Filterless aunt strikes again!

This one aunt. She drives me nuts! Check out her previous work.

Anyway, we had a big family do a few weeks back. Filterless Aunt popped over to chat to me. A lot of spittle flew from her mouth. I don’t think she noticed me wiping my face multiple times at all.

After boring me with the travel plans of her entire family for the next 12 months, she did the, “Oh, so are you going to have another one?”

I said, “Oh, we’re very happy with our lifestyle at the moment.”

Then! She launched into, and I kid you not, “Well, Amy and Adam [names changed!] are trying for a baby now. So Amy went to the doctor and the doctor told her that she’s too fat and that she needs to lose 10kg to have a baby. So she’s trying Lite ‘n’ Easy.”

Ok, firstly, I don’t think Amy wants her trying for a baby to be public knowledge. And I definitely don’t think that she wants her doctor visit to be made public. And I’m 100% sure that the doctor did not say that “she’s too fat” and that she needs to “lose 10kg to have a baby.” Omg! Made me so angry on behalf of Amy and everyone who has dumb arse family that misinterpret information and then feel the need to tell anyone and everyone!

Anyway, so Hubby throws in as a barb to Filterless Aunt, “Well, what about Adam, does he need to lose weight?” Fortunately, or unfortunately, Filterless Aunt is not only filterless, but also has no ‘You’re a dick!’ radar. So her response was, “Oh, Adam’s already lost 3kg. He’s fine. It’s just Amy who needs to do Lite ‘n’ Easy.”

People like her make me so angry!

Rah!

Entering Round 5…

You know, we’ve been seeing our IVF doctor for over 2 years now. Precisely 27 months. I handed in my second GP 12 month referral today so that I can keep seeing her!

Today we had our follow up/forward planning session. After checking that we were ok, the doc launched straight into the next steps. Her key messages were:

– Hang in there

-There is still a lot of hope

– Let’s do a few checks  (for issues that the doc doesn’t believe exists, but better to be sure) and then crank up the meds to get heaps of embryos

So I am booked in for a hysteroscopy for next Thursday. It was meant to be in two weeks time, but I worked out that I would have my bleed then, so we got to bring it forward. If all goes well, I’m hoping that I can launch straight into the next treatment cycle as I think AF will be arriving in 12 days.

We’re also going to do some additional genetic testing to be able to rule out embryos that definitely won’t take. This means that we need to biopsy the embryos on day 5 instead of day 3 (apparently there is evidence to suggest that day 5 biopsies are less harmful to the embryo than day 3 ones). But before we can do that we need to swab test bubsy to get some more DNA – last time we swab tested bubsy the geneticist swabbed some sultanas out of his mouth!

And I had a heap of blood drawn today for other checks. Given that our appointment was at 7:15am and I had not had breakfast, it was like instant hangover! But I’ve made up for it, I went and bought a ginger bread slice and a ham and cheese croissant before heading into work. And I’ve had heaps of tea and water. And yes, contrary to my previous post, I’m obviously not vegetarian! Nor have I taken up yoga!

Anyway, as the doc is going to crank up the meds for the next treatment round, she says that there is a good chance that I’ll get OHSS and so we won’t be able to do a fresh ET. Having said that, I much prefer the FETs!

So we’ll see. I did a quick calc and I think that the earliest we’ll be doing a transfer would be August. I could be wrong, but August works for us. I mean, we will be moving house in July, so better to be somewhat settled before I have to act preggers again. Sigh. The acting preggers during the 2ww!

I feel somewhat re-energised. I’m not necessarily feeling optimistic or anything – trying to adopt the don’t-think-about-it-too-much strategy. But it is reassuring to know that medically speaking, the doc still believes that we are in the right health to have a baby. We also asked about our previous embryo development results (having had 6 in our first cycle and 2-4 in the subsequent 3 cycles) and she also advised that getting around 3 embryos is average and that getting 6 the first time was an anomaly.

Hanging in there!

x

Ramble and babble

So I’m having a life crisis. No, not really. But I have decided to go vegetarian and sign up for a yoga course. This is what all the 30-somethings in chick flicks seem to do when they go through a bad break up or their cat dies or something.

I didn’t sleep well at all last week. On Sunday morning, at 2am, I came to realise that the real reason for me not sleeping well was all the stress and anxiety that I am under. I mean, I had a little phase of denial after the BFN last Thursday, then I got really angry, and then I’ve just been stressing out about everything. Did I mention that the job interview I had on Thursday afternoon went terribly? Maybe not too bad, but it wasn’t totally awesome, as I was expecting. I babbled my way through a bit, did it all very quickly (the interview went for less than 15 minutes), and basically couldn’t wait to get out of there. As a result, I spent all weekend replaying the interview questions in my head and answering them as I should have. Anyway, I decided to draft a “I had a sh*t morning and didn’t do well – can we do it again?” email to send to the HR rep. Sent it through this morning, we’ll see how it goes.

