CD12 Scan

My scan went well today, lining at 12mm and dominant follie at 20mm. I was sent home to trigger and transfer #7 will be on Monday if embies #10 & #11 survive the thaw.

David is taking our plans to treat this as an OI cycle just in case we have nothing to transfer very seriously. He keeps saying how "getting pregnant by having sex sounds like a great idea" and after todays attempt he yelled "go babies go!" and "quick stand on your head!".

Rather than care about getting pregnant naturally I think he is just keen on not spending anymore $$$ than we already have on AC!!! Oh the holidays that we could have been on with all that money...

Feather Our Nests

Well it's CD9 and I'm jabbing away like an old (ass)hat until my CD12 follie scan. Our last 2 embies will then be thawed and transferred if either survive - I'm not holding my breath though.

I am however sitting here contemplating the term "clucky". Should I be "clucky" after 6 years trying to conceive including a few operations and years of assisted conception? Is it weird that I'm not? Do people IRL expect me to be with all I am going through to achieve a pregnancy?

I remember the fresh, younger, innocent me would get a rush from pregnancy announcements, baby bumps and newborns. I have now detached myself from these situations so completely that they barely register on my radar.

I do not and can not race to the maternity ward for a whiff of fresh baby smell and a first cuddle. I do not visit my friends to spend time with their children or to talk about them during the entirety of the visit.

Do not thrust your baby at me expecting me to be all goo-gaa over them just because I want my own so badly. If I want to hold your baby I will ask. I'm not waiting for an invitation. Holding a baby does not fill the void or give me hope or whatever it is you are expecting.

Hmmm... from this vent it seems that I have lost much more than just my clucky mojo.

Blah...

I had my bloodtest on Friday and got a call from a clinic Nurse with the results. "Have you had a bleed yet? No? Well your test came back negative. Nothing. Not even a hint that anything happened at all." Thank goodness I wasn't holding on to any hope. Way to crush someone that was though.

Although I felt that this cycle was hopeless from the beginning I still can't help but feel guilty that I didn't give this cycle my all. Yes I did acupuncture pre and post transfer but I really did abuse my body in other ways. I posted earlier how I lost my beloved laptop and large assignments that were contained in it. That week I had x3 3,ooo word assignments due and starting again with all the research and typing I pulled quite a few all nighters. My poor body didn't sleep for days and my diet was also lacking due to time constraints. How could a pregnancy survive through that?

To top it all off my period arrived today - Mothers Day - and that's all I have to say about that.

I will start stimming again on CD3 and thaw my last 2 embies. These embies are Grade 3's and the only other Grade 3 I've thawed did absolutely nothing over night. Rather than risk having nothing to transfer we are treating this cycle as an OI cycle and going hell for leather. David is very excited and likes the idea of that. When is the last time we had lots and lots of sex in the vain hope of procreation?

______________________________________

In more news, my new FS of choice isn't taking any new patients for the rest of the year so I freaked out a little over that. I have made an appointment for a different new FS for the 1st July. By then I will be frostie free. Before cycling with her I will be requesting recurrent implantation failure testing - immunology, karyotyping, etc. I think that's reasonable after nothing with 11 embies.

I was originally excited having 10 frosties but transferring 1 or 2 embies at a time has taken me a year which is such a waste of time and money when it isn't the right batch. I will without a doubt be growing the next batch to blast to weed out and see what they do between days 3-5. I have realised that less is more in my case.

I do have my reservations about my new FS though. Out of all the FS at my clinic she has the least amount of experience and does quite a bit of "fill in" work for other FS's. Through this she has gained a bit of a reputation for being a little rough at transfers and u/s's and for being a little abrupt and insensitive when delivering bad news to those who are not her patients. Her patients seem to love her though.

She did my first transfer which is the only one which has resulted in a BFP. I have to give her points for that although she was very rough. 5 transfers with 5 different FS's later and I didn't feel a thing. It was however a fresh transfer she did 2 days past EPU so perhaps it was due to the tenderness etc. from that?

