it....that the doctor would be telling us that the MRI had shown that I wasn't able to carry a child and that conceiving one was possibly a no no too.

When we were finally called I could actually hear my heart beating, it sounded like it was going to jump out of my body. My whole body was shaking.


The doctor said that he had been one of the ones who had done my laparoscopy and knew what had been done and said during it. He explained that my tubes and ovaries had been looked at in depth and were fine, he then went on to say that the reason they done the MRI was to confirm their diagnosis of my uterus shape.

Before the operation I was told that I had a septate (a wall that divided the womb) and that they were not sure of the severity. It turns out that it's not a septate but rather bicornuate .

The link below explains this in more depth.

http://www.babycentre.co.uk/a551934/abnormalities-of-the-uterus-in-pregnancy

The doctor said that the uterus is heart shaped but they did not remove it duiring surgery because it is not a full wall like a septate. 

This means that IF I eventually fall pregnant 

a: the baby could lay breach
b: the baby could be small or limbs could become squashed/ bent into other positions
c: waters could break prematurely

It just means I would have to be monitored closely with scans etc 

He then went on to say that he has spoken with my specialist fertility doctor and they feel that they should now offer IVF to us as this would give us a better chance of conceiving.

I always said that I didn't know if I could face IVF if it came to it but hearing this was a huge relief....I was just glad that they were not telling me that I would never have a child.
I know that IVF dosen't guarantee falling pregnant as I have seen many women on my ttc Instagram account going through endless cycles of it with no joy but it has given me hope again.

We have been given a list of 5 hospital choices to be referred to and now have the tough decision of where we feel would be best to go.

The choices we have are:

Bourn Hall Clinic in Cambridge
Oxford IVF hospital
Leicester hospital for IVF
St Barts in London
Hammersmith IVF centre

We have decided that it will be out of St Barts and Bourn Hall, I've just got to complete some bloodwork with Basildon Hospital and then we can finaliose our decision.

Something tells me that we are going to have some more crazy months to come.

Life begins at the end of your comfort zone

Waiting by the telephone for a call that never comes and an MRI

It's been an eventful past month or so. The recovery period after the Laparoscopy and Hysteroscopy was longer than I thought it would be, it took in total about 3 weeks for me to feel back to myself again.
At one point my stomach was so bruised that I thought maybe the doctors had given me a bit of a kick in whilst under anesthetic.

This picture (to the right) is about 2 weeks post op and the bruising was starting to go down.










I waited and waited for a call from the doctor regarding the op details but didn't get one. Instead the receptionist rang me and said that they had booked me an MRI for in a few weeks time, I asked her why I was going for this and she couldn't tell me.





So off I went back to that horrid hospital to have an MRI aswell now.

It was over quickly and a walk in the park compared to the other investigations I've had to have done.

I wish all of the tests could be that easy. 

I asked if the nurses could tell me what they had seen but they said that they were not allowed and that all they could say was that they had got some really good images.

I really feel that the hospital and staff let me down during and after the op, there was no compassion for how I was feeling and they left me searching for answers to all my questions on the internet.
This made me worse as I read that normally they only do MRI's on the Uterus if they feel that there is a problem with the alignment of the pelvis or if the uterus is tilted severely.
I had convinced myself that there was a problem and that I would never be able to carry a child let alone conceive one.

I think the last 6 weeks have possibly been some of the worst of my life so far.....I can't even explain how I felt and my head was all over the place, I didn't want to do anything, go anywhere or see anyone. I struggled to do normal daily activities as all I could think about was the results. I've had really bad panic attacks over ridiculous things and I'm sure that it's all the stress causing it.

You have to fight through the worst days of your life to get to the best ones!

Just a quick update on how my operation went!
I'm still a bit groggy and very much in pain so I need to write this quick and get off the computer. lol

As I said before I needed to have a Laparoscopy and hysteroscopy for the doctor to look into my womb and to take tissue for biopsy plus get rid of the septate if possible. Before I'd gone in my RE and the team had said that they didn't think I had a septate after all but would still check, they did however say that they may have to do some ovarian drilling if they found cysts on my ovaries. 

