hissychick » TTC

28 May 2004

hissychick — Fri, 28 May 2004 11:06:04 +0000

What a week. Tuesday I get the call..only one embryo has survived. After intial panic has worn off ring clinic and ask whether it is worthwhile proceeding with blast culture. Doctor agrees that it isn’t, transfer scheduled for next morning. Wednesday- transfer seven cell embie. DH is with me and we see the embryo on the screen, usual discomfort but over very quickly. Spend the rest of the day at my parent’s house. Tired, dazed, drained. Thursday- wake up in panic, stress headache won’t go away. Go for a drive to Richmond, manage to run into pole in car park (first time I have ever doen that). Car not badly damaged, I’m a bit shaken. Spend couple of hours in daze spending money aimlessly before heading home. In tears in the evening as I just feel so overwhelmed. Today- still can’t face work so feeling so strung out. DH has day off with me and we buy a new heater and have some lunch at a restaurant, however I manage to burst into tears in public for no reason and with no warning, but at least it was only once. I still feel so wierd and jittery. You know, I haven’t given much thought to the embryo I am carrying at all, I just feel so..drained yet agitated. It’s like all the adrenalin has gone. And in it’s place is a foggy headed me (i don’t feel like i can string any words together coherently, writing or speaking). I know I am depressed but i just don’t want to deal with it at the moment.

22 May 2004

hissychick — Sat, 22 May 2004 11:05:14 +0000

No more blood tests. Embies to be thawed on Tuesday for transfer Friday if one makes it. I don’t know why I can’t shake this black mood, I should be looking forward to doing the FET next week, right? But I just can’t seem to muster any enthusiasm, only sadness and fear alternating with resignation and the occasional flash of raw anger.

19 May 2004

hissychick — Wed, 19 May 2004 11:04:37 +0000

There will be yet another daily blood test tomorrow *sigh* I am the human pincushion…………..

18 May 2004

hissychick — Tue, 18 May 2004 11:03:04 +0000

Ok I am going to start with one positive thing before I launch into what is becoming a bit of a regular theme in my diary, ie me depressed about not having a baby. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Anyway…about a week and a half ago I got to meet Lucy (Elle) and her gorgeous little peach of a daughter Olivia as they were in sydvegas for a few days. Olivia is just the most beautiful little girl (that is saying something because I am not one of those people who thinks all babies are beautiful). And Lucy is just as lovely and amazing IRL as she has been first here on EB and then in our regular emails. We spent a fabulous afternoon across in Manly, just catching up over lunch and the ferry trips. When I see her with her little girl I am reminded why I should persist with TTC even though I am frighetened, disillusioned, depressed and scared. Even though I haven’t been on EB much lately I am very glad that it was because of EB I have met Lucy and Olivia.

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Now back to how I am feeling at the moment…black, blah and fed up. I cried during my U/S today, partly because it hurt a bit but mostly because it just hit me that I am back on the rollercoaster again. So many hurdles- getting to O, hoping the embies survive the thaw, hoping one survives the extra culturing to blastocyst, hoping it implants…and this in an ‘easy’ cycle. Which if it doesn’t work out, and i am convinced it won’t, means another stim cycle and all that entails. Must be the hormones after the clomid or something. Anyway…lining is good, estrogen coming along nicely, dominant follie is about 9mm so we have a while to go yet. Another blood test in the morning. Daily blood tests are such a joy. I just want a baby, not all of this crap.