Anyway, I guess I'll just see what type of feeling I get off her at my first appointment in July. In the meantime I will keep you updated about the last FET/OI cycle here as I can not for the life of me figure out how to use Wordpress!!!

Today

I have been umming and ahhing about whether to post this but I already feel like this blog lacks too much insight as to what I am really going through as I do not want to appear to be a basket case unleashing my true feelings. However, depression often plays a large role in infertility and even if I do come across that way what's the big deal? How does it also really effect me if people I don't know in real life want to label me as jealous, angry and the infamous 'bitter and twister' card? From now on I pledge to be true to myself with all my future blog entries :D

The closest I have ever come to achieving my dreams was when I got my positive BETA with my first fresh transfer. It didn't look good from the start with a lower than desirable level and ended at 5wk2ds.

When those magical two lines were appearing of course I calculated my EDD. It was the 5th May 2008. Bootie should be here with us today.

And yet now, 5 transfers and 8 embryos later with not even a hint of implantation I have to wonder what if it was just a fluke? Will I ever experience 2 lines again? Will I ever carry a pregnancy to term? Will I ever have a live birth with a take home baby?

What more do I have to do to achieve my dream as I am running out of steam...

Oh Dear...

I may be a bit quiet in Blogland for a little while. Very late last night whilst I was finishing off my 3000 word law assignment I knocked my coffee all over my laptop. It's fried, gone forever. I also manged to ruin my law textbook that I had just spent $100 on. Unfortunately my 3000 word essay was due today so I had to stay up all night redoing it on our old, slow PC. Of course I didn't have it backed up anywhere so I had to be a machine on no sleep researching and pumping out 15 pages of text.

I don't even want to begin to think about what else I had on that laptop that I will never get back. So if I don't post too often I am doing OK and I apologise that I wont be able to get around much to leave others blog comments. With IVF hanging over our heads there is no way I am going out and buying a new laptop.

I guess whilst I am here I should also further explain why I was so upset after transfer with losing an embie even though I still have a small chance with one on board. At my clinic the maternity floor is one level below reproductive services. At least one elevator ride each visit is with a pregnant woman in labour, about to be induced, etc. This time when we were leaving the hospital we exited the elevator and a herd of heavily pregnant woman came barging at us from all directions. David and I lost each other amongst the bumps and were speechless. They may as well have screamed "move out the way you stupid infertile freaks!"

As well as referring to embryos as eggs, my acupuncturist also pulled out a few more doozies at my post-transfer treatment. They offer after hours appointments as they claim to specialise in fertility and IVF. Why would she then bring her toddler to my session? No even discreetly either as well as harping on about another Practitioner who is suffering from new born baby brain.

I just want to be wrapped in cotton wool and left alone.

Numero Sei

Before beginning IVF I was doing weekly acupuncture and Chinese herbs and praying for a natural miracle. Financially I had to give this up in place of IVF but desperate times call for desperate measures and I decided this cycle I would try something new. So for the first time I combined IVF with acupuncture. I told them I could only afford 2 sessions and they said the most important were the night before transfer and the night of transfer. So off I toddled.

I must say for a clinic specialising in fertility and for a Dr. of Chinese Medicine completing her Masters in Gynaecology and Obstetrics to be using the term egg in place of embryo was questionable. "How may eggs will you be transferring?" "How old did you grow your eggs?" My confidence in her abilities has sadly decreased.

So, embies #8 and #9 have now been shot up the hatch. I had x1 Grade 2 embies left and x3 Grade 3. The Grade 2 embie thawed and gained 3 extra cells bringing it to 7 cells whilst the crappy Grade 3 did nothing at all. Both were transferred anyway. I don't have much hope for this cycle. I wanted to cry and whilst David took out his phone to take a photo of the embies I told him not to bother. If my textbook perfect cycles didn't work out why should this one?

We have 2 frozen mates of the stubborn one left and if they are anything like their sibling they probably wont survive the thaw or continue to divide. Out of a batch of 11 embryos that started off so well with a biochemical pregnancy at the first transfer it looks like they were all duds. I can't believe this has happened. I am so sad.