Twisted Ovaries

The Temperature is Slowly Rising

Right, so the scan today revealed that I'm now at 11 eggs, which isn't stellar but it does meet egg share requirements.  Egg share in the UK works thus: the donee pays the cost of her IVF cycle and my IVF cycle, provided I have at least 8 eggs.  If I don't make the 8 egg department (4 each, and should I have 9 eggs then I get the extra one), then I have two choices:

1) I pay the clinic the cost of her cycle and my cycle and I keep my eggs.
2) I give her all the eggs and my next cycle at the clinic is free.

Rock?  Meet Hard Place.  Hard place, this is Rock.

So hopefully we'll make the grade.  I am to stay on the high dose of Menopur and see if some of the smaller follicles  can catch up-some of my big follicles are still the same size (around 15mm), but most are 8-9 mm now.  There is a risk that in trying to catch up the little follicles I will lose my big follicles, so I'm now thinking of all my follicles in there as being something blown out of the plastic tube of Wonder Bubble in the back garden on a hot summer day. 

The moods aren't good here-me because I'm worried about this cycle, Aidan because he hates going to the clinic so much.  11 is better, but I still don't feel I am out of the woods here. Maybe it's because this is IVF, and as with all things fertility I am a natural pessimist, because being a pessimist hurts less.  I should be doing cartwheels that I have 11 I know-I know that for a lot of women, 11 is a bumper crop.  I guess I'm just struggling because my body has always rocked on like a party animal on the minimum doses before.  Truthfully, I felt like my body let me down when I miscarried, and now my body is slightly letting me down again.

I used to think the hard part in IVF was getting the embryos to implant.  Then I thought the hard part was getting them to stay.  Now?  Now I just think the whole fucking thing is hard.

Today I'm going to work on being positive.  I was positive before, I'm going to get positive again.  I hope to return with a slightly more humorous outlook in my next post, I'll go mainline some Robin Williams and see where it gets me. 

Next scan is on Friday, at which point we count up the number of ranch hands in the corrall and decide if Monday we do egg retrieval or if it gets pushed to next Wednesday.

Party on.

Well, Shit

A little less than a year ago we kicked off our first IVF cycle as a couple.  I was put on the minimum doses, and my body responded with near-clinical perfection.  Last summer we had our FET, and once again my body responded like clockwork.

Somewhere, the cogs stopped being oiled. 

We went for our first scan today. 

It did not go well.

I've been on stims for 6 days now, the exact same doses as last time (20 of Buserelin, 150 of Menopur).  6 days into my cycle last time the scan revealed 14 follicles.  As an egg share donor I need to have at least 8 follicles because the donee has to get 4 and I have to get 4.  If I don't have 8, some pretty painful decisions need to be made. 

The scan revealed I have 7 follicles, plus a few tiny ones that may or may not catch up (but not boding well this far into the protocol).

7 follicles-half of what I had the same way into the same protocol 10 months ago.

Just 7.

I am apparently not stimulated enough (insert sexual joke of preference here.)

The sizes of the follicles are strange, too-I have some pretty large follicles, which would lead one to think that I am nearing the end of my protocol.  Ironically I've been feeling really uncomfortable inside, but I had convinced myself it was just nerves as there was no way they could be around the 15mm mark already.  But they are-many of mine are 12-15mm in size already, which I'd expect to see on Wednesday, not today. 

For the first time in my history at this IVF clinic, they drew blood to check estradiol numbers (they don't do that over here.  In the States you're all human IVF pincushions but in the UK, they just go for the muff viewings, the needles are for the hardcore.)  I should hear from them later today about the results-the blood draw in itself was unusual-each time they stuck me the veins would collapse down.  I've never, ever had this happen.  It took them 5 extraordinarily painful tries to get any blood at all. 

