Post cycle injections and hitting 60 kgs!

So this week has been long and busy which is good as it has kept my mind off our cancelled cycle andwhat's  happening in my body right now. Its Queens Birthday weekend here in NZ so losing a day next week as we have Monday off unfortunately for me means cramming one day of work into the week prior. 

Monday 25.05 after the scan I was sent home with more Orgalutran to take through until my next bloods on Thursday 28.05 to stop my follicles from releasing or ovulating. The didnt do that last time due to needing to proceed with a fresh transfer and I was In a considerable amount of pain. I think it was nice they offered to do that but its not my favourite injection as the needle is quite big, my Puregon injections were with micro fine needles.

Thursday came and I was running late! School and work traffic makes it hard to get across several suburbs to the clinic from my house. I just made it to blood centre near my my clinic in time to get morning bloods drawn, if they make it on the 8.30am courier you get results same day. 

To be honest Thursdays are my busiest days without having a whole extra days work in there so I had forgotten that I would be expecting a call...it must of been 5.30pm when I got a call from one of my nurses, i was stuck on an urgent work call to Nelson when my cell rang so had a phone in each ear. My FS had requested 3 more days of Orgalutran as my Estrogen levels were still too high. Damn it! Clinic was closing in 10 mins and no way for me to make it in time, so my lovely Nurse offered to put the needles in her letterbox at her home which was just down road from the clinic. So nice! I was able to finish up work and drive over to her place to get them and still do my injection at 9.30pm as normal.

Finally ive made it to the weekend. I slept in this morning as I havent realised past couple of days what my body is actually doing. I'm swollen, ive put on about 1 1/2 kgs this week im thinking fluid (hoping wasnt the large pizza i had to myself last night) and bowels which also arent working to well, im putting it down to the hormones and the fact AF is due next week. Ive hit 60 kgs this morning which i thinks pretty good considering. That puts my BMI well and truely where they want it. Its taken me 2 1/2 years to get here as Christmas 2012 i think is when I was at my lowest weight at around 49kgs. Hope it stays on, must admit i dont feel comfortable at this weight but willing to keep it on for fertility reasons. I have to go through a whole cycle before talking to my clinic again to get meds out of my system so will keep an eye on it. 

This weekend its time to get my head straight as ive thrown myself a little pity party this week.. it's maybe happened this way for a reason? With all thats gone on past few weeks and this week being so chaotic could I have made it through to an egg collection and transfer?? I just keep telling myself that...that its not our turn yet for a reason.

I will be looking into my surgery options for our next cycle and hopefully book time with my specialist to talk it through with her in the next few weeks.

In the meantime i need to get fit and eat healthy, get rest, all of the things i havent been so great at this month and wait... yes... more waiting.

TTC - IMSI cycle #1 - CD11 - CANCELLED

Today was our second scan, to see how these follicles were growing. I knew they were doing something as I was starting to get pretty uncomfortable on the right side. I went to this scan by myself as DH had an appt and a lecture this morning so went in for bloods, this time running late because I slept in, still managed to get my blood on the first courier of the day, only just tho.

Made it to my appt on time, luckily my fertility clinic is in the same block as my blood centre. It was an 8.40am appt this time so busier than normal. I didnt have to wait long. I was having a med student for my appt this morning which I dont mind at all, im a special case so if they can learn from me all the better!

I had my specialist this morning which was great, she knows my case well so we got straight into it. Starting on my left we saw only 5 leading follicles but still only at 14-15mm, bugger, straight away was a disappointing result. Both her and I had a hunch that we would find something going on on the right, especially with the aching i was starting to experience. Took a while to find it today but when she did it was obviously a better result. 12 follicles!!! with lead follicles at 19-21mm. Are you kidding me?!?! She explained to the med student would be an otherwise good result if we could access that ovary. Time to get dressed and talk about our options.

As soon as I sat down I knew what was coming. "Not the results we were hoping for, i think we are going to have to cancel this cycle" which is what i was hoping she would say actually. It means we retain the funding for another full cycle and try and get better results, especially when paying $1k ontop of the cycle for IMSI. The fact id given myself 10+ injections to get to this point didnt bother me as we decided to add 3 more orgalutran injections to stop my follicles from ovulating and hope that they shrink away to avoid the great deal of pain I was in last cycle, lets hope it works. Not feeling as disappointed as i thought I would, i think its because deep down I know this is happening for a reason, surely. 

So, here we go again! Waiting for Cycle #3. I have to wait a full cycle out to make sure the meds are out of my system then try to book on for the cycle after that so looking at July/August now.

Plan now is to look at the option of paying for surgery on top of our last funded cycle to either attempt to relocate my right ovary or to collect from the follicles laparoscopically. We are not keen to risk cancelling over a bad result again as this cycle still probably could have continued if we had that option this time round as 17 follicles could have been plenty. We've got the time now to research so my next posts will be about what I find out. 

