Things are looking....

I think I've ovulated! Which is great. So hopefully Aunt Flo will visit in a fortnight, and when AF gets here I can get injecting! This would have me about a week earlier than the nurses had penciled me in for, which I'm sure they can make work.

I realised that in the confusion of taking in all the information at our last appointment I'd got a couple of things wrong. It's a good thing they gave me the paper copy of all the information, because after reading it I figured a few things out. The date I was given (July 5th) is not for Egg collection, but for starting the stimming. And I also (for some unfathomable reason) had assumed that my downregging was tablets, then those tablets stopped and I started the injections. But they're both injections. And also I don't think I stop taking the first one when I start the second one. It'll be a fortnight of 1 injection a day, and a fortnight of 2 injections a day. Bugger! Have I got enough belly for that many injections? (Don't answer that).

I dont' know whether it's the horMOANS starting to gear up for AF, if it's because I didn't have the best week in work, because it's raining again today, because we're still no closer to selling the house or because I couldn't sleep last night thinking about someone that made me cross, but I'm starting to get grumpy. Poor hubby. I do feel for him. Still can't stop though (sorry, love).

I am seriously scared about how nasty I might be on these drugs. A fantastic friend sent me a text: "Let the psycho begin! Seriously, we'll share you round, it'll be fine". Bless her. I think that's the way to approach it. The less each person has to deal with me individually, the less guilty I'll feel about being a pain.

However. I'm going out with a great friend tonight. I've got a week off for the school holidays. We've got a new estate agent coming around this week. Hubby and I have a part-exchange option on the house to follow up. Hopefully the weather will be better tomorrow. And soon is my 30th birthday! So I won't have children before I'm 30, I won't even be pregnant. But on July 4th, 1 day before my pencilled in start-the-second-jabs date, I will be 30. I'm having a lovely party with a load of my music friends. We're going to play guitars, ukeleles, mandolins, djembes, cajons, we're gonna sing and a have a chilled out time. Just what I need to relax me. I guess I'll be the only sober one there though. And best of all, soon I will start being able to actively do something to step closer to my dream of having a family. So things aren't as bad as they seem. in fact, they're looking up!

Good seeds - staying positive

Plant your hope with good seeds,
don't cover yourself with thistle and weeds,
rain down, rain down on me.



This song gears me up when I'm letting myself wallow. What do you do to stay positive?

The longest appointment yet...

Hubby and I have had a looooooooong afternoon. After leaving work early (thanks all, for making it happen!) we got to the appointment 20 minutes early. They they were running 20 minutes late. Then the appointment took over an hour and a half altogether. OH was completely ratty before we went in, but managed not to take the grumpy into the consulting room.

We didn't have our usual consultant, Mrs Blunt-and-to-the-point (who we love), she's such a bigwig doctor, they don't even call her Dr. anymore (I'm not sure how that works, mind). Instead we had Dr. Speedy. Thus named because he talked 20 to the dozen. In a Palestinian accent. But to be fair, no wonder he spoke so quickly, there were multitudes of consent forms. Do we consent to them using our eggs and sperm. Yes. Do we mind them using our left overs for practice? Uh, guess not. What do we want to do with our frozen embryos if either of us die? Um, maybe use them still? God knows.

So then he started telling us that we will have ICSI. Or ICSI/IVF split. Or maybe it'll be a good day and we'll just have IVF. So, we'll play that bit by ear then. Then the drugs, we'll have the long protocol, which is 2 weeks enforced menopause, 2 weeks stimulating lots of lovely eggies, then pick them up, shake them up with some population paste and put them back in.

He then told us that the embryologist will really only want to put in one embryo. I'm strangely disappointed with that. Once I got my head around the risk of multiples I decided it was possibly the better plan, as we don't want an only child, and twins would stop us having to go through this all again. We could be all done, or CHOOSE to try for another pregnancy. But the chance of losing multiples is quite high, so unless each embryo is a lower quality than they were hoping for, they'll just be putting the one in.

Then it was on to the nurse, who took our bloods to check for all the nasty sort of stuff that they wouldn't want us to pass on to a baby. Bless her, after that she stayed talking to us for ages, going over all the things that we'd felt a bit rushed talking through with Dr. Speedy. And Mrs Blunt was free by then, so kept popping by and dropping her opinion in, which was nice. We realised that my really annoying body is not going to allow us to plan the timing of this out very well. The nurses need to be able to book me in a slot, even if it will need to be adjusted. So basically, my period needs to arrive on June 19th please. If anyone can sort that out for me, it would be much appreciated. But the plan is to phone the nurses when my "May" period arrives (if it does) or give them a ring to say that it never did. So I might need to take a couple of weeks of the pill to encourage a bleed. We'll start on the downregging on CD1 then (as day 21 may be ridiculously far away). Ooh, and now OH and I know how to give me an injection. It mostly involves pinching an inch. And we have a sharps box. How odd...

Hope is on the up

It's Monday. That means it's 3 days until my first private appointment. I am really quite excited, even though nothing will happen other than I'll get more information about what will happen over the next few months.
I can't remember the last time I was excited about an appointment. The last time I allowed myself to hope that hubby and I might get what we have wanted for these years. I have also been strangely relaxed the past 2 weeks. I have been able to stay up later, enjoying a drink and a giggle with my friends and having bigger, more sincere smiles than I can remember.

