Downs and Ups

We had our appointment with Dr W on Thursday. I really didn't have much of an idea what we would be discussing, or what this appointment involved. All Dr W had said at the last appointment was that 'they make you come back and see me again before we start the treatment.'

Ok....

So I shouldn't have gone into that appointment with any expectations then I suppose. But hey, I can't help myself!! I assumed that we would be making some sort of treatment plan.

When we first went into his office, he already put me off a bit. He clearly hadn't looked at our file before we'd walked in for the appointment. The first thing he asked was if we'd gone away and had all of our testing done since the last appointment... I panicked a little bit. He hadn't ordered any tests that I knew of, except for the bloods!!! Then upon actually looking at our file, he remembered that Dr J had already taken care of all of our workup.

He then proceeded to fill out our "Activation" form, taking down all our test results, prescribing me a starting dose of something, and making a note that I need to commence aspirin after transfer (we had already discussed that previously). Then he gave me a script for the pill, and before I could start asking questions, he was on his feet and starting to head for the door.

I was exhausted anyway, from attending the appointment immediately after my 8th day in a row of working. In the 3 second pause, I convinced myself that the questions I had were either silly, or could be answered by my patient co-ordinator (nurse), and we left.

I felt so lousy, really flat. I lost my mojo :(

DH and I had arrived in separate cars, straight from both our workplaces, and left again separately. My mobile phone battery had just died on the way to the appointment. So I felt so alone sitting in my car, by myself, dead phone, feeling like shit. And of course a song came on that always reminds me that I still don't have a baby.
Good times. Goooood times.

Then of course I started to doubt myself. I was thinking, if I feel like this after a simple little appointment, how on earth will I cope with everything else??? How can I possibly get through this treatment? I'm obviously not as strong as I thought, and I was just kidding myself.


So the next day, I rang my patient co-ordinator, C. And she was fabulous. So lovely, so helpful. It was like the ray of sunshine that I needed after my mojo had up and left me the night before. I didn't have to beg to be able to start down-regulating in December, didn't even have to ask. That was just the plan that C made for me.

So now it's official.

I get to start taking the pill in December, in order to make a baby at the end of January :) Hooray for getting my mojo back quick!

Although the clinic is closed from Dec 19 - Jan 5, C will be in the clinic on Dec 27. I have to call her that day and let her know which date AF arrived on, and she will work out all my dates for me. And I have an appointment to call in and see her on Jan 7 to pick up my drugs, woo!!

Happy Birthday to me, I get a big bag of drugs as a present!! I must have been good this year :)

Random Ramblings

Warning, this really is a few different thoughts from my head spewed onto the page...


I ran into my obstetrician, Dr J this morning at work, on my way to the kiosk for a coffee. I have to say, I still really really love that man. (Don't tell DH). He is one of the most caring and compassionate people I have ever met in my life!! He stopped and asked me how things were going, and what was happening with cycling etc, he had really hoped we would be able to squeeze in a cycle pre-Christmas. I gave him the update, and he was so excited that we would be getting things underway soon :)

My BF, A, had her 12 week appointment with him (yes, she has tried to steal my obstetrician hehehe) He said that quite a few of the girls from NICU come and see him, and she told him that we are BF's. He told her that he really hopes we are pregnant soon, and come back to his care. Did I mention how much I really love that man??

AF arrived a couple of days ago. I have been plotting my BBT and I seriously think that it's like magic, the way your temperature plummets when AF arrives!! Seriously, that is pretty cool. Anyway. I realised that this is probably (hopefully) my second-last period for a long time.

And this is our last month before cycling.

I am excited.

I am relieved.

I am nervous.

I have mixed emotions about our last month of doing it the old fashioned way.

Our counsellor said something which really stuck with me. When you get pregnant the old-fashioned way, you're combining any egg, with any sperm. Whereas when you do IVF, they are putting the best of your ingredients together, watching them grow, and then choosing the best one to put back.

So here's my current confusion.... do I want to chance this month on any egg and any sperm? Or just wait the month out, and go for the best. I really don't know what to do. I think I'm really nervous that if we get pregnant naturally this month, things will go wrong again, and our good shot at it will be delayed even further.

I would be annoyed with myself if I delayed the process. Would I be annoyed with myself if I didn't give it one last shot?

I'm not so sure.

Cos I think I am ready for this. I think I am ready for the IVF.



I know I am ready to be pregnant.