2 May 2004

hissychick — Sun, 02 May 2004 11:01:54 +0000

CD 34 no hormonal alchemy in the boobs etc to let me know that AF is on her way. Unless my shitty mood counts. But then again, trying to stay all positive through this infertility journey simply wears thin at times. Stupid AF better turn up this week as it is time to get back on the rollercoaster. Oh joy…clomid to play havoc with my emotions, followed by waiting to see if my embies a) thaw and b) reach blastocyst stage. It’s going to do my head in. But not as much as having to do another stim cycle which I am sure will turn out to be the case. Because shit happens, the end…… I haven’t been posting on the boards of late, I just don’t feel I have many positive words of support to offer when I am in this type of headspace. You know, a bit bleak, a bit sarcastic, middle finger raised at the world to try and hide the fact that once again I am frightened by what’s ahead. Blah. I watched the report on the Sunday programme this morning about the “baby crisis”, you know, bad selfish career women delaying the whole baby gig and finding out that it gets a whole lot more difficult when they finally decide they want a little bundle of joy. I don’t know, women daring to actually want an education, what we should do is take ‘em out of school at 15 and pop them in the kitchen like the good old days. F*ck that. Not many words were mentioned about the blokes’ role in all of this. Why aren’t they committing to the idea of children at a youngish age? And are they aware that they too can have fertility problems? It’s one thing to take a group of twenty something women and give them the facts about the way fertility declines in your late twenties (something which is long overdue and should be emphasised to all women), but why aren’t they telling this stuff to men? To continue the cliche, ie blaming women for having babies/not having babies/fertility problems, next week’s installment is about IVF. What’s the bet the focus is on ‘older’ women and the challenges they face…. I am so pissed off. I am one of those dreadful university educated women with a decent career, yet I was going to be a mother at 26. I wanted that more than anything I have ever wanted in my life. But that was taken away from me along with a fallopian tube and now my DH and I are struggling with MF infertility and the heartbreak of IVF. Where is the Sunday programme about that? No….it’s far easier to blame women as a group for delaying motherhood rather than looking at the diversity of people who seek IVF treatment and realising that the decline in the number of babies in this country is not a black and white issue. I don’t know where I was going with that rant anymore. I am not even sure there was a cohesive line of thought in that one. Oh well, tough. It’s just one of those days…

18 April 2004

hissychick — Sun, 18 Apr 2004 11:00:34 +0000

It’s been a fun weekend…would have been perfect if Collingwood had won the football but you can’t have it all LOL Yesterday DH and I went to a uni reunion of sorts (5 years since my graduation ceremony). It was great to catch up with friends and it was such a beautiful day down at Watson’s Bay. Had a bit too much red wine to drink (how unlike me- yeah right, enjoyed a wedding that was held in the park we were at and was absolutely flabbergasted when my uni best mate/ex boyfriend apologised for being such a bastard to me when we went out seven years ago! All in all a highly amusing afternoon. DH and I then went to the John Mayer concert. Fantastic- he is so talented and delicious…and so is John Mayer ;-P We then stayed the night at a hotel with a fabulous big king sized bed, which was ut to good use! What can I say, I had just heard the aforementioned JM singing “Your Body is a Wonderland”, get me going every time LOL. It is so liberating being back to lurrvve making instead of active TTCing. This has been one of the unexpecetd benefits of our diagnosis I must say, or maybe not. When you are doing an IVF cycle the last thing you want is sex (is that a result of the drugs, or is it that you feel like you have handed that intimate aspect of your life over to medical science?), so inbetween you make the most of what you’ve got! My more positive approach to waiting for a baby continues, which freaks me somewhat, but it is so good to be able to enjoy time with my DH, and quality time at that. I guess I have spent the better part of two years worrying about what we don’t have rather than what we do. And I am not going to lie, I am sure I will feel that way again when we start our next cycle, and whenever another person in my life next announces another pregnancy…. But DH and I are doing what we can in this game of chance. Because that’s what it really is. People can delude themselves and think that they are in control of the baby making process, but no one ever really is. All IVF can do is increase our chances, it cannot guarantee a baby. Whilst that is scary, it has made me feel that we do have some control over how much energy we devote to the process of trying for a baby. If that makes sense. Anyway, got to quickly get this down because dinner is ready…we had our appointment with the doc, and once my period arrives we will get down to it again (which could be some time off, I am on about day 19 and my body is showing no signs of O). We are going to thaw our remianing three embies and culture to blastocyst. If any survive we will transfer one. This means we are not mucking around with transferring of embies that weren’t going to survive anyway. We have survived all the hurdles so far (doc told us our response in t he stim cycle was fabulous), this is just another screening process. I feel comfortable with this in theory (of course I will be devastated if there are no embies left and we have to go the stim cycle again, even if this is for the best). I will be taking a bit of clomid to ensure that my cycle is a little bit smoother as well. So there you go, all that is left for now is to wait- and enjoy life as much as possible in the meantime. I wonder what my moods/thinking will be next time i write?!

