SEVEN!

I've just discovered that Blogger has an app so now I can blog on the go (or, in tonight's case, whilst tucked up in bed). Hopefully this will lead to more frequent, less random posts!

Anyway, on to the main event. My endometrial lining. This morning I had another scan and we've finally reached 7mm!

After the scan we were sent on our way and told that Guy's would get in touch with us this afternoon to arrange and date, most likely Monday. So that ruled out Monday. When I was waiting for my date for egg collection I was told Guy's would want me on the Thursday and, if not, then definitely on the Friday. Actually egg collection was the following Monday! At least this time I knew not to get too excited.

The phone call finally came just before I left work and we are officially booked in for embryo transfer on Tuesday 6th December. It's so weird to think that in just over a fortnight this part of our journey will be over, one way or another. I started the stimulation meds on 19th August so this cycle will be just short of 4 months when I find out if the transfer has stuck (15th December). 4 months of waiting: waiting for my follicles to grow, waiting for egg collection, waiting to see how many embryos made it to biopsy, waiting for the PGD results, waiting for a follow up in Sheffield, waiting for my period, waiting to start FET meds, waiting for my lining to thicken, waiting for transfer and finally, that unenviable 2 week wait. Fortunately, in our case, as we are implanting a day 5 blastocyst it is only a 9 day wait but I imagine it will still feel like a lifetime.

I'm already getting impatient and there's still a week before we even get to transfer.  I'm going to try and have an early night - between getting a little "us time" in last night and the early start to Sheffield this morning I only had about 5 hours sleep, nowhere near enough for my EDS to be happy.

Sweet dreams!

Almost there...

I've been really bad at keeping this up to date lately thanks to being really busy but I'll get you up to speed.

On Friday I had my second scan to see if my lining was thick enough for transfer.  They wanted around 7mm and unfortunately my lining was only 6mm so I was asked to carry on with the Suprecur injections and oestrogen tablets until Tuesday (tomorrow).  I cleverly made sure that I had enough medication to last that long before I left Sheffield.

However, I did NOT make sure I had enough needles and syringes.  Fortunately, once again, working at a hospital has its perks.  Trying to get needles just before 4pm on a Friday wasn't exactly easy though.  I finally managed to get some from the antenatal clinic but pretty much every man and his dog knows I'm doing IVF now.  I spent a lot of time running around frantically, explaining my situation to anyone I thought might be able to help.

I got my needles but these ones are twice the size (length and thickness) of the ones I've been using so they cause quite a bit more difficulty in inserting them and more bleeding - although they aren't any more painful!

So tomorrow we head back to Sheffield and I find out whether my lining is playing ball - I feel quite bloated and keep having random twinges (as if I was premenstrual) so I guess that's probably a good thing.  I'll try and make sure I post tomorrow and keep you up to date!

Side Effects...

When you're being dosed up with so many medications it can't be hard to work out what's a side effect and what may be a sign of something else.

I've been getting really itchy eyes for the last couple of days and felt really tired.  I just put it down to the medication not agreeing with me.  I'm really sensitive with my eyes anyway - it only takes a bit of dust and they can puff up and itch like mad.  I've also had an upset stomach which I again put down to the combination of medications.

Then on Saturday ALS woke me up looking like something out of a horror movie.  His eyes were all red, swollen and itchy.  Turns out his stomach was also off and he'd been feeling really drained for a few days.

So I guess this is some kind of virus.  Who knows?  I've checked with my nurse in Sheffield and I'm fine to take antihistamines, although I can't have them after embryo transfer.  Hopefully by then whatever it is will have gone away!

I started the oestrogen 4 days ago as well.  I'm very emotional at the moment but that could just be down to being tired from my body trying to fight off whatever is wrong with me.  At the moment it's all just guesswork but I'm doing everything I can to rest up and get my body healthy before transfer - I still have a couple of weeks to go!

Wish me luck :)

Almost halfway!

We had our first appointment today since I started the FET cycle.  I've had 2 weeks of Suprecur and on the scan today my ovaries were nicely suppressed and my endometrial lining was thin.  They gave me the green light to start the next part of the cycle.

For the next 2 weeks I'll be continuing the injections at night but also taking oestrogen tablets - I'm not looking forward to this part as they are designed to be taken 1 a day as HRT and I'm taking 4 a day despite already producing oestrogen myself so I feel like I'm going to be quite overloaded.  I better get myself ready for being overly hormonal and emotional.

