Category: Support

Coping With IVF Failure – My Top 10 Tips

Coping With IVF Failure – My Top 10 Tips

by eggandspermraceblog ♥ 1 Comment

By early December last year (2017), I’d moved through the motions and I was ready for round 2. I had read about treating the first IVF cycle as a “trial and error” round and that you shouldn’t be too disheartened (if you can ever say that to a woman desperate for a child).

The consultant made adjustments to my drug cocktail recipe (we upped the dose to 450iu Menopur) and the protocol (we needed ICSI – see lessons from my first IVF cycle here).  The clinic was closing over Christmas for a few days, so we would only be able to start the second round if my period arrived by 3 December – and lo and behold, it arrived on that very day.  Aunt Flo had never been this compliant. This had to be a sign that it was our turn, surely…

The timing was perfect, we were staying in London over Christmas, I was off work for two weeks so I would have plenty of time to relax after transfer. Not that I’m religious, but this had to be our very own baby Jesus?!  Another sign, surely…

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Not TTCing… and Feeling Alive Again

Not TTCing… and Feeling Alive Again

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One of the most annoying things when you’re trying to conceive is other people’s [unhelpful] comments. The number one classic (which I’m sure you’ve all heard) is:  “you two just need a holiday and it will happen…”. I often feel like responding with “well, I’d prefer it if my chopped up uterus didn’t take a holiday”… but, of course, instead I smile awkwardly.

After two and a half years of operations, doctor’s appointments, ultrasound scans, drugs up to my ears and thinking about WHEN I’m going to have a baby 99.9% of the time, day and night, it turns out that what I did need was a holiday – NOT TTC, but to get away from it all.

In fact, this is the first time since the early days of our relationship that H and I actively tried not to get pregnant (and it was rather fun too 😉). With Olaf and Sven (our two chromosomally normal embryos) chilling (literally!) in the Frozen Land (read about our PGS testing here), our consultant urged us not to get pregnant during our three months off before transfer (which should hopefully be in September). I have always thought: “wouldn’t it be romantic or ironic (in the Alanis Morissette sense) if I just fell pregnant naturally midst all this fertility chaos?”

Who am I kidding?  H and I have never fallen pregnant naturally (the one and only time was through IUI) so this is really a romantic notion.  I’ve now changed my tune: I want a little test-tube baby Jesus.

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My Fellow (in)Fertility Warriors

My Fellow (in)Fertility Warriors

by eggandspermraceblog ♥ 1 Comment

I consider myself lucky because I have a lot of wonderful friends in a number of corners of the world.  With my closest friends, I talk about EVERYTHING, but yet through this process I have felt very lonely at times.   I feel that they just don’t get it.  In no way have they been rude or unsupportive – in fact, they are my cheerleaders – but there is no way I can expect them to understand what I am going through because they haven’t been through the same thing.  They can empathise, but it would be unfair of me to expect them to understand fully the pain and the trials and tribulations of the infertility journey.

One day when I was feeling particularly low – after my second IVF cycle had failed – one of my besties called me.  She acknowledged that, having just had her second baby without difficulties, she’d never be able to understand fully what I am going through.  She wondered if I’d like to speak to one of her university friends (who I knew briefly) about her infertility journey.  She connected us and my friend’s friend (who lives in the US) called me one evening.  We spoke for over an hour.  She shared her experience of her four-year long IVF journey that ended in a traumatic birth of her beautiful baby girl.  She gave me tips on how to cope through the lows and cherish the highs.  For the first time in a long time, I felt a little less lonely – there was someone out there who knew exactly what I was going through.  And for that I was, and still am, grateful.

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Five Go On A Frozen Adventure

Five Go On A Frozen Adventure

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I didn’t write an update regarding my little chicks as I had planned to on day 5 because as Ronan Keating so nicely put it “Life is a Rollercoaster”.  On day 5, the rollercoaster took me up high and then, 30 minutes later, threw me back down low.

The high: the embryologist called to let us know that we had two hatched blastocysts (grades AB and BB). These two little embryos were the best looking, highest grade embryos H and I had ever produced. In IVF round 2 and The Disaster Round (round 3), we only ever produced BC quality embryos and no hatched blastocysts on day 5. A few cells from each embryo have been sent off to a lab for PGS testing, and Elsa and Anna went off to the winter wonderland [a.k.a. the freezer] for their for their beauty sleep. Saturday’s straggler had degenerated, so it is our of the game.  The three remaining embryos were still developing on day 5, so the embryologist said she’d take a look at them again that afternoon and on the following day, day 6. She hoped that at least one of the three would develop into a blastocyst. I did a little happy dance.

The Low: 30 minutes after the embryologist called, my dad called. He asked if I had any news about the embryos and I delightedly told him about our two blastocysts. Sadly, that wasn’t why he had called. He wanted to let me know he had been diagnosed with bowel cancer. My world crashed.

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Connecting to My Little Chicks (Day 1 Update)

Connecting to My Little Chicks (Day 1 Update)

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The lovely embryologist called this morning with an update. One of the eggs collected had been immature, so the embryologist had performed ICSI on eight and six of them fertilized.  That’s a 75% fertilization rate – above average – and the embryologist called this an EXCELLENT fertilization rate. BOOM! I am happy.  H is happy.  We are back in the game, baby!

Now, we just need these little chicks to keep developing into beautiful blastocysts.  When I was little kid, I had a vivid imagination.  I had some cool imaginary friends (in addition to my human similarly-aged friends, I should add) called Mingan and Mangan.  My grandmother will recount endless stories of me (age 2) chatting away to these friends.  At that young age, I (obviously) didn’t know that talking to Mingan and Mangan would be great training for my future self (age 38) when connecting with my little chicks in a petri dish.  Currently, I’m whispering the following in a soft, motherly voice:

“Hello my six little chicks. You’re in the best possible place to develop into strong and healthy embryos and go on to be beautiful babies. You focus on dividing your cells at a normal rate and enjoy yourselves while you’re at the lovely lab. I’m ready to receive you when the time is right.”

I’ve been repeating this little pep talk a few times today and will continue repeating it. I believe in positive affirmations, and I’ve used them on and off during my fertility journey (and I’ll write more about that another day). They don’t work for everyone – and I do think it takes practice (whether or not you’ve had imaginary friends!) – but they work for me. They help me refocus and look forward, which has an extraordinary effect of calming me when I feel anxious. When I was pregnant I felt connected to my embryo because it was growing inside me. It’s hard to feel connected to your embryos when you’re doing IVF because sometimes I feel like I’m just going through the motions, going from appointment to appointment, from injection to injection… So, chatting to my embryos makes me feel connected to them.  And, it reminds me of the end game: to chat to my [real life] baby.

Good night my six little chicks 🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣🐣,

E.