Based on the numbers, I'm to call the clinic late today to see if they're going to up my dosage.  If they don't up my dosage, my egg retrieval date may slide out a few days.  In the meantime I will drink more water than I am already drinking (Call me Ishmael).  I nearly cried today from all of this, and I've been coping really well on this cycle.  We took fucking ages at the clinic, Aidan missed two meetings which has him feeling pretty unhappy, I have absolutely loads of work to do but think I am going to bunk off and go to yoga to try to get my head in a good place instead, and I all I can do is wait and see what dosage tonight bodes (I won't know what the numbers will mean as I've never had to do this before, and I will resist being a googlechondriac, I will simply follow whatever dose they then tell me to).

They say a woman's body reaches a reproductive point where it starts to all go downhill in terms of response.

I'm beginning to wonder if I have hit that point.

I am feeling really, really stressed out now, in a cycle where so far I've been nearly comatose.  Maybe this all works out ok and I am just over-reacting (because that never happens.)

Next scan on Wednesday.

*UPDATED* Clinic just rang-apparently my estradiol numbers were so shite that they haven't increased my dosage from 150 to 225, as we'd discussed.  Instead, they're doubling my dose from 150 to 300 in hopes of "catching my eggs up".  I'm stressed as fuck and tears are very, very near.

*ALSO UPDATED*  Yoga was fucking cancelled.  CANCELLED.  They instead offered me a "stretch and tone" session, to which I thought: Bitch, please.  I do the grown-up yoga and you want to give me stretch and tone?  That's like offering a hardcore weekend bender a bottle of breast milk.  Don't waste my time.

*Crackles*

*Crackles*

-Uh, Houston?  This is Rogue Uterus here, over.

*Crackles*

-Houston here, Rogue Uterus.  What's the problem, over.

*Crackles*

-Uh, no problem here, Houston.  We're just waiting for the green light on the stim portion of our space walk?  Over.

*Crackles*

- Copy that, Rogue Uterus.  Need to check with the Space Captain Commander, he was due to scope the surface of the martian uterus planning to take half your payload.  Said Space Captain Commander, after washing his hands and petting his Aston Martin, may be getting a few links in, can you call back in an hour?  Over.

*Crackles*

-*deep sigh* Roger that Houston.  Will cackle back at you in an hour, over.

*Crackles*

*One hour passes*

-Come in Houston, this is Rogue Uterus here, over.

*Crackles*

-Got you loud and clear, R.U., over.

*Crackles*

-Yeah, we're going to need a green light or a red light on that stimming, Houston.  We're so choked up with nerves over here we think we just dropped chicken eggs in our shorts, over.

*Crackles*

- Thanks for that visual, Rogue Uterus, we think we've at least figured out why you're infertile.  Space Captain Commander still not responded yet, please call back in one hour, over.

*Crackles*

-Oh for fuck's sake, I...oh.  Shit, I didn't realize this was on.  Ahem.  Roger pronto 1-2-Niner, Houston. Will call back shortly.  Over.

*Crackles*

*More damn time passes.*

-Houston?

*Crackles*

-Rogue Uterus?

*Crackles*

-Yeah, it's Rogue Uterus.  Is anyone else calling you and sounding so desperate, huh?  HUH?  So, what?  Is it a yes for stims or should I go and try to suck out the alcohol from the freeze dried vanilla extract out here?  OVER.

*Crackles*

-Yes Rogue Uterus.  It's a go for stims.  Start tonight.  Drink lots of water and milk and eat all the  protein you can get.  See you Monday for your first scan.  Over.

*Crackles*

*Weeps with relief.*

Over.

Please Hold While We Process Your Request

Home now from the clinic. 

The clinic, for a change, nearly kicked my ass.  It's a nice clinic, in a "nameless, soulless hospital" kind of way.  There are now many, many frames full of happy bouncing babies-(psst!  Docs!  Umm, while we like to see success rates it's a bit much to see, oh, about 5,000 pictures of babies as we wait for our uteri to wake the fuck up.  I'm just saying.)  I was supposed to have a few swabs done-the clinic like to have all the tests up-to-date, and a few of mine that I did over a year ago need re-doing (I think it's syphillis and gonorrhea? Or chlamydia?  Or some other sexually transmitted disease that has a high squick factor?  I can't remember, all I know is I get to spread 'em for an enormous Q-Tip in order to update my tests.)  The problem is, I'm still bleeding from my period.

