The Mathematics Of IVF Disappointment

Sometimes, when you have put your emotional all into something it still doesn’t work, your last ditch effort still doesn’t fix it. Sometimes things just aren’t meant to be, even when they should be.  

22 Eggs, 19 mature, 13 fertilized, 8 made it to day 3, 6 made it to day 5, One fresh embryo transferred only two suitable left to freeze.

 3 out of 22.

You can’t help but be disappointed; you can’t help but wonder why?

As much as you don’t think you will be emotionally attached as a donor aunty until there is something physically there to see and be attached to, as much as they tell you they can’t promise anything and you say you understand, nothing prepares you for all the what if’s, all the maybe’s and that in the end all you are left with is a bunch of statistics and numbers that steadily decrease along with your hope.

Three.

3 chances:  1 in 3 pregnancies end in miscarriage

Two.

2 chances: Will it even stick? The Fertility Specialists say 50% chance.

One.

1 chance out of 22

I have never been good at maths but I don’t like those odds.

I should be looking on the glass is half full side – 3 chances or even 1 chance is better than none. But it’s really hard to do that when they said my eggs were good, they said BILs sperm was good, so why?

Seven.

Seven more days until we find out if it has worked, find out if she is pregnant.

Well, that’s that then.

After two full on weeks and months of preparation, it’s all over.

Kind of anti climatic, so much work up and then all of a sudden my part is done. Finished.

Yesterday around 8am SIL, BIL and I pushed open the double glass doors of the fertility clinic for Egg Pick Up (EPU), it was a surreal feeling -this was make or break time.

The lovely receptionist ushered us through a door and into a little area with a few lockers, a bench seat and doorways leading off from it marked ‘theatre’ and ‘ultrasound’, she indicated towards a third door marked ‘change room’ and gave me a warm smile.

Everything off and then everything on said the receptionist as she pointed to a little blue basket with sexy looking gown, robe, hat and booties in it.

Gorgeous Huh?

After I was all gowned up, they took us through to the recovery area with a couch and hospital bed where we would wait for my turn on the table. We joked nervously with each other for a while taking happy snaps of the three of us together which we could later present to any offspring on their 21^st birthdays as the day of their conception.

We had a brief scare when we asked the fertility specialist if it was ok that I was not bloated at all that morning when the previous day I had looked 4 months pregnant not really thinking much of it – the concerned look on her face was quickly covered up by a rather fake looking smile as she said I’m sure its fine and rushed me back into the door marked ‘ultrasound’ where they checked to make sure I hadn’t ovulated earlier than expected – ‘it’s very rare’ she reassured me, ‘but its better we find out now than when we get into theatre...’

Luckily, I’m just a freak and the follicles were all still there panic averted we went back into the recovery/waiting area, briefly saw the embryologist who looked younger than me and the anaesthetist an older man who bore a striking resemblance to Dr Mike from All Saints, then the nurse called me into theatre.

Now I was quite nervous, walking into a huge room with more people than I realised would be there I climbed onto the bed, lay down and the nurse put a warm blanket over me. The anaesthetist held my hand and told me he would now put in a canula to administer my drug cocktail. The FS chatted about random stuff while she waited and I realised the canula was already in, I hadn’t even felt it.

Dr Mike held up a syringe of clear liquid and said now I’m going to give you some happy juice, it will make you feel awesome, like being stoned and he winked, don’t worry, you probably won’t remember this conversation .I got the distinct impression Dr Mike knew exactly what it’s like to feel stoned...

The FS said it takes about 20sec to work, and to tell her when I start to feel it, at that moment my head started spinning, “there it is” I said, ‘that was quick’ she remarked and  I woke up in the recovery area with an oxygen mask on my face.

It’s a very strange feeling to know that you have been totally violated while you slept and upon awakening you wouldn’t have a clue that it had happened if they didn’t tell you. It was a lot better than I expected though a bit of very mild pain in the tummy but more like doing too many sit ups the day before than actual painful pain though going to the toliet hurts like buggery!

My SIL and BIL came in and announced they had harvested an awesome 22 eggs! I had a cup of tea and some toast before having the canulas taken out and being given permission to get dressed again. Once fully clothed and heading out I dignified myself by nearly falling down again – a bit like when you have been drinking all night sitting down then you get up to go to the loo and it hits you all at once.  

We rested at SIL’s place for a while and then she presented me with a huge beautiful bouquet of flowers and drove me back home to the farm and to my darling husband and own bunch of noisy little monkeys that I am so, very lucky to have.

And now it’s done, my part is over and the rest is up to her. I had a call from the clinic this morning who informed me 13 eggs had fertilized which is apparently an excellent result although to be honest I was a bit disappointed that it was only 13 out of 22 possibilities. The next 5 days will see how many make it to blastocyst stage and then they will transfer one to her and freeze the others for future use.