Then 2 weeks today it's back for another scan to see if my lining has thickened up as it should.

It's a long trip to Sheffield every time.  It's a 100 mile (2 hour) round trip for what is often only a 10 minute appointment.  Today I merely walked in, had a scan and was out in less than 5 minutes.  But it will all be worth it!

Sometimes you just have to...

There are some things out there that I just know are bad for my EDS and are going to leave me in pain.  Sometimes I make the sensible decision and leave well alone.  Other times, like last night, I decide I don't want to miss out on the fun for once and just go ahead and join in.  EDS + Dodgems = pain!

Cramming myself into a tiny dodgem with my over 100kg powerlifter husband was a bad start.  Then banging into other cars for 5 minutes and being jolted around was worse.  Hell, it was fun.  However, I could not move without wincing this morning.  In hindsight, was it a bad idea?  Probably, but sometimes you just have to.

Unfortunately today stuff needed doing and I'd vowed to get myself into the city centre and get started on the Christmas shopping.  So ALS and I bundled ourselves into the car and did just that.  I stuck it out for a while and did get some bits and bobs but wandering around shopping hurts at the best of time, let alone when I'm already struggling.  I get a lot of pain in my torso when I'm standing/wandering for a while, my knees and hips start to hurt and thanks to the IVF messing with my system I had some pretty intense ovary pain as well.  Oddly enough, I can walk for miles without too much issue but walking slowly and shopping is really painful for some reason.

5 hours later I'm cuddled up on the sofa, in my onesie, hugging a hot water bottle (although I can't fit it on all the parts that hurt at once).  Time to spend the evening chilling and catching up on the TV series we've not had chance to watch.

Daylight Savings Time!

I know I've already posted today but this is an important one so I'm going to go ahead and post it anyway.

As any of you doing IVF injections will know, you're meant to do them at the same time every day but you do have about an hour window either side.  I try and stick to the exact same time and it's very rare that I don't manage it but it is handy to have that flexibility if you get stuck in traffic or something.

On Sunday morning whilst we were all sleeping (well, actually at 2 am we had friends round still for our Halloween party but never mind) the clocks went back an hour.  Suddenly mid-afternoon it hit me that if I wanted to keep my injections 24 hours apart I was going to have to do it at 7:30pm instead of 8:30pm.

I mentioned this on the group I'm part of on Facebook and a few people said it didn't matter because you get that hour window, which makes sense.  However, that takes away your hour window.  If you continue doing them at the same time, without adjusting for daylight savings, and then go an hour out for whatever reason, you're actually 2 hours out.

I've made mine 15 minutes later every day since Sunday to get them back to 8:30pm but it's something I'm glad I thought about.  It would definitely suck if they were morning injections so I'm glad I'm not on those ones at the moment!

Just a little food for thought :)

U T WHY?

5 days worth of trimethoprim took me to Monday and I felt relatively okay.  I was still urinating a lot but I put this down to all of the water I was drinking to flush out the infection.  Then on Tuesday night I got up to pee SIX times and spent 2 hours awake with horrible pains in my bladder.  Needless to say I wasn't convinced that the antibiotics had worked.

On Wednesday morning Aunt Flo showed up - I was told that my period would probably still come whilst on the Suprecur and it was right on time.  That did however add period cramps to my already horrible bladder pain.  I forced myself back to work (I'm having enough time off for appointments as it is) and emailed my nurse in Sheffield.  She reassured me that the Suprecur shouldn't be causing frequent urination and urged me to go see my GP again.  Reluctantly I went back to the GP surgery on Wednesday evening.  I saw a different doctor who was more than happy to test my urine.  Thanks to AF there was obviously blood in my urine and it was hard to therefore interpret the blood on the dipstick as a sign of infection.  However, there were a lot of white blood cells in there as well which is a clear sign of infection.  He sent the urine off to the lab for culture and put me on nitrofurantoin for 5 days.  This GP was pretty helpful (especially after I explained that I really needed it sorting due to the IVF) but the lab will have received my urine today (Thursday) and cultured it.  They'll get the culture results tomorrow and the sensitivity results on Saturday, which means my GP won't see them until Monday morning.  My last antibiotic will be taken on Monday morning, ergo if I'm on the wrong antibiotics again I'll have taken the whole course before we find out and will then have to take a THIRD course.

Extra fun fact - the new antibiotics are making me so drowsy I'm no longer willing to drive and I almost fell asleep at my desk.

Genuinely finding the IVF medication a lot less hassle than these simple antibiotics!