12 weeks today

Everything's good! Or so I hope, I will have my NT scan next week and I am praying for my little one to be ok. We've been in Spain on holiday for the whole month and I have been feling quite miserable even though they gave me antinausea tablets that took away some of my 24/7 morning sickness but still.

Today I am convinced it's not too bad. I'm pretty sure it's because I am hoping that it will decrease now. Pretty please baby. I am so tired of being sick and tired.

I will update more often now that we are back in Ireland, I've so many things to write about, being pregnant, telling people, BO, my hate for Crinone and much more...

Til then here's a picture of when we found out, I'm the one on the right.

Why being pregnant sucks

 WARNING! Hormonal post ahead:

Ok, so I remember when my partner was telling everybody that she wasn't herself because she was pregnant. I get it now. Everybody think that for a woman being pregnant is the most beautiful, romantic feeling ever. For me it's not. And I hope nobody will get offended reading this. I know how lucky I am, I am growing life inside me and it's a miracle and blah blah blah. But the truth is that I am sick. I feel sick and I know I won't feel any better tomorrow, or the following day. This sick feeling is going to stay until al least the end of August if I am lucky. Then I will probably write about how great I feel But in the meantime I am an angry, frustated and 10% version of my former happy self.

I go to the kitchen and cry. I spend all my time in bed. I shut down all friends and family because I cannot face life as I knew it. Because I am sick.

Sorry for this sour post but the truth needs to come out, being pregnant is tough, more than the overdose of hormons of the IVF stimulation and the sore ovaries, more than the Egg Retrieval especially if you have 24/7 morning sickness and you have to listen to Doctors and nurses telling you how there's nothing they can prescribe to make you feel better. But sure not eating or drinking enough cannot be good for my baby can it?

Morning sickness, I hate you.

I love food, I love cooking it and I love eating it, I am italian for God sake! And since last week I can't stand the thought of any food that is not boiled rice or crackers. Yep, that's all I've been eating. Where is the healthy eating gone? Where are the fruits and veg full of goodness for me and my little one? I blame morning sickness, my n. 1 enemy at the moment.

And I'm not even 6 weeks yet! Is it going to stop? Is it going to get worse? 

I am exhausted. And complaining, a lot, which I shouldn't since I wanted this so bad i have to take it and shut up. But in some way I can't think of morning sickness that lasts all day as the baby's fault. So for me, they are two separate things, one I love and one I hate.

My first u/s is in 2 weeks, on the 31st, I can't wait to meet this little one of course!

Dreaming about not feeling sick,

Mamma V.

It looks like I am PREGNANT!

I'm still in shock. I was hoping and praying for this so much that now that it is happening I feel like I am on another planet half of the time!

I went in for my beta yesterday as the happiest person on hearth, I told the nurse I did test earlier in the week and got a positive and she said that a positive hpt on 8dp5dt is pretty good. Yey! When I was leaving I met one of the nurses that was with me since my first cancelled IUI in September 2011, she knows me very well by now and she stopped and smile at me. I knew she knew straight away! She told me she was going to try to get the Lab to ring me back with the result ASAP. I love her.

Funny enough I missed the call. The nurse left a message, I listened to it and she said it was good news and that she would try to ring me later! Who ho! She did ring and told me my beta at 11dp5dt was 574! Holy shit! My first thought after 5 minutes of googleing was TWINS! OMG! We are delighted a bit scared I have to admit but we feel so lucky and if it is twins what do they say? double the fun! And if it is one it's still perfect! 

Now the symptoms. Not much to report, I feel quite tired and need to rest more often than usual, I yawn a lot but then at night I wake up, start thinking and cannot go back to sleep until it's time to get up. Uff... I am definitly eating more, enjoying my food and try to eat healthy stuff. No coffee, no coke and no alcohol. I had some kind of very very mild nausea but if I eat it goes away starght away.

So far so good, my wife and daughter are over the moon and kiss my belly whenever they can. I know it's still early stages, we keep saying 'if everything goes well...' I really hope it will, meanwhile I want yo enjoy every second of this miracle. (or miracles!)

not much to report

Things are pretty quiet here, I'm still on the BCP, I will take the last one on saturday. I can't wait to stop having headaches and mood swings, I hate BCP, actually I think I hate all the TTC medications. I started my Buserelin injection last monday and they are not too bad. I choose the injections instead of the nasal spray because they said that nasal spray could give headaches and sinus problems. So no way. Injections are fine, I'm so used to them and so is my poor belly.