Fingers crossed x

D Day

I have been abit slack on the IVF blogging front, but I will catch you all up at some point.

Meanwhile it's 6:25 am and I'm typing this on my iPhone, my alarm will go off at 6:30 and I have to get ready to leave by 7:30 for Egg Pick up. I stayed the night at SILs place due to recent car trouble ( that's a whole other story) and the fact that being at theclinic late is NOT an option.

On my last appointment there on friday, I had an internal ultrasound which showed 15 large follicles on the right and 7 large on the left plus about 20 little ones.
The ultrasound lady said it was an "enthusiastic result", and I am at risk for OHSS or ovarian hyper stimulation syndrome - essentially that's where your swollen follicle filled ovaries leak fluid into your abdomen.

 Lovely.

So now it's D day, or rather E day, and we will find out how many of those follicles have nice mature eggs in them, and I am silently shitting myself about having an anaesthetic - even though it's not a big one - I have never liked the idea of people fiddling with my body while I'm asleep and I hate the feeling of no control you get from drugs. So it's time to suck it up, go and shower and wish my poor sore mouth had drunk more water before midnight last night.

Wish me luck!!

Stab Thyself

I stared at the clock about 7:30 last tuesday night and knew that the moment of truth was coming, the lady from the clinic rang in the morning and said my levels were perfect and to take the first GonalF shot after 8pm. Im ok with needles generally, my Dad was a vampire, ahem I mean blood collecter.

 When I was little I used to go in to work with him when he was called in on weekends and watch him do his ward rounds, so blood and needles were just part of life. I worked in a vet clinic and gave immunisations to animals so I had experience there to, however when it comes to actually sticking a needle into your own skin, it becomes an entirely different matter.

The clock struck 8, I had the 'how to' booklet memorised, 8:15 - I could never be a drug addict, god I hope I don't get diabetes, must eat better...
8:20 - ok come on Suzi, the 16yr old kid down the street had been doing it for years (diabetes) if he can do it so can you.

At 8:30 I got the stuff out of the fridge and set it up, The husband was grinning at me, saying "just do it, quick go on! It's not that hard" ha! What would he know.

8:40- I held the needle pen thingy inches from my skin, double checked the dose - still 150... more helpful words from my beloved "give it here, i'll do it, you just stab!" Yeah i dont think so...

8:45 I took another look at the needle and back at my pinched up tummy flubber, ok deep breath, stab thyself. I looked back down, the needle was in, I couldn't even feel it! I pushed the little button on the needle pen, counted to 10 and pulled it out. The dose had been delivered correctly. I did it!!! I was so proud of myself I felt like the kid that just rode the rollercoaster at Disney land for the first time.

Now only approx 20 more needles to go...

Building Bridges

Last week I built a bridge, and got over it. Literally.

A made in China E-bay special, It is a long awaited and essential part of my Fairy Garden Project, After finally bidding and getting a super bargain price, my bridge arrived on Friday and The Husband said he would put it together for me on Saturday.
But being the impatient type, I didn't want to wait 24 whole hours so I decided as a capable women there was no reason why I couldn't just do it myself!

So I dragged the heavy box inside and set up in the lounge room, put the TV on for the Princess and opened the box:

 A begillion small pieces of timber, 8 bolts, 8 nuts, 16 washers and196 small black screws.
Deep breath, yup I can do this...

Now The Husband is a chippie by trade and has an assortment of power tools including a power screw driver thingy, but of course he takes these tools to work with him, so I was left with the option either doing up 196 small screws by hand or waiting until Saturday for him to do it.

Did I mention I'm impatient?

I got out the trusty Phillips head set up in the lounge room and started screwing, I screwed for hours, so hard in fact that at times I thought my hand would fall off. I only interrupted by shouts of "Delicious Arsehole!" and "Grassy Ass" from The Princess who would have benefited from a little more speech therapy and annunciation practise before undertaking Dora The Explorers informal Spanish classes.

Suddenly there was a knock at the lounge room window - I have a kilometre long driveway and a big dog so people don't usually get to the house without me noticing, to make matters worse it was the septic service guy, now he is a lovely bloke but he is a dead ringer for Orsen Hodges from desperate housewives and I didn't realise he was coming today so he scared the bejesus out of me and... well... I screamed.

Once I regained composure Orson's double informed me that all was well with the septic which he had already checked while I was busy screwing in the lounge room and I parted with $100 for his trouble. Back to the task at hand I continued on blisters and all until I finally had something that resembled half a bridge:

Note my so called guard dog asleep in the background...

All I had to do was screw the final panels into place and it was complete, a beautiful quaint little bridge perfect for a fairy garden! OK who am I kidding the last piece didn't fit.

Of course it didn't.

So I lugged it outside and positioned it in the work-in-progress fairy garden anyway and waited for The Husband to come home so I could tell him how awesome he is and beg him to cut it to size and make it work. Which he did, because he's awesome.