10 April 2004

hissychick — Sat, 10 Apr 2004 10:59:16 +0000

DH and I will be seeing our IVF doctor on Thursday afternoon to discuss where we go from here. I am currently trying to compile a list of questions so that we get as much benefit as possible out of our consultation. I think we will be able to go ahead with a natural FET after my next AF, and after lots of thought and discussion we will go with another single embryo transfer if that’s what the doctor recommends. The best outcome for us is a singleton pregnancy, I have seen the stats on the risks with multiples, not only in terms of prematurity and so on, but also in terms of the strain it puts on relationships. These are the last things we need after all this time and while there is always a risk of these things happening at least we will try and minimise that risk. If it means waiting a little longer for our bubs then so be it. I can’t believe I just said that! I guess it is something that has finally hit me..after waiting this long I have finally started to get some patience. It’s not time for me and DH to set a time limit on how long we try yet, so we may as well not subject ourselves to any additional pressure in terms of “I want to be pregnant by x” timeframes, god only knows IVF is stress enough itself.. Watch me change my mind if none of my frozen embies survive and we have to do another stimulated cycle… Anyway DH and I are just enjoying our non-children time, because when/if I do fall pregnant those weekend sleep ins, frivolous clothes shopping, trips to nice restuarants and pubs etc etc will become a distant memory I guess! We went to the show yesterday which was a bit of fun, except for the train journey (eek). I got a bit sentimental going into the poultry pavilion, brought back all those memories of showing chooks at lots of littles shows in country NSW with my Dad when I was younger. Made me wonder what kinds of memories I will create with my future bubs (fingers crossed)… ..and today Mum and Dad came up for a visit and we had a lovely day looking at the local craft market followed by lunch and a look around the Norman Lindsay gallery, which is not far from where DH and I live but is somewhere we haven’t been in the 2 years we’ve been living here! It’s nice to sort of chill out and just be for a while. I am a bit nervous about our next round of treatment, after all it has been such a relief to be off the hormones and the emotional rollercoaster for a while. Oh well you do what you have to do I guess.

1 April 2004

hissychick — Thu, 01 Apr 2004 10:58:13 +0000

I am so depressed tonight….and I feel both despondent and resigned. A BFN has never hurt so much before. Why do I have to wait so long for a baby I want so much?

20 March 2004

hissychick — Sat, 20 Mar 2004 10:56:59 +0000

I used to think the ‘traditional’ 2ww was bad…. Ha! It is NOTHING like this. Emotionally I feel like I am pregnant, I saw little embie, embie is now in my uterus right? Which means that a BFN next week will be that much harder. Tomorrow is my birthday. Embie should be implanting around now. Which in my deluded little mind means that this story should have a fairytale ending…but I should know better than that. I wonder if I am simply too scared to hope.

16 March 2004

hissychick — Tue, 16 Mar 2004 10:55:54 +0000

Well I have a beautiful 4 cell embie on board and another 3 in the freezer. Not bad for an IVF first timer I can’t believe that DH and I are finally in with a real chance for a much longed for bubs! Will write a more detailed account of my first cycle a bit later on. For now I am just concentrating on sending some sticky vibes to my embie and trying not to go insane before THE bloodtest on the 29th…