Our Wedding Anniversary

Just thought I would liven up my blog with a few pics of from our night away for our Wedding Anniversary on Tuesday...

I decided that we should get away for the night, somewhere fabulous and relaxing, before we head into IVF first thing in the new year. And DH agreed, woo!

So we spent the night in a 'Rainforest Retreat,' our own little 2 storey cottage surrounded by ferns and forest. Bedroom upstairs, with gas log fire. Lounge downstairs with 2 person spa, and 42 inch plasma tv (DH was very excited about that!). I organised in-suite massages for us when we arrived, and we got robes to wear, and take-home slippers, how pampering!! Plus a pack of bath treats, to use while we were there, and take home the left overs.






Left there feeling so relaxed!! Now it's only Sunday, and I already need another massage cos work has been so busy as usual lol I think I should use the upcoming IVF as an excuse to get a fortnightly massage.... hmmm....

SPRUNG!!

(Oh, thank god my internet is working again, I was totally having withdrawals!!!)

I tried to book all our appointments that have anything to do with IF and getting knocked up, about a week apart, to make me feel like things are still rolling along until the end of the year, even though I know we have to wait until Jan to really get things moving.

So Wednesday night was a seminar held by my IVF clinic. Most of the appointments that we have with them, are held in the rooms at the clinic. However this was more of a general introductory seminar, and open to the general public, not just us 'card-holders', so it was held in one of the lecture theatres at the hospital where I work. And there was the problem.

I'm pretty selective about who I allow in to our 'secret life of IF'. Our close friends know. My family knows. That's it. So when one of my colleagues and her husband joined the group of us waiting outside the lecture theatre, I felt seriously sprung. And totally powerless about it!

On the upside, we were sprung by J, the music therapist who works on our ward, who is such a lovely, fabulous woman that I get along with really well (isn't that typical, wouldn't be a total bitch, undeserving of children that has IF issues, no no no!) After the seminar (which was ok, but a lot of stuff that I've heard before, now that we've already attended our counselling etc) she wished us good luck, said she hoped to see me 'raging around the unit on hormones soon.' I wished her good luck as well, said I'd be totally understanding if she was ever really agro at work, and then we left.

And I kinda get the feeling that we shall never speak of this again. Kinda felt like we were both attending a secret meeting, with exclusive membership of course, but the kinda meeting that absolutely never gets mentioned again.

Really hope I don't feel awkward next time I see her at work.
Really hope she doesn't feel awkward next time she sees me!

Although we're far, far, far from veterans at this stage (we haven't actually got started yet!) I still felt like we were so much further along than everyone else there. Based on the questions they were asking, I think that introductory lecture was the first step they've taken in their journey. Whereas we've already had investigations, appointments, we've registered, we've had our counselling...


Next appointment is next Thursday, we go back to see Dr W. I think we get to make a treatment plan, which will involve me informing him that I want to start the pill in December, so that I'm ready to start sniffing synarel in January. Found out the clinic reopens on Jan 5, so that should be fine. I have decided! lol

One more thing checked off the list

This morning DH and I attended our compulsory counselling session at the IVF clinic. We really weren't sure what to expect from it. They made it clear that it was not intended as an interview, or selection process, or anything like that, but wasn't really clear what it was intended for.

Our counsellor turned out to be really nice. She asked us about our history, and what had brought us to this point in our lives. She asked a few questions about our feelings, and how we cope with stress and anxiety, but nothing too touchy-feely so that was good. She stressed to me that the hormones can set off bouts of depression, particularly in people who have a past history of mental illness, and said it's important for them to know about any history like that before getting started. She was so insistent, I almost wished I did have a past history of mental illness, seemed kinda like that would made her happy!

Apart from that, she explained the whole IVF process, with groovy pictures (woo!) so that we understood how everything was done and why. (I really, really did not like the picture of them retrieving the eggs by injecting through the vaginal wall - ouchie!!) DH got to play with the injection device, and check out the nasal spray. We got another handbook to read, and a consent form (13 pages) to read through and bring to our next appointment with Dr W.

So one more appointment checked off the list! I am still happy that I spaced them all out, especially since the counsellor said there is no way we will be able to fit in a cycle pre-Christmas. Damn that clinic, they close on December 19th!! Christmas has never been so inconvenient...