But not before telling me that my bargain 'ceder' bridge was in fact dodgy pine and would be lucky to last the winter, then he used his cordless screw driver thingy to screw in the screws I couldn't get down all the way and he informed me with a slightly evil grin that it was in the garage the whole time as that's where it lives and he takes a different one to work.

Of course he does.

Have you built a bridge recently?

Are you as impatient as me?

Do you buy dodgy crap on E-bay all the time too?

IVF / Egg donation update

image credit

So we are progressing slowly towards the impending egg donation, I have started taking the pill (just the normal birth control one) so that I can sync my cycle with my SIL. In less than a month I can start injecting daily with ‘Gonal F’ which will stimulate my ovaries to create multiple follicles which each house an egg waiting to mature. After approx a week on the Gonal F, I will add a second injection to the mix which stops me prematurely ovulating thus allowing as many mature follicles/eggs as possible.

I am excited that it’s all happening but I am starting to freak out that it won’t work or I will develop “ovarian hyper stimulation syndrome” which is where too many eggs are created and you get really sick and have to stop the cycle.

A question I been wondering about, but  haven’t asked is that if the FS (fertility specialist) does have to stop the cycle for any reason, then does my SIL still have to pay the full costs? This IVF stuff is enough to turn your average person into a hardcore bank robber (think 10K + a pop!)

I’m feeling pretty crap at the moment to, the birth control pill and I have a limited history as I have a habit of over reacting to hormones and get sick whenever I have had any hormone related birth control (that explains the four kids for ya!)I took the God awful ‘Depo’ injection once and bled continuously and threw up every single day for 6 months – the actual injection was only supposed to last 3. No wonder it’s called effective birth control, with all the side effects sex is the absolutely last thing on your mind!

So true to form I am nauseous, exhausted, have a constant headache and am getting really annoying bouts of hot flushes all day and all night. Ugh. Hormones suck.

SIL keeps asking how I’m feeling and I lie through my teeth and tell her I feel great! Last thing I want is her feeling guilty or worried that I’m going to bail out on her, I wouldn’t even consider it. Bailing is NOT an option, I want a new nephew or niece dagnamit!

So that’s where I stand with that, I guess I will update again when I have to start sticking myself (eek!)

Blogs, books and why opinions are like fixing engines

I’m sure you have all read ‘Rise of the Mummy Bloggers’ by now and are aware of some people who have nothing better to do than make poorly researched comments and whinge about women who are building careers and making a living from telling their stories. People have been doing this in mainstream media for decades, so why not social media? 

A lot of comments that I read were from people who I imagine wouldnt hesitate to check google if they had a problem with their car engine.

 I would like to point out that they might just come accross a blog  in their search from a bloke who replaced the thingy watsit on the engine but it turned out it didnt fit the way it should but his story tells of how he fixed it anyway using a garden hose and a bobby pin, you know stuff you don't find in the manual.

I have a problem with a teething toddler and I dont want to read give them a teething ring for $4.99 I want to read somebodies personal account of how and why the red star shaped teething ring is better than the blue one and why, and also that yes they are goddamn tired after not sleeping in two days thankyouverymuch.

The key point Im trying to make is we want information that is not just useful but that we relate to, when we relate we feel validated and it makes us feel NORMAL. Blogs give us that somebody to relate to, and its really nice to feel normal especially after 48hrs of no sleep.

The world of mainstream media is slowly catching on to just how powerfully influential the average person armed with a computer can really be. The blog has become a valuable tool for teaching the world that as individuals we ALL have a story. Our own feelings and emotions are just as important as those of everybody else. By sharing our stories with each other we have the ability to create networks of support that span the world over, we have the power to teach people in all walks of life and at all ends of the globe.

We will like some blogs and not others and other people will like the ones we hate and loath the ones we love - thats the beauty of it. There is something for everyone out there, if you don't like it you dont have to take the book back to the store for a refund, you can just move on. Simple.

As for monatising? As long as there is money, there will be marketing and the ads we see in the magazines and the newspaper are really no different to those on the blog, the main difference between the two forms of media lies in accessability and the artical itself.

The magazine or newspaper lays down a carefully edited and re edited story designed to sell to the majority and make a profit for the company. 

The blog gives an oppertunity to view the unscripted world through the eyes of one other person, raw and real.

Like it or not the internet has changed the world, we are more powerful as individuals than we have ever been before, information about anything and everything is literally at our fingertips whenever we want it. We have been given the opportunity to embrace this change, to better appreciate the diversity around us and encourage true equality in this great planet we all live in.

When you blog don’t be afraid to speak up for yourself out of fear of a few negative comments, there will always be people who are validated by your voice no matter how small. Remember, when combined our small voices become large and loud and if we all speak together, we will be heard!