Fresh cycle #2.5, hoping for our rainbow

[missl73]

Stims Day 12: I am expecting to trigger tonight after today's scan BUT the clinic STILL hasn't decided what trigger I'm doing so I am waiting for a call and will have to go back to pick up the prescription if they do decide today's the day. Hopeless, I knew my doctor wasn't paying much attention but this confirms it, apparently he just hasn't even replied to the nurses email asking about my trigger just like he didn't reply to me for days. Fills me with confidence....

Anyway the scan showed more growth but doesn't look like I'll get many more eggs as the left ovary is still going slowly. Weirdly, the nurse could see some fluid in the cavity which she thinks is just cervical fluid but instead of getting thicker my lining has got thinner although still over the 7.5mm they want it to be. I didn't know this was even possible? Something odd must be going on with my hormones. I'm so uncomfortable now I'll be glad if tonight is the last night of injections.

Left                   Right
16.5                  21
14                     20
8                       11
11.5                  20
10                     17.5
9                       15.5     
10                     18
11.5

It looks like we have 8 that are a good size to contain an egg and I'll be doing another 375 of Menopur tonight so I wonder if some of the 11s might make it too if they have a growth spurt and keep growing between now and EC? I'd be very happy with 8 though, that's what I got on my first cycle and the quality was good and DH's sperm should be much better so we'll see. I will not be happy if we don't trigger tonight because I don't want to risk those 20+ follicles.

[FertilityFriends]

[missl73]

Googled fluid in the uterus during stims and now I’m seriously worried and have gone home from work as I can’t concentrate on anything. Everything points at it being a really bad sign and now I’m terrified I’m facing another cancelled cycle but for a different reason. All I want is for a doctor to call me and tell me what’s going on, is that really too much to ask?

[missl73]

Seriously! What. A. Day. You could not make this stuff up.

Called the pharmacy to check when they were open until and they told me 7.30pm. Fine we have time to pick up the trigger shot when I finally know what it is, the nurse says they need my blood results back before they can confirm which won't be until 4 pm.  I get a call at 3.55pm to let me know, just like last time, I will be triggering with Ovitrelle. Good news, no mixing involved so easy to administer. However, why they couldn't decide this until the Nth hour god only knows. I also got to speak to a doctor, not my own doctor (obviously) about the fluid seen on my scan. He said he wasn't worried about it, it wasn't very much and it would likely just disappear on its own or they could aspirate it. They will monitor the situation as they might not want to do the transfer if there is still fluid but it's quite possible it will just go by itself. Ok, let's just deal with it if and/when it becomes an issue. I asked about my lining getting thinner and he said it had gone from 8.6 to 7.9 so was still plenty thick enough and it was possible that the fluid was making it difficult to measure so, in fact, might not have not changed at all.

Huge sighs of relief and drama over or so I thought...

I double checked with the nurse the time the pharmacy closes and she said it was 6.30pm not 7.30pm. Que panicked call to DH at 5.55pm to check he was on his way to pick it up because he said he'd go straight after work and normally he leaves work at 5. He'd been held up in a meeting but thought he had plenty of time to get there before 7.30. He makes a mad dash to the clinic arrives with only 3 minutes to spare to find out yes indeed it closed at 6.30pm not 7.30pm as the pharmacy had told me. SO MUCH STRESS!!! Thank god we got the trigger or I literally don't know what we would have done. I hate feeling disorganized at the best of times but this was next level!

Anyway, at last, I've done my final shots of Menopur and Cetrotide. Trigger injection is at 9 pm tonight. I cannot WAIT for a drug-free (and hopefully stress-free) day tomorrow!!! Bring on EC Friday.

[missl73]

I intend to try and enjoy my drug free day as I hate the progesterone pessaries with a vengeance! After yesterday’s dramas I am trying to re-set my mindset, after all these upsets I’ve kind of written off this cycle in my mind, it’s probably self preservation. I was so ready for a BFN in my first cycle and having had a BFP I’m trying not to assume that we’ll get a BFP again. Now I know my body can get pregnant I think I’ll find it much harder if it doesn’t work. I must stop comparing cycles because it isn’t helpful I know that really. I just so desperately want to be pregnant again, it’s crazy to think that by this time next week hopefully I’ll be PUPO again.

[missl73]

Egg collection: Today has been a total disaster I can’t stop crying. Firstly, from my 8 eggs collected only 4 were mature which was a shock and given our major problem is sperm it is a big worry - the doctor couldn’t explain why because my follicle sizes were good so it was unexpected. Then, to make things worse, the fluid in my uterus has increased and caused my lining to compact to 6.9 so I cannot have a transfer this week. IF by some miracle we get any to blastocyst that are good enough quality they will have to be frozen and I will have a FET in around 5 weeks. I honestly don’t believe we will get anything to transfer and I feel utterly devastated. We have waited so long and gone through so much to get this far for it all be for nothing. This process is so cruel.

