PCOS

No more waiting

It’s here.

With a vengeance.

How is it that I’ve had my shortest and longest cycle occur right after each other? One at 27 and the other at 36? The average of the two is 31.5 so bang on the money for one of my usual cycles. I guess they’ve compensated for each other. The other good thing about coming on today is that I can now tell my CM tells me the truth about my ovulation. That’s cool!

So – Onwards and upwards. T – minus 31 days (give or take a few) before IVF #2 starts.

I have holiday booked in October. I might try and rearrange this so that it falls during the time I’ll be in and out of hospital.

I’m now going to go and stuff my spotty face full of carbs and wallow in self pity!

X

Still no sign

I’m sat here now obsessing over when I might have ovulated this cycle.

I’m on CD 36 which is longer than my usual max. I’m tired and I’m peeing a lot (but I’m really really thirsty today – that’s probably due to eating a kilogram of homemade kale crisps yesterday!), my spot situation is worse than usual but I have cramps, and I’m a miserable bitch like usual around AF. I haven’t a clue when I ovulated. If I had bothered checking this month I might be tempted to POAS right about now. But history and realism points into the direction of later than usual ovulation. Infertility makes us into such pessimists doesn’t it!

If there’s still no sign of it tomorrow I might POAS Wednesday morning.

Funny thing is I POAS Wednesday 27th August because I had full on nausea and sickness for a couple of days. 27th august was CD24 so probably too early to test. (??!?)

I don’t feel pregnant (I don’t think), well it’s nothing like last time. No nausea (anymore after the 2 day stint), no sore boobies, although they might be a bit fuller (it’s hard to tell though because they are already a 30FF – I was blessed or cursed), no indigestion and gas.

So I’m basically still waiting. Always waiting.

X

Still waiting….

…for my second period after failed IVF to turn up!! :’-(

I was soooo happy to have a 27 day cycle the month after I got a BFN. I thought the meds had jump started my hormones. Here I am CD34 and nothing. Before starting IVF my cycles were usually 30/31. It has until tonight to make an appearance before I get cross! (Or take a pregnancy test – oh imagine that!!)

We are going to start another cycle of IVF a month after this period arrives!! Get a move on!!!!

I got my bill for my very first (and hopefully last) self funded cycle. The whole cost of IVF with ICSI is going to be £3950, and the medications which are coming from healthcare at home are costing £499.95 (to be precise). I’m having to stick it all on a credit card. But….it’s 0% interest on purchases for 18 months. And once I move that will be all paid off in a few months. I have to keep telling myself this as I hate the thought of borrowing money. I grew up in an environment where everyone had debts on loans an cards and they are still paying them off now!! But this isn’t a credit card for the sake of a credit card, I’m not being greedy, I just want a baby.

Haha I’ve just stuck my baby on a credit card. Yes baby “M” you were bought with credit!

I’m off to whole foods today to stock up on lots of fertility enhancing supplements! And I did my yoga this morning….we are off to a good start!

Lots of Love

X

Another cycle down…

After my failed IVF #1 I went a bit AWOL. Just been keeping myself to myself and trying to figure out a plan of action. I’m still not sure what that is but any how….(TMI)….I had a pretty good period after the progesterone wore off. They are usually quite scant and I’ve always worried about the quality of them, they never look red, always quite orange!?! :-S urghh sorry. It makes me think I may be lacking in estrogen somewhat?

I was as happy as you can be following a IVF bfn though. Plus it lasted a full 3 days! Go me!!

After the bfn I definitely played with the idea of getting pregnant naturally the following month. I told my body how ironic it would be and to imagine all of the cool stories we could tell if this was to happen. Oh don’t we all?! Plus body – just imagine all of the cool baby things we could buy with the money we would save from another round!!

Pffft – I came on today!! Thanks for nothing body, what happened to the promise we made each other?

I came on and today is cycle day 27. I have a luteal phase of 12/13 days so I must have ovulated CD 14. This is the shortest cycle I have ever had, I’ve never had a cycle of 26 days. In fact they are usually about 31-33 days. Do you think this is because of all of the medication? Also, I usually start my period first thing in the morning but this happened half way through the day.

Regardless of the answers, I ovulated :-)!!! And only one more cycle to go until we can get on with IVF número dos!

Thank you to all you steady bloggers out there for giving me something to read everyday during this down time!! 🙂 xx

Status

You’ve twisted my arm!! And changed my life plan – again!!!

We went to the hospital today to discuss what went wrong with IVF #1 and to tell him how pissed off I was that they weren’t clear that we would only get 1 NHS funded cycle. AND that they didn’t give me any frozen egglets.

Before going in, DH and I had a plan. It’s not very glamorous, but it will get us to where we want to be a lot quicker than any other way. Living in the centre of London is NOT purse friendly. We spend over £2500 on rent and bills every month. We don’t have a great deal left to spend or save. So our plan is to move in with his parents. I can hear you all pitying me as I type this next sentence. I’m not actually sure how I’m going to cope. But what I do know is that we are both use to (and happy to) making short term sacrifices to better our future long term.

Moving in with his parents would allow us to save at least £2600 every month. We would only need to pay travel expenses, food and a small amount to the in laws.

If we stay there 18 months that’s at least £46k. That’s our deposit for our very first house (and hopefully our Rainbow Baby). I can’t even begin to tell you how much I despise renting!! If we don’t move in we are talking at least 8 years before we have enough money to buy. I don’t think its a question any more – were moving. As soon as our contract is up on our flat.

