New Day, New Donor

It’s been a busy few days around here and not without a few tears either. Our donor came back to us and said she would be happy to donate to us again, but understandably wanted to breastfeed for at least 6 months with her baby, she would then need a couple of months for her cycle to return. All of this I completely understand and would do the same myself, but that would push our time frame out to March/April next year or perhaps even beyond.  I’m 43 now, I don’t have that kind of time on my side, I also will need to go back to work for a few months now in Jan I think so there is no way I would have gotten two weeks off after just coming back after 15 months off.  So we just can’t do it, we had to move on to a new donor and it killed me to come to that conclusion. The irony was not lost on me that I was more upset on giving up on our donors eggs than I was of giving up on my own eggs. My eggs? I couldn’t give two hoots about, hers I cried for the better part of Saturday night knowing that our kids would have two different donors. I am trying to process mentally all of the ramifications in the future, but there is no way to know what and how this might effect E and ‘potential baby’  I think you just kind of have to deal with things as they come up in these situations.

So I have found a new donor and we’ve paid the agency – all of that happened last night. We will cycle in October sometime, just waiting on the husbands work schedule to lock things in. She sounded nice, and once again, like someone I’d enjoy hanging out with. Brown hair, brown eyes like me, similar height, better weight, good family medical history, similar interests and kind… I always look for kind.

Now I have to get my head around travelling with a 10 month old on an international flight… it’s going to be testing that’s for sure given she’s taken to making sounds like the exorcist for hours on end…

Back to the Drawing Board

Blood test was negative. So we are back on the horse again, not sure who is our horse is, not sure when exactly we are getting on it, but we are going one last time. We need to sell some shares in order to make it over there now that we are on one income, but we are lucky that we have them as our back up plan, if we didn’t have them then we’d likely have to call it quits.

I guess the one good thing out of this is that I can potentially go back to work from Jan – May to save some money and to build up our nest egg a bit more, I honestly haven’t even looked at the whole childcare thing, haven’t thought about going back to work etc. I’m not scheduled to go back until mid Jan so have some time to think about it. I put E’s name down at the childcare around the corner in June last year so she’ll get in there.  It seems absurd to be putting a baby so small into childcare, but I guess people do it… they have to.

So all I can do now is research our trip with a toddler, we are likely looking at going in October as we have to work around the husbands work travel schedule which is yet to be confirmed. Stupidly I started looking at donors in case our original one says no, and saw a lovely one, of course she was snapped up quick smart… so I have to stop looking until I know what we are doing or I’ll send myself spare. You may have deduced (if you’ve read this blog for any length of time) that I am slightly impatient and you would be very, very right.

In a nice turn of events, I don’t need any testing re-done as all mine are up to date, but the husband needs a semen analysis and his bloods re-done so I’ll have to book him in for all of that (if I left it up to him it would take weeks). I do have to get E a passport, and research travel sleep options over there, I don’t want to lug a port-a-cot with us.

I’ve made an appointment with my old fertility specialist from the old clinic in mid July, she offered way back when to help with scripts etc. for an overseas cycle, but I stuck with my Marie Claire fertility specialist simply because she had all my test results and recent history but as I’ve found in my last two overseas cycle, if something goes slightly haywire like hmmm no period, or say, a double period, I have nowhere to turn and her office just kind of fobs me off. I need someone I can call and talk to and get real advice from so I’m going back to Colombo, she was lovely but just not progressive enough for my own egg cycles, for a donor cycle, I think she will be a good fit. I just need to find out if she does Uterine scratches, as that’s what I really want done before the next cycle. I have sent in a spy to find out for me.

So now I’m back to waiting…

No Pregnancy For You…

BFN again this morning so that’s it. This cycle was a bust. I’m ok with it now, I think that is the one good thing about testing early is that you just know and you’re prepared. It would devastate me to wait the full 10 days and then find out after analysing every twinge, pinch, cramp and headache. And just on that, I felt all the things I felt in my successful pregnancy TWW this cycle, down to heaving over the toilet bowl one morning earlier in the week and a feeling that was decidedly like morning sickness (mind you I didn’t even get morning sickness until about 9 weeks with E). In hindsight it may have been my borderline migraine causing the nausea, but it goes to show the drugs really do mimic pregnancy.

