4 Days Past Transfer

31.12.14

I am now 4 days past transfer and feel very strange. I still have the cramping on and off.....it's so scary because it's almost like period cramps.
My head is completely all over the place, I've not ever been pregnant before so I don't really know what to expect but on the other hand I feel like I'm pregnant if that is even possible. I don't want to get my hopes up but I feel different and I'm getting up all through the night to keep going to the toilet which is really unlike me.
I know I'm not supposed to do a test until test day because it's too early but holding out for another 6 days is going to drive me crazy.

Putting My Chalkboard into Use At Last!

29.10.14
I decided that I was going to use my chalkboard today. 
It was a case of do I a week 3 shot just incase the ivf has worked? or do I not do it because if I was to do one and the ivf didn't work it would be a bit of a sore reminder?
In the end I went with taking the picture because if I didn't and I was pregnant I would regret not having a picture of the first week.
So here it is ..... 3 weeks in, 2 days after transfer.

The 2 Week Wait Begins!

28.10.14

We are Officially PREGNANT UNTIL PROVEN OTHERWISE! (pupo)

The embryo is currently tucked away inside of me hopefully baking away and becoming a baby.

It's kind of scary because although I know that I am currently technically pregnant, I'm under no illusion that it could all be over as quick as it started.

The next few weeks (10 to be precise) are going to be the slowest, craziest, hardest days ever.

All I can do now is hope for the best.

The LAST Jab!

21.12.14

So here goes....Last Jab time!

Last night was my last injection for the treatment and I had to wait all day for the nurse's call for her to tell me what time to administer the drug.

In my case I had to do it at 11.30pm so that I was ready for the egg collection tomorrow at 9.30am.Eeeeeekkkkkkkk!!!

With Ovitrelle it's pretty much the same as doing Gonal F. The injection comes in the form of a pen, so all you have to do is attach the needle. The only difference between this and the Gonal F is that with this you don't have to set the dose, you just inject and take the full amount of liquid that's in the pen.
Ovitrelle's job is to mature the eggs before collection and then to trigger ovulation at a certain time (which is why you have to take it at a certain time of day/night depending on when you are going in for collection)

Doing this injection was a bitter sweet moment.
Yes I sure am glad to see the back of injections, my stomach is sore and wounded but on the other hand it was kind of sad in a way.
I've come so far from that first night of injections when I didn't think I could get through this. I did it though and now I was at that point of realising that this is it......I've got through the part that I didn't think I could do and I was faced with the prospect that this could all have potentially been for nothing, on the other hand this could now be the start of something I've been wanting for a very long time.

http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/pregnancy/medicines/ovitrelle.html

So Glad My Misfortune Made Someone Happy!

20.10.14
Another day, ANOTHER SCAN!
Today's scan was the final one all of my follicles were at good sizes (of course there's no guarantee that there are eggs in there though) and the nurse was quite happy for me to be booked in for the retrieval.

During the follicle scans the nurses look on each side of the ovaries for these small black circles, these are the follicles, they then measure them using he ultrasound machine. 
The follicles need to be around 16mm to be mature enough for them to want to do collection. Some women's follicles do not mature and they have to try upping the doseage of the medication or if that still dosen't work they just do the retrieval and hope that there are some eggs that they can use.

I was very lucky through this process, everything seems to have gone very smoothly and my body appears to have responded well.

The nurse also looked at my womb lining with 3d ultrasound to check that the lining was thick enough (which it was) and here is when she realised that my womb is nothing but ordinary.
I'm used to the doctors commenting on it now but normally the nurses cannot see the defect on the ultrasound machine.

Well this time she picked up on it straight away and was quite excited that she could get a very clear 3d shot of it.
She was very excited and said that she couldn't wait to show the other nurses the image, I guess I was happy for her...I suppose from a nurse's point of view it's not every day that you get to see a true Biconuate Uterus on ultrasound but you can't help but think "cheers, I am having IVF and not knowing if a baby will survive in that bodge up of a uterus and here you are getting clappy happy over it". 
(to the right is my scan picture)
The Y in the scan is my womb which is why they say it's a heart shape, a normal womb would be a pear shape or upside down triangle.

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?

Another testimonial post about Bourn Hall

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

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:

 

 

TTCers of IG around the world!

 

Recently I had a vision to create a map that gave a rough location of all the ladies who are on Instagram in the Trying To Conceive Community. The reason for this was so that others could look at the map and see if there was another TTCer local to them that they could connect with.

I put it up on IG to see what others thought and within minutes I had over 20 names with their city and so there it began!
The map now has around 160 ladies on it who are on fertility treatments or have been on it and are now pregnant or had a 'miracle' baby. It's amazing to see how many women in different places of the world are effected by infertility, on the map we have ladies in USA,Canada, UK, Australia, Germany and Puerto Rico.

 

Follow the link below to view the map:

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

Infertility affects women's lives differently based on social class!

I just came across this article which was posted on the Fox News website yesterday. (link below)
It talks about studies which have shown that women from a high social class are affected by infertility differently to those of a lower social class.
It made quite an interesting read but I'm not so sure that I agree... What do you think?

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/08/19/psychology-no-kids-how-infertility-affects-women-lives/

Infertility Journey Scrapbooking

 

 

A couple of months back when reading through fertility treatment advice I came across a blog of a couple who had been through fertility treatments for numerous years and had finally conceived.

They had made a scrapbook of memories, keepsakes and photos from the beginning to the end of their journey and it was amazing.

In their case they had been through numerous Clomid, IUI, IVF rounds with no success and finally went down the adoption route and this was documented in their scrapbook.

 

It was really inspiring and so I have decided to do a scrapbook of my own. (as you can see from the pictures)

 

It's quite therapeutic and I hope that one day I will have a child (one way or another) who I can share it with!