Stimming!

Well, I had a meeting with Dildo Cam yesterday and my husband watched (oooh er missus). Before she started, the sonographer asked me if I had any symptoms, "Not too bad, I have had trouble sleeping though."


"Oh" she said, "You're the first person who has complained about that." OK, so I have been making it up then, clearly. I love to pretend that I am waking at 4am then 5am then 6am because I am red hot and dying to pee. She also asked my husband if I had been moody lately. Luckily he knows which way his bread is buttered and said "No, not really."

As always, I didn't sit far enough at the end of the table so had to scooch down, taking that giant loo-roll-like paper with me.

She found a thin womb lining and a "quiet" right ovary. It took her ages to find my left ovary, "Did they have trouble last time?" she asked. "No" was my reply, "I can assure you I do have a left ovary". Luckily she found it (after a good 5 mins of prodding and swirling the dildo cam). She told me it was a good thing it was all quiet, if it hadn't been my cycle would have been cancelled until the New Year :-0.


A nurse then showed my husband how to inject what can only be described as the pen of torture. It's a pen, you move the dail and squirt a load of liquid out, then you set it to the dose then you stab it into some fat and then twist the top around so it clicks 8 times. I have to go back to the clinic a week tomorrow to see if it is working.


I had my first two doses haven't been so bad so far- in fact the Buserelin hurts more.

So we will just wait and see.

Day 4 of down regulation

Still getting my husband to inject not ready to do it myself! In a way, I rather like how he is involved with it. It does seem to hurt less- maybe it's because I can't see it go in. I am just not able to do it to myself. My heart goes out to diabetics who have to do it every day for their whole lives. Nuff respec'.

So far I have no symptoms, slightly worried it's not working. The drug (Buserelin) is supposed to be kept under 25 degrees C (no, I don't know what that is in degrees F, it's slightly above room temperature OK), and I realised this morning that I was keeping the box of meds scarily close to the radiator. We had the radiators switched off until recently but this cold weather has meant having them on. The meds weren't ON the radiator, but I'd say they were about 50cm away. I am hoping that they didn't go above 25 degrees C- my husband assured me it would be OK. They are in a box, in another box and he said that room temperature is 22 degrees C so it's all probably fine. I hope so! I have moved them now to a cooler part of the room. It's not supposed to be in the fridge like my other meds.

In other news, I am eating really healthily. I am healthy anyway, but thought it can't hurt to eat even better. Someone on Fertility Friends told me that got rather bloated during one of her cycles, the clinic scanned her to see why and saw that she was... how shall I put this... rather backed up. She had no idea as her toilet habits hadn't changed. I have bought some dates to make sure that this doesn't happen to me! I drink loads of water anyway as I love it- 2 litres a day so will just maintain that. Have been making an effort to eat more protein- on Babycentre (another forum I use a lot -very supportive ladies and regularly updated posts) many ladies have posted that they been told by their clinics to drink a litre of milk everyday for their egg quality. Not a big milk fan, but have been eating daily yoghurts and have increased my egg intake 3 fold. Have also bought some protein powder and have been adding it to hot chocolate in the evenings. If I wasn't veggie I wouldn't worry, but I have wanted to make sure- there's so much more protein in a meat eater's diet than a vegetarian one. I am also eating pumpkin seeds for iron and omega 3. On top of this I am having my prenatal vitamin and taking Royal Jelly (not sure about this one, but loads of ladies recommend this for egg quality).

None of the above may make any difference, but it's not going to hurt.

Egg sharing?

Wellity, wellity, wellity (as Homer Simpson once said).

I called the PCT (the people who were keeping me waiting regarding my IVF funding). The man who I spoke to said that my local PCT has merged with 5 others (budget cuts) and gave me a different number to call in a completely different part of London. I called the number several times and it just rang out. I was just so deflated. I am now convinced when they eventually get back to me (if they get back to me) that they will tell me I have to wait. I decided that I am sick of waiting around for NHS letters and calls. I don't want to wait around like a mug dancing to their tune (if I can help it).