So the point of that story is I need to relax. I know that I won’t take time out for myself at home. Therefore the next best thing to do is to sign up for a yoga class, pay for it, and then go once a week. I hope it helps me chill out a bit, relax, and sleep better.

That’s where I am.

My next IVF step is to call the doctor for an appointment to talk about where to go from here. Four failed IVF rounds later, I’m hoping she’s got some amazing miracle up her sleeves! I’m at that point where I’ll be happy to keep paying, if I can be guaranteed that we’ll have a strong and healthy baby within, even say, 5 years? If it’s not going to work, I’ll stop, and embrace the fact that we will be a 3-person family forever and start focusing my time and energy on Bubsy, Hubby and myself. But there are no guarantees, are there?

I think I could do it, be a 3-person family. Hubby really wants a second child. I feel like I’m always one step ahead of Hubby when it comes to acceptance and realisation of reality when it comes to IVF. So I wonder if he will also come to embrace our existing 3-person family. Of course, this is all speculation. To date, we’ve had not medical advice to suggest that we can’t have a second child. So we’ll just have to wait to see what the Doc says. I guess I should go and call her now.

FET#1 BFN – Back to Square One

So this time around I stayed away from the blogosphere. I felt that I didn’t need it to help me manage my stresses and anxieties. But we’re now back at square one. In summary:

Day of transfer

Arrived, feeling good, until the doctor (not my usual) opened his mouth. *sigh* He mentioned the transfer and how we had another 2 frozen embies in the bank. Hubby and I were like, um, no we don’t. He was like, I’m sure you do. We’re like, we’re sure we don’t. Then the embryologist comes in and is all, you have two frozen ones. Meanwhile, I was getting more and more agitated, so I asked, “Are you sure you have the right ones and that we’re transferring our embryos today and not someone else’s?”

Then this chick was full on trying to prove us wrong and goes on about our frozen ones from September. So I told her that we froze two in September, did another IVF round in November, had them thawed and tested and then discarded them because they were no good. But she just kept on going!!! Even as the doc was trying to get the speculum positioned (I don’t know why he couldn’t do it like the other doctors, he had me reclined right back so that my head was down low and my legs in the air and still couldn’t get it right!), she was going on and on about it. Oh man.

Then the doctor started questioning us and asked, “Oh, are you sure you didn’t do the IVF, decide to do PGD and so then froze them?” I retorted with a, “The only reason we’re doing IVF is so that we can do PGD!” I was like, seriously, can we just do the transfer without any talking!

So I don’t mind if people make an error, but then to assume a snobby air of ‘well I’m the “expert” here and therefore I’m right and you’re wrong’. Eesh. Anyway, someone else called me later to confirm that we didn’t have any embryos frozen. Whoever called had much better bedside manners.

2WW

So I was pretty good for the first 5 days. Didn’t read into any bodily changes much. I did have a terrible tension headache all the time. And I was starting to get fatigued. On Day 4 I had some cramping and that PMS feeling in my abs, as I often get. No spotting. Lots of hot flushes. Around Day 7 I started the obsessive behaviour. Lots of forum googling. I caved and did a HPT and got a BFN. Did another the next day and got a BFN. My fatigue increased.

Then on the morning of Day 10 I suddenly got that feeling that my period was coming and I flipped out. Luckily I had taken the day off work (project canceled, directors on leave, it was quiet in the office!), so did a bit of youtubing to keep my mind occupied. Hubby, bubsy and the mother-in-law had been to the movies to see Spongebob, so I met up with them afterwards for lunch (I opted not to watch the Spongebob movie after seeing the trailer!). Hubby was spaced out from the movie, bubsy was upset because “Mummy, Daddy’s not talking to me” and the MIL was being her usual charming self [please reread the last clause with lots of sarcasm]. The whole situation was getting me worked up and then I felt this sudden urge of rage, which then made me think, “shit, this is PMS.”

Alas, that evening I noticed some pink discharge. I did another HPT at 5:30am this morning and it was a BFN. Had my scheduled blood test this morning at 8am. An hour and a half later they called me to confirm the BFN.

Back at square 1

So my doc is on leave until next week. I’ll give her a call then, arrange an appointment and see where we go from there. Last time she intimated that we’d need to discuss options and next steps if it didn’t work again. Whatever we do, I think I have one round of IVF left in me. Hubby started talking about the “other option” last night, which is to get pregnant naturally, test, abort if the condition is there. While I’m pro-choice, I’m not sure if I would abort in this scenario (I mean, Hubby has the condition, he is “fine” and has a decent quality of life), and hence not sure if I would even bother to test while pregnant. And at this stage, maybe the problem is me, maybe I can’t get pregnant. Who knows? I won’t waste too much time speculating. I’ll wait to see what the doc says.

To top it off. I have a farewell lunch with a girl going on maternity leave for the second time today. And then I have a job interview at 3pm.