Reading through the material, I have convinced myself and DH that I could at least go onto the pill in December when the red menace arrives for her Christmas special, since I don't have to start synarel until Day 17, which will be January by then anyway... hmmm just have to convince Dr W of this fact when I see him at the end of this month :)


In other news, my Fertility Friend reckons I probably ovulated on CD17, despite the dud OPK... if that's true, then we still timed things well this month, despite straying from our usual sex-every-other-day routine. So I'm not beating myself up so much about it now.

Yay me :)

Ehhhhh

I'm starting to wonder why I thought it would be a good idea to chart temperatures, and use better OPKs, and generally just stress myself out more than usual.

I hate the OPKs. They never smile at me. Why?? I just want one freakin smiley face for Pete's sake. I'm now CD19 and no smiley face. So that has thrown off our usual 'love-making' plan. And now I'm pretty sure that we have somehow managed to miss the 'fertile window' and once again I am not pregnant. And I'm gonna have to blame the OPKs. Period. Cos if they weren't a blank face every day, I would not have waited to have sex. I'm annoyed with myself.

So today I got onto a website where you can enter your BBTs, and it draws a lovely little chart for you and predicts your date of ovulation based on your temperature. And according to that chart, I probably ovulated on CD16. And yet the smiley face was blank. I'm going to go insane. Even more so than usual I mean.

And when I start my injectables, do I have to wait for my period to come?? Cos I'm due at the end of the month, which would mean I'll have to wait until the end of January. Which adds on almost an extra month to the wait. Dammit I wanna start already. Shift this responsibility to someone else for a change!!!

I'm so over this, I can't believe I used to think that getting easy would be so easy.

Declaring War

Seriously, I'm gonna declare war on my uncooperative ovaries very very soon. What the?? Day 16 and still no smiley face. As if I needed more to worry about Grrr Are they trying to sabotage my last 2 months of hopeful trying??? I think there may be some protest sex today...

Unrelated to that, my friend A (who is now 8 weeks) and I went to visit a friend M on Saturday night. We met when A and I looked after M's premature baby in our NICU almost 8 years ago (God that makes me feel old). Anyway, M is totally gorgeous, inside and out. She had a miscarriage before her premmie, and she is very understanding about what D and I have been going through, and very excited about us recently progressing to IVF referral. A took the opportunity during the visit to tell M her news, and of course M was very excited, even cried a little. Then I got this lovely lovely text message on my phone on Sunday...

"Great to see you and A last night. Fab news for her & Matt :) V exciting! Hard on u I know. Here if you need a cuppa or to vent. Even though u really happy 4 them, its hard not 2 wish it was u 2. Call if u need. In the mean time focus on all ur appointments & the new year will b here b4 u know it. Stay strong xx"

Such a nice change from ass-vice, it made me cry a little bit.

I was wrong

Okay I was totally wrong.

Still no smiley face today.

Still not feeling better about it!!

Fingers crossed for tomorrow....

Here Mr Smiley Face...

Day 14 and still blank faces.... what?!? I'm usually an ovulate-on-day-14 kinda gal, so where the heck is my smiley??

I can't help but feel a little disheartened already, like what was I thinking, that suddenly we would be able to perform this miracle on our own. My temperature has been low for two days, but no smiley face...

DO NOT MESS WITH ME, BLANK FACE!!!


I'm not really that distraught yet, but work was pretty chaotic today and stressful (I am the boss for the shift). There are no neonatal intensive care beds in the whole country. The whole country!! So we just have to keep squashing more babies in to our nursery, and magically finding more ventilators to attach them to, and summon up more intensive care trained staff to look after them... and tomorrow is a public holiday, aarggh!!!

That's all really for today. I'm sure next time I will be all happy again, there will be a smiley face tomorrow for sure :)

Project Hump-N-Hope

It's officially in full swing.

4 weeks until our next RE appoinment.

Approx 2 months until we start IVF treatment.

It's on baby!!!


I've gone all out for our final 2 months of "old-fashioned" trying. Smiley face OPK (those two line ones were seriously doing my head in), charting my temperature (even on my days off work when I should be sleeping in!). D is also totally focused, and remains excited about having sex on allocated days, bless his heart! We're both still taking our fertility boosting multivitamins. We're going away in a couple of weeks to a B&B in the nearby rainforest area for our wedding anniversary, spoiling ourselves with in-suite massage and aromatherapy spa...

No LH surge today, but when it does... look out!!! We are going full force for our last 2 months, can't say we're not trying hard enough!!!!!