So no use dwelling on what I can’t change, I’m moving on to what to do next. I sent the agency my letter for my original donor – in all honesty doing basic math, she is probably still breastfeeding and will say no, but I have to at least ask. Regardless I wanted to let her know a little about E.

Speaking of the little poppet, she’s 7 months today and a chunky little monkey. We went to Rhyme Time at the library yesterday and she just loved it, until a boy who must have been about 3 decided to jump up and down and scream really loudly, he must have scared her and she was bawling, I settled her but she was utterly fascinated with him after that and I wouldn’t take her eyes of him.

We are heading down the farm this weekend, need to get away (like that trip to South Africa wasn’t enough) – even though the packing takes the better part of the day before with a baby, it’s worth it once we are there. I can’t wait til E can walk and can toddle around at the farm, it’s a bit hard when she’s spud like as I can’t really do much but walk her around and she is HEAVY, it won’t be long though and we won’t be able to stop her.

7dp5dt

Don’t bother squinting… it’s not there. Feeling pretty defeated/deflated today as I thought if I did get a positive result then I would see it by 7 days, so now I am entering the ‘clutching at straws’ phase. Well not really, I’ve just gone into self preservation mode and I’ve started planning our next trip.  Looking at accommodation options, writing my donor a letter (I’ve been meaning to do this for a while regardless of wanting to cycle again) thinking of all the money we will spend that we don’t have… the usual.  I can’t even imagine the amount of pressure I will be feeling with our last ever cycle… this cycle at least I know we will go again if need be.  Next cycle, well that’s it.

I’m feeling pretty down this morning in all honesty. I try to be upbeat in the whole infertility thing, but the progesterone has got me this morning.  What gets me most is that I really want a full sibling for E and I can feel that slipping away.

I Just Hate The Two Week Wait…

This is some kind of cruel torture for IVF women this two week wait caper! Last time, with E… I got off the plane from Cape Town in the evening, in the door, impatiently waited for the house sitter to leave, peed on a stick and there was a faint line at 5dp5dt. Hurrah. This time, I’m currently very early in the morning of 5dp5dt and E woke up at 3am with bad wind pain, and when E has bad wind pain, she will blow the house down with her howls. So I got her up for some tummy massage and a little bottle… peed on a stick, settled her again. Went back in and checked my stick and … BFN.  Of course I feel a bit deflated, but I also know it’s probably too early yet. Jeckyll and Hyde again – calm and rational me, meets hysterical irrational me ten times a day at the moment.

In other news – yesterday I had leg cramps, a headache, stomach pains, the trots (sorry) and to end the night queasiness. All of those I thought were very good signs to have.  And after I settled E this morning, I still had my headache and the queasiness still and was nauseated hanging over the toilet for a while there… and now again… insomnia.

Someone just put me out of my misery.

4DP5DT…just

Home again and not without drama. I left Cape Town at 7pm local time,  via Johannesburg, then Perth Australia, I had a 4 hour wait in Perth before my final flight home to Melbourne. So I cleared customs and then re checked my bag for the final leg straight away in Perth. My original plan was to do my medications in Perth as it would be almost time for gestone etc. I thought I’d pack a number of meds in my carry on, on arrival I realised I’d packed all the needles, swabs, band aids etc. and forgotten the gestone vials, they were all in my checked baggage. No drama I think, I’ll just do one as soon as I get home or even at Melbourne airport before I jumped into a cab home. I didn’t get in until about 1130pm local time.

My flights were all uneventful and on time thankfully – I arrive into Melbourne excited to be home and to see E and hubby… waiting for my bag at the carousel, waiting, waiting, all other bags come off then conveyor belt stops. My bag with my meds (not to mention everything else I own) is not there.  By this stage it’s almost midnight. I go to baggage services, they ring the Perth office. My bag is there, a 4 hour flight away. I burst into tears at the desk and explain to her all my medications that I should be taking NOW are in that bag. I think I dropped a few F bombs at her, cried hysterically, felt my progesterone dropping as we were speaking (not really but you know what I mean) I was irrational, I’d been on the road for 29 hours by this stage and I just wanted to be home with newly topped up gestone in my being. I’d checked that bag with 4 freaking hours to spare, how could it miss the connection? The solution was to put it on the next flight as the airline didn’t even start to courier ‘delayed’ (read lost by incompetence baggage) until 8.30am the next morning. The next flight got in at 5am so I told them I would meet that flight and collect it, I couldn’t be waiting all day for some courier delivery. I called my husband absolutely hysterical convinced I’d lose this embryo once my levels dropped. I emailed/texted anyone I knew in Melbourne who might have some progesterone left over from their cycles but as it was the middle of the bloody night no one heard my call.  The cab ride home (about 36 minutes of it) I blubbered the whole way, I really feel for that cab driver in hindsight.