This plan is two fold – It was all about not starting another IVF cycle until we had moved out and can fully afford it (as to not add any extra stress). But this would mean not going back to Guys ACU and instead starting all over again in a different city.

The director of the clinic saw us today and he made us feel like he knew us. He was really nice. Although I wanted to shout at him and tell him about all of the flaws with the system and how he should have given us something to freeze.

I went in with my plan and 20 questions and he pretty much answered them in the first 2 mins without me needing to ask a thing. I’m going to add a page summarising IVF 1 along with the questions I had and the responses in case its of interest to any of you. But for now ill just say that we will be going back in a couple of months (once we’ve conjured the money from somewhere) the only difference being a lot more stims with the next cycle. He said he would keep us on the same protocol, that all my blood work was perfect and the only thing that wasn’t great with this cycle was the quality of the blastocysts. So he’s saying that with more stims comes more choice and quality and therefore higher chances of freezing. (I’ll go into more detail on the other page)

He has made me feel positive and that we should give this clinic one final chance. He has also changed my plan dramatically. We were also planning on getting married secretly next year but it looks like that will now be the year after! Yes I already call him DH but that’s because I absolutely hate calling him my boyfriend after 12 years!!! And it wouldn’t be secret secret, we would still invite our immediate families but they wouldn’t know about it until the day before!! I can’t wait to blog about that one.

Anyway, appreciate that was a bit of a ramble on. But my head is all over the place if I’m honest. I’ve changed my mind about “the plan” millions of times and I’m struggling to keep up.

If any of you have any nice successful IVF #2 stories I would be glad to hear them!!!

Xxx

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Impeccable timing dahhling

Not

I suppose I should be greatly appreciative of the fact my period started in full on beast mode on my way to work this morning. Standing on a full bus with cramps rip roaring through my uterus is just how I wanted to spend my morning. Not to mention the white work skirt I had on. Good job I wasn’t sat down actually! Anyway….I suppose I should be grateful that it showed at all following the bfn on Monday. I’ve heard some horrific stories of it taking ages to come back after fertility treatment. Even though I must add Dr Google pretty much promised me I wouldn’t get a period at all and I would actually get my bfp 14dp5dt!! LOLOLOL I actually convince myself of these things!!

I am pretty down at the moment. I feel like I started this IVF journey with so much hope and excitement and I’m leaving it with so much confusion and millions more questions and no frozen embryos. I started out with a mild case of PCOS (still ovulating) and Male Factor. Now I leave with so so many more uncertainties about my body. Surely that’s not right? I don’t feel like I was fully informed of my choices going into this.

Complete change of topic now….this morning I had the misfortune to read of another bloggers abusive comment on one of her posts. This got me so so worked up!! Keep your small minded, quite frankly, pathetic opinions to yourself. I find it highly amusing that your life is so shit and boring that you’ve got nothing to do with your sorry sorry life other than to sit at your computer and pass judgement on peoples misfortune. I feel really sorry for you. You really must have a crappy existence if you’ve got to put down and judge those who want nothing more in the world than to cling to hope that they will one day be a mum. How dare you try and take that away from someone. I say try, because no matter how many comments you make, or how much of a horrible vile specimen you continue to be, we will continue to be here. Hoping, wishing, praying and smiling our way through regardless of all the adversity we face through our journey’s. Shame on you lady. I hope it made you feel better.

And that my friends is a tiny glimpse at how PMS takes hold of me. It also needed to be said.

Anyway, seeing the Clinic Director on Tuesday. I hope he’s ready! 😉

xx

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This sucks big time!!!

So….hmm….I took a test Sunday morning. It came up with the tiniest shadowiest, faintest line of all time. The test also took ages to come up, even the control line. I cried lots, as at 16 dpo the test should have been dark right. DH and I spent a lot of time cuddling on Sunday. I wanted to be going out buying pregnacare and bio oil. But no. I bought two more pregnancy tests. The one that afternoon was a big fat negative.

I took one this morning – BFN also.

What sucks with this, despite the obvious, Is that I think we will have to pay for the next round ourselves. Because we didn’t get any frosties!! 😦 The London borough we live in pays for one fresh and two FET transfers!!

I left a message with the clinic so now just a case of waiting for our “What the actual FUCK” appointment. This was not meant to happen. I’m 26, I’ve carried before, this was the best chance in 2 years my body has had at conceiving.

I’ve got a bucket load of questions for the consultant. I’m annoyed they were so cautious with me during stimulation.

Still – I could be one of those freaky people who don’t get a bfp until way into pregnancy though – couldn’t I?!! Yeah right, it’s amazing what I have consulted Dr Google on since the first BFN though!!

Right now – I hate my body – I hate this (in)fertility crap.

Funky cramping – 9dp5dt

Having some seriously weird cramping going on down there at the moment!! Like different to pre menstrual cramps, they’re sharp, intense and stop me in my tracks for 5 or so seconds, 2/3 times a day.!! Anyone else experienced this?

As well as the aforementioned, I’m feeling spaced out. It’s the only way I can describe it. Like a bit far away dizzy. I’m thinking this could be the progesterone. My boobs are less sore but they are now more achy and itchy than sore.

2 days until test day….I’ve survived the temptation to test. Mainly because I’ve been super busy with my projects at work , not that I haven’t thought about doing it though!

I’m off to see Wicked the musical now….in desperate need of a coffee but there’ll be none of that naughty business happening!!

2 days!! Eeeeek!!

Xx