The doctor said as long as you have 4 or more eggs my chances are the same as if I had got all 8 - I’m sure that might be true if you have good sperm but we don’t. I asked what the fluid was and she said it was probably an over-response to the high oestrogen levels but it could be because of scarring caused by my ERPC which makes me feel so guilty for having chosen surgical management. They are going to have to monitor the situation in any future cycle. The only sign in favour of it being because of my oestrogen levels is that it wasn’t present throughout this cycle, it only appeared in right at the very end. 

My mum was like you need to focus on things outside of IVF that make you happy but everything feels so bleak. I gave up a high powered and fulfilling job when we started this process 18 months ago so I get little to no satisfaction from my work. I don’t have one single friend in this country that is not currently pregnant or already a mum so I just don’t want to see anybody right now. We can’t book a holiday because we don’t know when we will be cycling again and I just can’t see how things are going to get better. I know eventually I will pick myself up and dust myself off but today I just feel so desperately sad 😭

[missl73]

Unexpected good news from the embryologist this morning, they were able to inject our 4 remaining eggs with grade 1 sperm and all 4 have fertilised. This means we actually only have one less embryo than we had in our previous “successful” cycle. I’m not allowing myself to get my hopes up yet, it’s been too hard and I need to protect myself but at least we have had some good news and I have to take some solace in that. Now we will try and have a nice weekend, I’m having my first caffeinated coffee in a year with my breakfast this morning and I fully intend to enjoy a couple of glasses of wine tonight - I think I deserve it!

[missl73]

Day 2 Embryos: I always find this part of the process so strange, the very thought that our potential future baby might be growing in a lab somewhere instead of inside of me.

I still haven’t got over the shock that we had any fertilise although rationally I know that DH has worked so hard to improve his sperm and the tests we did earlier this year showed us that it is indeed the best it’s ever been. The embryologist said that he had 46% motility and 2% morphology which is as good as we’ve ever had and we used IMSI this time which I guess explains the 100% fertilisation rate. I had done some reading (as always) after EC and what worries me is the scientific papers suggest that if the maturity rate of the eggs is less than 50% it’s correlated to lower success rates with the mature eggs you did get and really you want a maturity rate of over 70% for a good chance. However, I have literally done everything possible to improve egg quality and have done these things religiously since Feb 2018: I’m young(relatively speaking), tee-total, caffeine free, I exercise regularly, I’ve taken all the recommended supplements  - I’ve probably spent as much on vitamins, organic food, organic beauty products and natural cleaning products as I have on IVF in the last 15 months 😂 David Attenborough would be proud of the plastic free life we live in this house!! You name it we have done it.

On our first cycle our embryos were all top grades on day 3 (suggesting good egg quality) but I’m trying really hard not to expect the same again because I don’t want to be let down, I’ve learnt that expectations are dangerous in this process. I still can’t imagine we’ll have anything frozen to transfer but I can’t seem to squash the little bit of hope inside me which means inevitably if it doesn’t happen I’m going to feel sad. Physically I feel completely fine, I haven’t even taken paracetamol since EC and just carried on as normal. Emotionally, that’s where I find this whole process draining.

[missl73]

Waiting for these calls is torture and I don’t know what’s going to on because the clinic always calls before 9am but apparently not today. Perhaps it’s the bank holiday but nobody told me that would mean they weren’t doing calls. I’ve tried ringing the embryology number but nobody is answering. I think sometimes they just don’t think about how stressful this is for the patient it’s so frustrating.

[missl73]

Well you could knock me down with a feather. All four embryos are 8-cells and top grade so we have reason to be hopeful we will get at least 1 blastocyst. This reinforces my view that although we might not be able to get the biggest numbers, quality is definitely not our issue. Here is hoping that IMSI has helped overcome our quality issues on the sperm side - for anyone in the same position I read this yesterday which has made me feel like maybe it can in severe cases like ours https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5892103/#!po=1.25000. Now I can finally go out and enjoy the day, come on little embryos!!!

[missl73]

Embryos Day 4: I hope they are still growing away nicely. My body feels like it has relaxed, I was just so tense and worried but knowing they were going ok yesterday has allowed me to hope we might get at least one frozen - it doesn’t stop me dreaming about it every night though! I’ve decided to turn waiting for a FET into a positive opportunity to properly get back in the gym and get my body feeling healthy again. I put on 3kg during this cycle although I think a lot of that is water retention as I remain pretty bloated and tender since EC. I’m supposed to go to Madrid for work next week but I’m going to have to tell my boss there’s a risk I can’t go because I need to be around for a scan I think once AF arrives, I’m lucky she’s so understanding as this would be the second trip I’d have missed since starting this job in April!