I will go for a u/s on thursday to check that everything is ok but that's all.

Not much happening, I have to wait until the end of June for some excitement, until then I can worry about so many things like will I get to the tranfer this time? Will my embryos thaw nicely? will they get to day 5? How many will they thaw? Should I take time off work and stay in bed the following day?

I know I am a worrier. Great that DW is quite the opposite, that's probably why she got pregnant at 36 on her third IUI with only 1 follicle. Lucky girl : )

Well I'm kind of glad she did, our daughter is just the most amazing thing we've ever done. And that's why we would like another one, for her to grow up with a brother or a sister and for us to know she's not on her own. Having two mothers is going to be challenging. Even if the world is changing she will have to face bigotry and hate. It will be nice if she could have somebody with her apart from her moms.

That's my little girl

and we have a FET plan.

Great! I'm so excited finally the nurse from the clinic rang this morning with dates for my FET cycle. So I will be on the pill until the beginning of June and will start injections (don't remember the name) on the 28 May for 3 weeks the I will have 3 ultrasound in the middle of June and if everything looks good I will have the transfer on the 26 June!!!

Now finger crossed everything will go well. I am happy because there is definitely less medications, less pressure, less work for my poor ovaries. I just have to hope my body is ready for my little embryos and that they will thaw ok and grow.

After ER I had 13 embryos frozen on day 1. So the nurse told me they will thaw all of them and grow them hopefully to day 5. Then they will choose the best 2 and tranfer them. I can't wait to have them back.

What are your thoughts on 2 slash 1 embryo transfer? At my clinic they like to tranfer 2 at a time because they say there is more probability of success. I wasn't sure and I wanted to talk to the embryologist about tranferring only 1 considering that it is my first transfer and apparently I don't have any fertility issue (just bad luck) but after reading about it and talking to DW I decided to go for 2 embryos tranfer. 

If we have twins it means it was meant to be. If we get pregnant with one we will be as happy. I have to say twins kind of scare me, we are living abroad, our family are far and so we don't get much support but I guess we will have to manage! I always wanted a big family anyway ; )

Well all this "if" I get pregnant...

Positive thinking. Positive thinking. Positive Thinking. 

I should start meditation.

Still waiting

Here I am still waiting for the nurse to give me dates for my FET. I rang her twice this week only to hear that she was very busy and didn't have the time and that she would get back ASAP. I wonder what how long will it take for her to decide when will I stop the BCP and go for a few scan and hopefully do my FET : )

I will try not to think about it. In the meantime my boobs are already starting to be sore and I'm quite moody. 

TGIF

Happy weekend!

All good down there

So I went to the Clinic today for an U/S, the nurse was delighted to see that all is back to normal, no pockets of fluid, no oversized ovaries, nice lining, oh thatk's God I'm so relieved.

So from today I'm back to the BCP for a couple of weeks, they will ring me tomorrow or wednesday with dates for my FET cycle, it's funny how much I can learn in a few days, before the ER I didn't even know what a FET was. Still I'm not too sure about the protocol, apparently they will help my lining even though I don't think it needs any help and they will give an injection or something.

Well, I'll wait for the call and ask more questions.

That's all for now, I can't wait to start again. Finger crossed this is going to be the one.

My unexpected OHSS

It's time to write about what happened 2 weeks ago. After the last scan before eggs collection everything looked well, I told the nurse my ovaries felt tender and I was basically quite uncomfortable but she told me it was normal considering I had 13 follicles on my right ovary and about 8 on the other one. 

So egg retrieval was scheduled for the 1st of May, I was asked to take that day and the following off work and even though it was so difficult to lie I told my Manager I had to have surgery on my ovaries to remove a cyst. I just don't feel comfortable telling her the truth.

On the day of ET we left our little girl with the nanny and went to the clinic, while I was waiting I was smiling and joking even though I was very nervous about the procedure, I never had sedation before...

Anyway I said goodbye to E. and went into theatre. I remember the nurse asking me a few questions while the doctor was inserting the IV into my arm, I remember asking him if we were going for a 5 days transfer or a 3 days and he said 5, so I asked if it was going to be on sunday and he said oh yes we work everyday here, we have no life! I remember answering "but you give life!" And with that I was gone.

