My journey through fertility investigations and treatments! My name is Rachel and I was born in North London/England on 28th June 1986. I am married to my lovely husband Kenny and we live in Essex with our 2 cats Noddy and Snoopy. I have created a blog about my journey through fertility investigations and treatment as I feel that not enough is said about this subject.
Sunday 27 April 2014
Monday 21 April 2014
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?
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?
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:
Sunday 6 April 2014
RESULTS ARE IN! Everything you want is on the other side of fear.
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-pregnancyThe 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.
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.
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.
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