Lucky sock/babydust from IG Ladies

Well this brings me on to my day..... I had a really bad time. I sat in waiting room from 12.30 till 5.30 without Kenny because he wasn't allowed in and with no phone for contact to outside world as I wasn't allowed that either. I was really panicky the longer I sat there and at 4pm I was last one left sitting there alone, I ended up having a panic attack/wanting to discharge myself. The nurses couldn't calm me down all I said was 'I want my husband' but they wouldn't call him. So I sat there crying for ages...if it wasn't for this older lady (who had her op first) coming back into the room and comforting/hugging me I wouldn't have had the op. She was lovely and talked to me calming me down until I finally went in at 5.30, it's amazing how a total stranger can comfort you in a time of need. I will remember her always, all I know is her name was Wendy - what an angel in disguise!  So then I was taken to theatre where they couldn't get the cannula in my hand so had to then go in the other, they then ended up giving me calming drugs before anesthetic because my pulse rate was so high. I was finally put to sleep and then was woken in recovery where I was apparently really crying and asking for Kenny, I don't remember that. I can honestly say that my nose op where they smashed my face in was easier and less painful. I really wanted to go home so I asked for pain relief and lots of it so the nurse gave me a whole syringe of morphine intravenously. The doctor came around and told me briefly that he had found that I do have a septate as first thought but they did not remove it (i have no ides why) and he said I would need an MRI Scan. I was really ut of it when he was telling me so he said he would ring me with more info about what they done this week. I then went to ward and finally after eating tea and toast got ready and left at 9.45pm.

As soon as I saw Kenny he just hugged me and I sobbed. 

So glad to be home even if I haven't slept all last nigh or all day.

I am in quite a bit of pain, it feels like I've done a thousand sit ups and I keep getting stabbing pains internally but I'm guessing this is all just part and parcel of the process! Luckily I only had to have 2 incisions made for the laparoscopy part and not 3 or 4 like they first said xx

 

Swollen tummy!

poor hands ;(

The Dreams made of Glass Shop Competition

So my Etsy shop has been quite busy over the last month. I had quite a few orders to get sorted and sent out as well as some custom orders to make.

I decided to make an Instagram account for The Dreams Made Of Glass Shop and hosted a competition to win one of the new Stork collection bracelets.

I t went really well and had 30 entries which I was really happy about, the winner was drawn randomly on the 8th February.

Congratulations to IG member 'dreaming4baby1'

Stay tuned for another chance to win soon!

TTcers around the world Map Update

I am currently updating the TTCERS AROUND THE WORLD map.

Please click the link below to access it

https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=z6Ssw1aNSerE.kg5R1VxNdzz8&authuser=0&hl=en

The countdown begins!

Kicking you when your down!

My last post was in November when I was having a break from the medication, well I extended that break through Christmas as I couldn't get an appointment at the doctors for more medication. It was probably a good thing as Christmas was stressful enough (other things in my life going on) without having to deal with the emotions of not knowing if Letrozole was going to work or not.

So I decided that I would start the tablets again on January 1st (new year, new start and all that) however I still couldn't get an appointment at the doctors for my medication and the hospital wouldn't sign off the prescription as my Doctor was on Annual Leave. This went on for about 3 weeks until I ended up crying my eyes out in the doctors surgery and telling the receptionist how fed up I was of it all.....funnily enough she then found me a slot for a telephone consultation with the doctor that week. Why do you have to have a full on breakdown to get an appointment? ridiculous.

So anyway last week I got my call from the doctor who prescribed my tablets at last, however that evening when I got home from work I had a letter from the hospital with my operation date 12th February!

So after all that stress I can't take any of the medication now until after the op anyway.

Sometimes I wonder....Do things really happen for a reason? I can't believe that on the same day as getting my meds I got that letter. The world has a knack of working in mysterious ways.