So my homecoming was not the joyous event I wanted it to be, it consisted of my husband talking me down from my jet lagged and hormone induced hysteria. Me beside myself with worry and trying to find any form of progesterone I might have and going through old drawers like a mad woman. There was none. E woke up momentarily and saw me from the cot so I gave her a pat and a shoosh but that was it, she was really excited to see me and was squirming around blowing raspberries at me and wiggling her whole body, so we had a cuddle and a kiss… and I tried to re-settle her. By this stage it’s 1am and I have to get up again around 4am to meet this next flight. I am beyond tired by this point and remember that I have provera which is a form of progesterone (it can be used to bring on AF or to delay AF) and while not ideal as luteal support would be a port in this progesterone storm so to speak.  I don’t sleep. I lay in bed for an hour then get up and watch TV, E is restless around 4am so I get her up for a bottle, give hubby a poke (there’s no way I could drive) we get dressed, put the two dogs in the car and head to the airport. Thankfully the flight is on time and on it is a whole AFL football team who have played a match in Perth the night before, so of course EVERY bag that comes off the conveyor belt is a Richmond Football Club bag.  I look over at ‘baggage services’ where I lost my shit the night before and there is my bag. I felt like angels sang when I saw it.  We all head back to the car – husband gives me an injection in the arse and we all head home. I’m finally in bed at 7am…

In other news I’m just coming up to 4 days past my 5 day transfer. I’ve already peed on a stick, you know I have. And you would know like me that it was negative… way too early. If you take into account time differences it’s still only 3.5dp5dt in Cape Town so I’m really just peeing on those sticks to keep myself amused at this stage. I was trying to tell myself I wouldn’t do it until 5dp5dt but lets face it, I’m weak.

I’ve had a few twinges here and there, hot flashes, cramps in my calves and legs and it would seem, insomnia (considering I’m up typing this at 3.30am) but all that can be attributed to drugs, long haul flights and jet lag.  I also had a bit of spotting on the toilet paper when I got home hysterical last night – I was convinced then it was my progesterone dropping, but perhaps, fingers crossed it might have been something else. I’m trying to visualise my little embryo currently nestling into my uterine wall and dividing and growing.  In a couple more days we’ll know…. But God I hate the two week wait!

Oh the Ailments

Hot flushes, dizzy spell, twingey pinches and mild headache…just ‘saying.

Good thing Cape Town International Airport has me covered for my ailments. How old school is this! It was right by the shoe shine stand…I kid you not.

1dp5dt~Symptom Spotting

Sad I know, but it’s already started. Were those cramps I was feeling last night laying in bed watching some Godawful Katherine Heigl movie? Was that hot flush a progesterone rush or a symptom? Is there are reason I couldn’t get enough of the cranberry and beetroot juice at the breakfast buffet this morning?

Last cycle all I remember was feeling flushed and hot on the flight home to the point where then flight attendant asked if I was ok as my face was all red, I might have had a few cramps here and there on the cable car up to table mountain the day after transfer as well, my boobs were tender, but all that can be fobbed off as progesterone symptoms as well.

Just on the progesterone. I am having to give myself Progesterone in oil injections daily – now I’m used to injecting myself with clexane daily but that’s fine as it goes in your stomach and while not generally pleasant, they are easy to administer. PIO injections aren’t that easy as you have to twist around to inject them in your butt and the needle is long! But this morning, I finally got my technique right!  I was so proud of myself but there was no one around to admire my handiwork… if there were, I’d be getting them to inject me.

