False Alarm

I haven't blogged in over a week because I am royally pissed off. I had a false alarm over the weekend. I tested on peak +15 and got a quite strong line. I thought this might be down to residual hcg in my system from the pregnyl injections, so didn't get too excited. I tested again the following day and the line was still there, but weaker. So I thought ok, it's not happening.

Being the POAS addict that I am, I decided to give it one last test on Friday, peak +17. By this stage there shouldn't have been a sniff of hcg left in my system. I got a very faint positive. I went out and bought a double pack of digital tests. Tested again and got a "Pregnant 1-2". I still felt a wee bit sceptical about it, as I was feeling crampy, but then I have heard stories of women getting severe period like pains and then discovering that they are in fact pregnant. I phoned the clinic in Galway and they told me to get a blood test done to check progesterone and oestradiol levels, and start on progesterone support immediately.

This I did, but the following day something at the back of my mind was still making me feel doubtful, so I tested again. Not pregnant. I got another double pack of digital tests from the pharmacy (I'm so going to get a good dividend this year!) and tested again on Sunday and Monday morning. Both not pregnant. So there you are, false alarm. I rang the clinic back and told them, the doctor said it sounds like a false alarm alright, and to discontinue the progesterone support. I said my period was unusually late, but he said that is down to the synthetic progesterone in my system. So basically synthetic hcg remained in my system, temporarily fooling me into thinking I was pregnant, and now synthetic progesterone has fucked up my cycle and delayed my period.

My head is fucking melted. I hate all this.

Clomid - Take 9

Yes that right folks, I started my ninth round of clomid on Saturday night. I don't even know how long you are supposed be prescribed it for, i.e. how many cycles are deemed too many? When we went to see our fertility specialist last November/December, she told us that it could take up to a year for us to conceive again and we would just have to be patient. My patience is already wearing thin.

The really head meltingly frustrating thing about where we are right now is that before I ever went near clomid, hcg shots, naltrexone, mucodyne, pyrodoxine, fertility plus or any of the other plethera of supplements I am taking daily, I got pregnant relatively easily.

We started ttc in April 06, started using OPKs in Sept '06, started charting BBT in Oct '06 and bingo! We hit target that month. So first our attempt took us six months.

I miscarried at the end of November, we were advised to let one cycle go by before trying again, so we started again in January '07. This time it took two months. We definately had the knack at this stage.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the knacked of holding onto these little guys, and that pregnancy turned out to be a chemical one, or a very early miscarraige, whichever you want to label it. We decided not to waste any more time and went for it again the following month. Got pregnant on the first try. We lost this little bean at nine and a half weeks.

The next time we tried was October '07, and again we acheived our mission on the first attempt. This makes us sound like disgustingly fertile people, but my definition of fertility is one that includes a viable pregnancy and live birth. So when we lost this pregnancy at five and a half weeks, we knew that it was time to seek the help of a fertility specialist.

I do think when we first visited the clinic she did talk up our chances of success. She told us that they have an 80% success rate with recurrent miscarriage patients. She explained the process, finding the problem, treating the problem and counting effective cycles, and the anticipated timelines of each phase. She said since we didn't have an issue getting pregnant in the past, that we probably wouldn't have much of a problem in that department in the future. We just had to get the treatment right. We anticipated that this wouldn't take that many months to sort out. It ended up taking a year. A very long agonising year. A year in which our friends and family moved on with their lives. John's youngest brother and his wife had their first baby in that time. A couple who hadn't gotten together when we started ttc had their first baby and conceived their second. We were still stuck in reverse when everyone else was cruising along in top gear.

And here we still are. Stuck in the slow lane, plodding along. The next step might be to get John's side of things checked out. We are due back to the clinic on April 28th so we will see how we go from there. Last August I said I would give this another year and a half, then it's time to move on.

Pass me the crazy pills and hide the kitchen knives. Honey, I'm home!

Hello 2010

It's official, our last chance for a 2009 baby has left the building, as the painters entered it this afternoon. This coming month also marks the start of our fourth year of trying to conceive (including the medically enforced year off to get my hormones up to scratch).

I can't believe it's three years since we started all this. It was April 2006, we had just moved into our new house, John turned 40 and was made permanent in his job, and we knew it was now or never time. Little did we think that we would still have an empty house three years on.

I really had a good feeling about this month. We gave it our all. Took a weeks holidays to relax and dedicate ourselves to the cause. To put it bluntly, we went at it like rabbits. I had all the symptoms. I was so sure. As soon as I saw the temp drop yesterday morning I knew. I tested anyway last night, just in case, since I wasn't feeling at all crampy and my boobs were killing me. BFN. Temperature was down again this morning. Cramps started around 11am.

So we're looking at 2010 at the earliest, if we are lucky. I think the worst thing about this right now is not knowing when it's going to end. I just want a normal life where I am not stuffing my gob with supplements and vitamins and fertility drugs all the time. Where we don't have to figure out how to pack and transport my hcg shots, which have to be kept refrigerated, every time we want to go on a weekend away or a holiday. Where I'm not constantly knicker watching and counting cycle days. Where we are normal people with a normal family life and not the childless freaks whom everyone feels sorry for.

Auntie Flo is a bitch from hell

Why do periods have to be so goddam painful? It's enough that they show up when you least want them, taunting you "na-na-nee-na-naaaaaa, you're not pregnant", but they back that up with crippling back pain, belly ache and general all over shitty feeling. I just want to curl up into a corner and cry today.