I think this is because I am genuinely allowing myself to get my hopes up. And that is petrifying. I have had a ridiculously low level of hope for a very long time, and that's been deliberate. Hope has always led to a crash, an emotional meltdown and after the first 12 or so I was over them and they had to stop. The only way to do that was to stop expecting anything positive to happen. Trust me, it's served me well.

But here we are, with a hope I can't ignore. The results for ICSI in my clinic (for 2 years ago - that's how it works for some reason) are about 45%. Don't get me wrong, I did maths, I know that's still less than a half chance that it'll work, but that's about 44% more chance than I've felt I've had up till now. So I'm back to hoping, and for the moment it feels good. One of my tweeps says hope>fear. That has only been true for me recently in that I have hope that I will have a family eventually, but now I can allow myself a hope that I might get pregnant this year!

But I can't help but remember that the higher I let myself go, the harder the bump back down to earth.

Before I go- here's a song that means a lot to me. At a time when I was only defining myself by my infertility it reminded me that I am more than that. I get so caught up in my wants and wishes sometimes I forget to live the rest of my life.
"We are not our sorrows, we are not our scars,
We are only human, this is who we are"

Up and down

Well hubby's and my TIC (Treatment Itinerary Consultation?) appointment is coming up. I'm not really sure how I feel at the moment. I'm up and down emotionally. Last week wasn't too bad, the week before I was pretty fragile. I had at least 2 "we're really worried about you" talks from my colleagues and many tears (those were from me). This week? Who knows, it's only Monday.

I'm gearing myself up for a really bad emotional ride in the coming months. I know how badly my body reacts to hormones (mine or external) and I'm not expecting it to be easy. I get told not to pre-empt the nasty, that I might make it worse just by convincing myself of it but I can't help it. I have to keep myself ready for the worst case scenarios because I simply can't deal with anything that comes out of the blue. I really live quite a lot of my life hanging by a thread emotionally speaking. Or at least I have for the past three years. Oh, and I moved house and got married just before that, so maybe for four years...

I had a big conversation with my mother not so long ago where she lamented the relaxed Jennie that I used to be. I also had a conversation with one of my more recent friends (who never knew me pre-ttc) where I kept saying "the things is, I'm pretty laid back...." and he kept protesting. The thing is, I always was laid back. I have always fought my particular fights, but essentially I was laid back. And he protested. Apparently he doesn't think I'm laid back at all.

So in essense, I don't think I'm really in complete control of my personality at the moment. And I'm really scared about what the additional pressures will bring. Those around me know what I'm about to go through, but I can't help but feel I'm going to be intolerable. Poor hubby has already put up with a good deal of crazy from me over the years, and he's about to get a shedload more. I've decided I think I'm going to try acupuncture. Various people online and in RL have tried it and were pleased with the results. That's another thing to add to my nervous list. Gazillions of needles sticking out of me. One blog I read said that it only hurt when the needle went in a tense spot. But I'm permanently tense all over!

So please send me all your chilled vibes.
I think I'm going to need them.

It begins...

So here I am, writing my first blog.

My story so far: Hubby and I met in college, we got together a few years later, and we are now very happily married. We started trying for a family soon after we got married and had to start to accept that it was going to be the long road for us. We got referred to the infertility clinic about 8 months after we started trying, and had our first appointment about another 6 months after that.

One (painful) HSG later and it was discovered I had a blocked fallopian tube. All of this happened when I was 6. Who'd have known it at the time (certainly noone suggested it to me), but my burst appendix as a child meant my tube got all full of scar tissue. Not only did that make it blocked, but it was also leaking into my uterus and helping to thwart our attempts at parenthood. So it had to go, and 6 months ago I had an operation to have it removed. The operation was pretty easy, and a few weeks later I was full health and back to work.

Hubby and I had high hopes after the operation, an obstacle removed and all that, but it seems that my tube wasn't our only problem. My follow up appointment after the op led to me having my day 1-3 bloods taken and my first date with wandy. My bloods were fine, but the internal scan meant the nurse has told me that I also have one mildly polycystic ovary. This really was a kick in the teeth, and I can't say I dealt with the news too well. The main problem being that it could potentially mean that when I undergo fertility treatments I might get ill. Like hospital ill ,with hyperstimulation. So hubby and I, who have been patiently waiting for our number to be called on the NHS waiting list have decided to sod all the waiting and go private.

So we're right there now, our TIC appointment to find out what our treatment will be is in less than a fortnight. It's likely to be ICSI rather than IVF and I'm rather nervous.

I'm trying not to use too many acronyms here, because I've decided to be bold and share this blog with my real life friends. I'm going to post links to my blog on my facebook account and waive the anonymity. Infertility awareness week recently led to me posting links to other people's blogs and videos on my fb account, and I was touched and very pleased by the responses I got. I know not everyone has read them, but I also know that lots have. If I assume that only a small amount of people who have been reading these things have been brave enough to contact me about it, then it's actually quite a number. I am really concerened about how little people talk about infertility, and want to break the trend. So please read my blog. Don't feel that you have to respond, just reading it is enough. If any of you want to contact me about it, then please do.

I also hope I'll get better at blogging as I go along. At the moment, this is a very strange feeling - especially know that real life people will be reading... I'm sure I'll open up more as I get used to it. So here goes...