Exciting!

I promised an update after today's appointment and honestly, I couldn't wait to get to my laptop and write it all down - mostly so I don't forget anything.  Documenting this journey for us to look back on is so important to me, not to mention there's a LOT of information to take in.

We headed to Sheffield for our appointment in plenty of time because as anyone who lives in the UK knows, parking at hospitals is horrendous!  Surprisingly traffic was kind to us and we managed to get parked and find our way straight away so we ended up half an hour early for our appointment.  As the appointment was in the children's department (genetics appointments always seem to be for some reason) we were watching families interacting and little ones running around.  The most striking thing for me was seeing a woman breastfeeding, I'm not sure why but it really made it hit home how much I want a baby.  I know that this won't be a quick process and that's okay.  We were told that from this point forwards it'll probably be around a year until the actual treatment starts which works out nicely as we get married in February and have our honeymoon in late July/early August.  If we were trying to get pregnant naturally that would be when we were wanting to start (after all, I want to be able to enjoy a cocktail or two on my honeymoon) so the timing is perfect.  I'm expecting it'll probably be longer than that because nothing ever seems to go to plan but that's okay, we're working towards starting our family and I couldn't be happier.

I won't bore you with all the information that we were given about the process as the blog will cover it as it goes on but basically today's appointment was about us being provided will all the information we need for the whole process.  We were told what it entails, how long it takes, any risks, the chances of success and various other bits and bobs.  The geneticist also took a bit of a history from us but as we'd given a very detailed history at the appointment with our local genetics team it was mostly just covering the basics.  They took blood samples from us both and gave us a form to get a blood sample from ALS' dad (they need this to create the test for the embryos).  We've already spoke to his dad about it and he's more than happy to help us along in the process any way we need.

The key things that we got from today (most of which we already knew) were:

1.  We get 3 attempts on the NHS, providing I respond well to the treatment and it just fails through us being unlucky.  If I don't respond well to the first cycle, they won't fund more.
2.  We only get 1 healthy child out of this process.  If our first cycle works, we won't get a further NHS attempt.  However we can freeze any other healthy embryos so later on if we want to pay for a further lot of treatment, we only have to pay for the implantation process and not all the hormone stimulation, egg collection and fertilisation (which is the expensive bit).
3.  By the end the chances are about the same as a normal couple having IVF providing our fertility is good (there's no reason it shouldn't be).  We'll have less successful embryos due to the ones carrying the chromosome from ALS' mum not being suitable, but as we don't have fertility issues and are younger than most couples trying IVF it balances out the odds.

I think that's the key points but I do have a lot of information swimming around my head at the moment.

I'm not really sure how many people read this blog, if any, although I did notice my last few posts have gone unread.  As I've said before it's mostly for my records but if there is anyone out there with any queries or anything you want to ask I will answer questions as honestly as possible so feel free to leave a comment.

Disclaimer

Once again it's been 3 months since I've posted anything and a lot has happened.  I'm mostly doing this for myself as a record of our journey and if I can help even just one other person along their journey then that'd be amazing, but I can't promise to post regularly.


Okay, that's my disclaimer out the way, now onto what's been happening...

We had our first appointment eventually which was tough but gave us a lot of the information we needed.  The woman we saw was lovely and really helpful and gave us a few options for places to be referred to.  We decided to go with Guys & St Thomas NHS in London for the process as they have better technology and results than our local options.  Fortunately we can have the treatments done by them in Sheffield which is a lot closer to home - we only have to travel to London once.

This Thursday we have our first appointment in Sheffield to discuss the actual process, what we need to do, how long it takes etc. so I'll post an update after that.  Needless to say we are glad we started when we did as it's now 6 months since we first spoke to the GP about getting the process started and we're only just getting our first appointment with the relevant people.

In other news, we have moved out of our house into a rented flat for the time being whilst our new house is being finished.  It should be ready just before Christmas which will give us time to get in and settled before the wedding in February.  The wedding itself has been put on the back burner unfortunately as we've both been trying to cram in a load of overtime to get some extra money saved up, sort the house out, sort the new flat out and all the other things.

We also had a very poorly cat in June who managed to eat some carpet and got the threads stuck around his throat and intestines requiring some pretty major surgery, a long recovery and a VERY expensive vets bill (needless to say we've purchased pet insurance since).  It was nice to see how worried ALS got about our little fur baby and definitely reassured me (and him I hope) that he's going to make a great dad.

I've had a few ideas that I've been wanting to post about and not got round to so hopefully in the next couple of weeks, depending on time, I will get a good few posts in about various things.