I know, it's only two months since we got the go ahead to try again, and I shouldn't be expecting it to happen for us straight away, but in April it will be three fucking years since we started trying to conceive. Three years. There's a couple I know expecting their second baby who hadn't even gotten together when we started ttc. And we are still stuck in this shitty never ending rut. And I'm going to be 40 in just over 4 months time. It's not fair. This was supposed to be our happy ending. Why is it so easy for some people and so very hard for others?

Groundhog Day

Just got my blood test results for this month.

Worse than last month.

Progesterone - 35.9 (needs to be 60-100)
Oestradiol - 332 (needs to be 400-800)

I am so shit sick of all this.

Statistics

I was thinking the other day, as I face yet another monthly blood test, of my stats since we started on this long ttc journey.

So here's what I have counted so far:

Number of months since we started trying to conceive: 28
Number of BFPs: 4
Number of losses: 4
Number of ERPCs (D&C's): 2
Number of blood tests: 18 approx
Number of dildo cam scans: 17
Number of laparoscopies & hysteroscopies: 1 of each
Number of general anaesthetics: 3
Number of hcg injections: 30 (2 more to go this month)
Number of clomid cycles: 2
Number of Euro spent on all of the above: 2,600 + approx
Number of successful pregnancies: Nil
Age at next birthday: 40

And they tell me to relax and try not to dwell on it?

Edited to revise upwards no of dildo cam scans and amount of money spent.

By this time next year...

I'm very lucky in that I am married to an eternal optimist. J is the most positive person I have ever met in my life. It's probably one of the biggest reasons I married him, along with his innate kindness and sense of fun. (And he's quite easy on the eye too!) Every time I have got to the end of my tether in this whole baby quest, he just says "Just think, this time next year, we could have a baby". At first I used to agree with him, but now I'm beginning to lose that hope.


When we first started trying to conceive, it was just after his 40th birthday. We were both sure it would happen quickly. I think the terror of pregnancy which had been drummed into me all during my teenage years made me think that one incidence of unprotected sex would be all it would take. So, at the age of almost 37 years old, I had unprotected sex for the very first time. And guess what? I didn't get pregnant!! Life WTF was I obsessing about for the previous fifteen or so years? At the end of that month, the night before our first wedding anniversary, I went to Galway to meet a close friend of mine who was setting off on her travels around the world with her boyfriend for two years. As I waved them goodbye, I remember thinking that the next time I would see them would be 2008, and we would definately have a baby by then.

When I got pregnant and miscarried that November, Christmas turned from being the dream Christmas to the nightmare. We had moved into our own house in the Spring of 2006, and after spending almost 18 years renting and paying other peoples' mortgages, I was finally at long last paying my own. We were so looking forward to having our first Christmas in our own house. We had to dig our heels in to get J's parents to accept our invitation to Christmas dinner. I think the dynamic in a lot of Irish families when it comes to hosting Christmas is that you are the children until you have children of your own. As in unless you have children, you are expected to pack up and go "home" to Mammy and Daddy for the holidays. Well I wasn't having any of that, I had waited long enough, and we were having Christmas under our own roof and that was that. Then I became pregnant, and the way the dates were working, I would have been 13 weeks gone around Christmas Day, which made for the perfect time to share our news with J's parents.


Then it all went to shit. I found out on November 14th that I had had a missed miscarriage, and a week later I had a D&C. As far as I was concerned, Christmas was cancelled, only nobody told the rest of the world. So we went through the motions, bought the presents, cooked the turkey, and got through it. Everyone told me that it would all be different in a year's time, and I tried to believe them.


Then the following April, I found out I was pregnant, due on the 21st December. So Christmas 2007 was going to be The Best Christmas Ever Ever. Only it didn't turn out that way, I lost the baby in May. In October, I found out I was pregnant again, with pretty much the same timing as the previous year. I would have been 12 weeks gone on Christmas Day (do you see a pattern developing here?) And same as the previous year, it was not to be. When everyone said "Just think, this time next year it will all be different", I just couldn't put on my happy face and agree. All I could think was "Yeah right, that's what you said last year". If I thought Christmas 2006 was grim, it was nothing compared to Christmas 2007. All I could think was that I could not wait to see the back of 2007, which had turned into the year from hell.


Last March, J's youngest brother told us that his wife was expecting their first baby in September. We were of course happy for them, but sad for ourselves at the same time. J kept saying to me "don't worry, by the end of the summer, you'll be pregnant too". Well it's hurtling towards the end of August, their baby is due in a month's time, and we're still not even allowed to try again. And my friends who went on the two year around the world trip? Well they came back from their trip of a lifetime last April, and they are getting married in two weeks time, and here we still are. When they announced their impending nuptuals, my first thought was "I might be pregnant by then". Then I thought "Or I might not, don't get your hopes up". At least I get to wear this little number to their wedding, stretchy enough to accomodate my post op stitches after the lap on Friday.

The next "I might be pregnant by then" milestone is of course Christmas. I have decided that if it's not happening by then, I'm booking us on a flight to somewhere sunny. We have a family member moving to Dubai, with ample spare rooms and a swimming pool so that seems like the perfect antidote to the not pregnant blues. The next milestone after that is my 40th birthday next May. Since I didn't get pregnant this month, it's now official that I will not be having babies in my 30's. That was a tough one to accept, and I think that was the crunch point for starting this blog. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be looking down the barrel of 40 years old and still childless. So if it's not happening by then, I honestly don't know what I will do. I certainly won't feel like throwing a birthday party, that's for sure.

Close but no cigar.

Well the bloods results are in.

Progesterone good - 70.7
Oestradiol bad - 296

Which is pretty much where we were two months ago. This is really beginning to feel like Groundhog Day. Just going around in circles and getting nowhere.

We're back to the clinic on Wednesday, so we will see where we go from there.

Fuck it anyway.