Onwards and upwards right... Its not over yet.

TTC - IMSI cycle #1 - CD1 to CD10

What a month to start a Cycle #2! 

No amount of preparing myself would of prepared me for that week.  CD1 arrived Friday 15.05 the day after we said goodbye to my cousin and before a weekend of preparation for her memorial service on the Sunday. I spent the morning organising a few things for her memorial table then went to Mums to help out and spend time with family. My nephew also was admitted to hospital Friday night, he was very unwell and we were up till 3am making sure he was ok as DH stayed up at the hospital with him while I stayed home and worried. Saturday 16.05 CD2 was first day of stim injections which to be honest I cant really remember that well as that day was a blur, lucky I was on the same dose of Puregon (175iu), its like riding a bike, once you know how its easy. Took them same time as last cycle which is 9.30pm which gave me plenty of time to get home as stayed for tea at my Mums. Sunday was a rough day for everyone so by the time Sunday night CD3 injections came around I was quite exhausted, mentally and emotionally drained. I had work to look forward to the following day and hoped that i would have a easy week at work, however that wasnt the case, anything that could go wrong seemed to go wrong so I found myself counting down the days and injections till scan day. Needed something positive to happen now this week, some good news.

I started my Orgalutran on Wednesday 20.05 and first scan was booked for Friday 22.05. We were early for blood test which was great as we missed the 8am rush, so therefore was early to scan. DH always seems to remember to pre warn the new specialists that havent seen me before to start on left ovary and not bother searching for the right, thats why i like taking him to all my scans, I assume they have time to read notes. She started on my left internally which was a pretty disappointing result really with only 2-3 leading follicles at only 8-11mms, the rest were still really small. Straight away we assumed it was my right leading the charge this cycle which it did quite a few times on my Clomid cycles. Yes, i knew it, there was at least 2-3 lead follicles there this time at 12-14mm. Damn it. The rest might not catch up in time. She decided to up my dose of Puregon to 225iu for 3 more days to try and grow the follicles some more with 3 more Orgalutran injections to stop me from ovulating and booked another scan for Monday 25.05 and see what would happen then.

I did finally get some positive news same day later that night from the nurse at my GP. My results had come back and levels we looking great. B12 good, TSH good, folate, iron, red blood cells all good, i did however have a lower than normal white blood cell count, not too much of an issue apparently as may be caused by my thyroid meds, better than a raised level tho as means im infection free. Finally some good news.

DH went and had a lovely dinner with my Dad and had a few laughs, nice end to an otherwise crappy week.

Losing a loved one

It still doesn't even feel real. I keep hoping someone tells me its just all been a dream.

Last week my cousin passed away so suddenly it left us all breathless. She had just been away for the weekend with her partner and we know she had fun as she posted on facebook the day she left us saying how much fun she had and couldnt wait to go back. She had been very unwelll for sometime, deep down we were all preparing ourselves for this, just thought we had more time with her.

She was the strongest and bravest, kindest and funniest chick you'll meet. its not going to be the same at Xmas and on our birthdays now, she always came with a smile no matter how she was doing. i really hoped she would meet our first born, she was so excited we were doing IVF, that breaks my heart.

I know she will be with us on this journey, to give me the strength to keep going, to cheer me up when i need it and to help me smile through it.

We'll miss you Karen Michelle xxx ❤️

Drug collection, Sperm Analysis and GP visit

Collected my drugs from Clinic on Thu 7.05.15. Was a quick visit with just me this time. As im on cycle #2 and exact same drug regime it was really just a quick catchup to make sure i didnt have any questions for them.

I had a new nurse this time, she was over from the public hospital so we hadnt met yet. We went over the details left on my file and confirmed a few details of how his cycle will go, i remembered everything from last time so that made the appointment really easy for her and quick for me.

I only really had a few questions about when to book in IMSI and whether we needed to add PICSI to that and she had to duck out to ask the other nurses. We decided that decisions would be made once DHs sample results were in, he was due to do that following day Fri 8.05.15 so results would be back before i started stimming. She wrote a note on my file to call with the resuts as soon as they came in. 

Fri afternoon heard from the lab, results were no worse or no better than our last cycle, which wasnt what we had hoped for but it is what we were prepared for. DH still continues to take the Menevit as there is no harm in it, we just know its not really going to make much of a difference really.

My fertility specialist would ultimately be making the call re IMSI so we will wait for her to decide.

In the meantime im still quitely stressing about my lack of prenatal vitamin consumption so I decided to book a GP appt to get her opinion. DH and I decided to do a double appt as she is both of our doctors. She decided to test what she could so did my thyroid, b12, iron and few others.  DH will be getting a full checkup at some point re the heart disease in his family so she ran some for him too, cholesterol and few others.

Results i will update with later as still havent called to get them.