Kat- thanks for suggestion to move to Korea for cheaper treatment... seems a bit extreme (though come back to me in a year and I may be desperate to get the f*&k out of this country away from breeding family and friends).

I have been considering egg sharing. There are clinics here in London that will give you free IVF (that's right, free, including drugs, scans, counselling, blood tests and consultations) if you share your eggs.

At first the idea creeped me out. I saw it as selling my eggs (I know this is legal elsewhere in the world, but I am not comfortable with the idea). Also I wasn't sure how I would feel about another woman, essentially carrying and having my child. That was until I looked up egg donation on the internet. There are so many heartbreaking stories out there about women desperate to have a baby but unable to because they have poor quality eggs. Some are too old, some are young and have gone through early menopause, some have had cancer treatment etc etc. Every recipient was grateful for the eggs that were donated to them, it was really rather moving.

The there was the issue of the egg being "my" child. When I think about it, the egg will be fertilised by her partner and then carried and nourished by her. She will give birth and then raise the child. I now think about it in terms of sperm donation. Lots of men think nothing of donating sperm (taken gratefully by women who need it) and I have never had a problem with the idea of donating sperm for these purposes.

I have been thinking this over for a few months. The runaround that I was given by the NHS gave me the final push into the private clinic's direction. I called them last week and things moved quickly.

I went for my initial consultation today. The doctor told me all about the egg sharing programme. The recipient  has no part in the selection of the donor. The donor and recipient are matched according to ethnicity, hair and eye colour (so that the recipient's baby looks like the recipient).

I had an internal scan and blood tests. I have to wait 6 weeks for the results of the blood tests (they test for things like cystic fibrosis which apparently takes a while), so I won't know if I am accepted onto the programme until then. I need to be clear of HIV, Hepatitis etc. They test my AMH levels (rather than FSH and LH) to see what my ovarian reserve is. If it's 11 or above then I will be eligible.

One interesting thing, she asked me why I wanted IVF. I told her that it was because I have been diagnosed with unexplained infertility. When she found out that I only had 1 tube, she said, "Then how is it unexplained infertility?" Very interesting.

ectopic pregnancy

I had a period only 16 days after my last one started. I was very worried indeed. There must have been something wrong with my hormones. I went to see the doctor.

She was reassuring and told me that it was probably the stress of ttc messing up my hormones. Nevertheless, she would refer me for blood tests to make sure that everything  is OK. I went for the tests a week later, but have to wait 1 week for the results.

In the meantime, I realised that this "period" has lasted for much much longer than usual, and it was really light (barely filling a tampon). I also noticed that my breasts were really sore and I that I felt bloated. I wondered if I was pregnant and that the bleeding was pregnancy related. I did a test and it was positive. I was excited and apprehensive all at once. What could this mean? Was I pregnant? Was I miscarrying?

I did the test during a bank (public) holiday and had to wait for a few days for the doctors to be open. I saw the same doctor as before. She looked at me as if to say, "and what do you want THIS time?". I told her what happened and she referred me to the Early Pregnancy Unit. I would not be able to go until the next morning. I called my partner then went into work.

There followed a week of blood tests. My hCG levels were too low for them to scan me, and the tests told us that I was having a failing pregnancy. I was still bleeding lightly and I had noticed a tingling sensation on my right side. I had a horrible feeling that I was having an ectopic pregnancy. At my last appointment, the nurse was unhappy, my miscarriage was not resolving itself, I had been bleeding lightly for 14 days. A scan revealed a mass in my right tube, they were 99% sure that it was a tubal pregnancy.

From this scan, things moved very quickly. Within a couple of hours I was having keyhole surgery to remove the pregnancy and my right tube. And so it was, that at the beginning of May 2010, I went from having two fallopian tubes to one.

After the surgery I was told that my chances of conceiving were not greatly reduced. I still had 2 ovaries and it is possible for you to ovulate from the right and have the egg travel down the left tube. This was very good news. I went off on holiday and awaited my period so that we could try again...