I woke up in the recovery room, E. was there, I remember being very sleepy but no pain at all. I asked the nurse if everything went well and she said yes and that the doctor would come to talk to me. 

The doctor came and told me they were very happy because they got 20 eggs, but unfortunately they were going to freeze them all because I was at high risk of OHSS.

Then my world collapsed. All the stress, waiting, hoping it would all be done in 5 more days and yet again I wasn't going to have the transfer. After canceling IUIs because I had too many follicles and starting IVF because of that I still wasn't going to do it. Arghhhhhhh!!!

I got very upset, E. was quite mad at the doctor for not telling her before when she asked if everything was ok. I tried to get up but felt really dizzy and had to stay in the clinic for 3 more hours before being able to get up. 

I only drank a glass of water and got sick on the way home in the car. Went to bed straight away and slept until the following day when the OHSS symptoms started.

I woke up feeling ok, I got up to go to the bathroom and oh God I was sore, all my abdominal area was hurting like I did 1500 sit ups and I couldn't walk properly. Peeing was sore but I was told to drink a lot of water, milk and gatorade and monitor my urine to make sure there was no fluid building up in my abdomen.

So I spent the day between the sofa, the fridge and the toilet. Google was my friend and enemy, I couldn't help reading all the worst case scenario and seeing myself not being able to breath and in the hospital. (I know I am very tragic)

The following day I went to the clinic for a scan, my ovaries were still quite swollen and the nurse found 2 pockets of liquid in my abdominal cavity. Panic. What now I asked? She said they might have to drain it in theatre. Noooooooo. Not again.

After consulting with the doctor she told me they were not too concerned and to keep drinking and to keep monitoring urine and weight. So I did. Went home and drank until I couldn't anymore.

The following day I was in less pain but nausea came. I couldn't eat or drink anymore, I started having issues with ending a breath, I don't know how to explain but it's like I couldn't breath properly in order to do it I had to keep yawning all the time. My abdomen and belly felt very bloated and I was ok only in bed. So I watched 'contagion', ahaha, bad choice for an hypochondriac eh!

Anyway I started feeling better on the sunday night, 6 days after, I didn't go back to work until monday and today i still feel tired but since I got my period I've got a sense of relief. Now I only hope my poor ovaries will go back to normal and that I got rid of the extra liquid in my abdomen.

I know I only had a mild case of OHSS but still it has been a nightmare and in fairness it was unlucky but I am happy my doctor decided to cancel my transfer. If I was to get pregnant I know my symptoms were going to get pretty serious and I could have end up in hospital, not a nice way to start a pregnancy.

So now I'm waiting again, I'm going to lie to my boss again and it feels awful but I don't have any other solution at the moment. TTC is something so personal and being italian I am also quite superstitious so if one day I will be pregnant I won't say anything until the 12 weeks mark.

So this is my OHSS story, it ended well, I am ok now but I hope that if any of you will have to experience it you'll be prepared and everything will be ok.

Happy to see you, AF.

So after the egg retrieval I was expecting my period to be late but instead it came a week early! Yey, I was so happy this morning even though the cramping was killing me. Now the problem was that I was suppose to go in for a scan to make sure my ovaries are back to normal after OHSS on day 1 in order to start BCP straight away. But today is Saturday! So at my clininc they only answer the phone to emergencies!

I left three messages. On the third one I told them I was going to start BCP anyway. So the nurse rang me back. She told me there is no need to start straight away I can start on day 3 or 4 so I will go in on monday and hopefully my ovaries will look ok and they will give me dates for my FET.

Oh this waiting game is so cruel. It's not even the waiting it's being scared that things won't go your way.

where to start

I finally decided to start this TTC blog after I've been obsessing over all the TTC blogs on the net for the past year. I'm V. and this is my story.

I have been TTC for the past year with very little results but you can read that in my TTC Timeline.

I am happly married to my spanish wife and in 2010 we were blessed by the arrival of our beautiful daughter  conceived by my wife through IUI with donor sperm. I know we were very lucky but we really feel we should give her a sibling and we are doing our best to make it happen.

I am not a very patient woman and this process has been hard and sometimes emotionally draining. But I am trying to be strong and hope for the best. It is not over yet. So here we go!