I’m heading home tonight. The hotel has kindly let me have a late check out at 2pm as my flight doesn’t leave until about 6pm local time. I was dreading the thought of just hanging around in the foyer or worse still, the airport until departure. So I have a pedicure/foot massage booked at 11.30am, then I’ll head back to my room, do my final packing have a quick shower and vacate at 2pm, maybe have a late lunch and head to the airport around 3.30pm.

I’m so looking forward to seeing my family on my return. We had a quick Skype this morning and E looked like she was trying to eat the laptop to get at me. It always makes me a bit weepy to see her but I love seeing her little smiling face.

So here I am willing my little 4AB to kick in… I was speaking it him/her last night and telling them what wonderful things that await should they stick around. Let’s hope they got the message.

Transfer Day #2

I am officially PUPO. It took me ages to work out what PUPO stood for back in the day when I first joined parenting forums. For those who are still in the dark, it’s “pregnant until proven otherwise” kind of lame, but it is what it is.

My transfer time was at 11.15am and me being me I turned up an hour early just simply so I wouldn’t be late, I figured it would give me time to have a coffee and drink the fluids I needed for my full bladder transfer. They were running a bit behind which isn’t unusual and I was prepared for this, but I really dislike transfers, I always feel like I’m going to pee myself as soon as that speculum goes in and today was no different. Thankfully there wasn’t a lot of faffing around. My doctor and I had a quick meeting and I was advised that the second embryo that was behind at the time of freezing had not made the thaw. This really didn’t surprise me and actually took the decision out of my hands whether to transfer one or two, the other embryo was and expanding day 5 that looked ‘really good’.  Then we were off to the transfer room, legs up and and practice insertion of the catheter, then my embryos flashed up on the screen in the corner of the room, they matched up my ID number with ID number on the dish, they pushed the bad embryo out of the way, sucked up the good embryo and transferred by guided ultrasound. It’s pretty cool to see it going in to your uterus and I was trying to concentrate on this and not peeing.  Once the lab double check that the embryo is not in the catheter it’s speculum out and legs down ladies. My doctor tells me it all went really well, the lovely  nurse pats me on the hand and wishes me luck and I’m given 10 minutes to lay there or leave … it’s up to me. I choose to go pee and leave.  And so here we are, PUPO.

I headed straight back to the hotel for a lovely lunch downstairs while my room was being cleaned – I added in a farewell glass of pinot and now I’m back in my room about to embark on a rom com marathon from my bed.  I head home tomorrow and I’ll be glad to get there. Poor hubby is struggling a big juggling working full time and the baby… Grandma can’t do as much as she thought she could which is understandable, she is 77 after all and lifting a 8.5kg baby of her play mat or out of her swing is not easy even at 43! I’m looking forward to giving E lots of smooches and cuddles and will likely cry every time I look at her for the next week or two. I miss that little mite so much.

Beautiful Cape Town

 

My room with a view this morning

 

So I think I have finally acclimatized – just in time to leave again! Not really but it kind of feels like it. Last night was the first where I have been able to stay up until about 11pm and sleep through until 6.30. All other days I’ve been falling asleep at 7pm and up at 4 or something stupid.

Had a good night last night catching up with some of the forum girls and their partners down at The Harbour House  at the waterfront I’d been dreaming of going back there for dinner all year and it didn’t disappoint.  Other than that I’ve been filling my days with going to the movies and idly strolling around shopping centers buying stuff for E and a couple of things for ‘hopefully new baby’. I’ve not bought myself anything yet, but don’t really feel the need to. I am however going to get my hair cut and coloured, and get two more massages and a pedi in before I leave.

It dawned on me this morning that I have two huge ‘bullseyes’ drawn in marking pen on my arse that I got the nurse to do so I know where to aim my progesterone injections as I’m doing them myself, worst part is I’ve tried to re-draw over the marking that the nurse made last week because they are fading… have you ever tried to draw a big square on your own butt cheek? Let’s just say straight lines are not in your favour. My arse looks like a 5 year old has taken to it with a sharpie.  I’m going to have to explain that to my masseuse this afternoon or she’ll think I’m a loon, or that I have really bad taste in tattoos.

 

Not much else to report from here – I’m feeling calm. I miss my baby and my husband like crazy but at the same time am relishing this ‘me time’ God knows if this cycle is a success, it will be the last of it for a long time.