Nine days on.

Fun times, my friend.  Fun times.

So the swab and carry is postponed until next week, where hopefully the bleeding has stopped (and if it hasn't I'm cauterizing myself shut.)

Anyway, in the waiting room Aidan and I were blessed with the company of not one baby, but TWO.  TWO BABIES.  From two different families.  One baby was the trophy baby ("Lookee what you created here!  Quick, add us to the wall!"), the other apparently a trophy baby while accompanying Ma and Pa Kettle to the clinic to start off another cycle.  Which immediately leads to me being a whore-Your child isn't even six months old yet, and you're already starting all over again?  What, that whole sleeping thing starting to get on your nerves?

I point out to Aidan the folly of bringing children to an IVF clinic.

"Well, it is why you're all here.  You get to see the ultimate goal there," he shrugged.

"Yeah, I know.  Only, it's more like "'I beat the odds, nanny-nanny-boo-boo!'" I chant.  I shrug.  "It just seems kinda' tacky to me, like bringing a box of chocolates to a Weight Watchers meeting."

So then we got scanned.

I'd been worried that maybe the medication wasn't working, as I've had few side effects-some night sweats, the marvelous 9 Day Bleed, but nothing much else.  With one makeout session with the internal wand, however, it turns out that my uterus is so quiet you can hear crickets.  The Buserelin has done its job.  This house is clean.

But the recipient-the other woman who is receiving half of my eggs-isn't.

The nurse tried to broach this with us delicately.  Turns out she's still working with Tangina the tiny clairvoyant and ridding her uterus of her own poltergeists.  The recipient has another scan on Wednesday, at which point we'll know what to do. 

In the meantime, although my body is ready to start the stims (aka "ovary kicking egg production overload), I can't.  Mr Bump will have to stay in the freezer for now, he'll not be cooling off my injection sites anytime soon.  I'm on hold until Wednesday, continuing with the down-regulating meds in the meantime.  We're not sure what this will do to my cycle and my dates now, but we're a bit stressed about the schedule-we have egg retrieval set for the 5th of February, egg transfer on the 7th, and Aidan's daughter and her best friend arrive to stay with us for a long weekend on the 8th-we don't want to tell her what's going on with this for now, and the dates are stressing me out big time. 

I call the clinic late Wednesday and figure out where we go from here, and I can only hope that the recipient's down-reg is complete.

I guess my exorcisms work faster.

My uterus is such a kiss up.

Reaching the Halfway Point

Do be do be dooooo....

Right.

So I'm nearing the halfway mark of this cycle.  And you wanna know something?  Come in closer.  Leeeeeeeeean in...

I haven't been thinking about this cycle very much.

I KNOW.  You might think: That ungrateful whore, she doesn't deserve IVF!  She hasn't been dwelling over her cycle constantly?  It's not foremost in her mind?   But the truth is, I think I've just been down this IVF path so many times  that it's becoming something  that doesn't own me anymore.  I am cycling.  I am injecting myself.  This is life.  I should start stims on Monday*.

I have been so vacant I nearly forgot my shot one evening, so we have had to set an alarm.  I have had few side effects this time around-I remember the last two cycles everything made me cry.  Now?  Not so much.  I had one crying jag, but as it turns out that was likely PMS-even my period took me by surprise.  I went to the toilet on Saturday and saw blood on the paper.  I looked up and shook my fist at God, thinking But I already miscarried, I can't do it again! when I realized I was being a fucking Muppet-stuffing toilet paper in the crotch of my knickers I went downstairs to check the calendar in the kitchen.  The calendar is my routine, it is where I have-for my entire life, since I have started to have this bleeding every fucking 26 days (because 28 would be too much to ask for)-ticked a tiny X on the bottom of every day I bleed.  I counted up and sure enough-it was Period Party central time. 

So I can't even count a crying jag.

I think I might have had one hot flash yesterday, that might count.  Of course, I was also wearing three layers of clothing and had to run for the train, so that might have something to do with it. 

I half wonder if this cycle is even working.  Maybe instead of Buserelin they gave me water.  I'm on the placebo.  Somewhere there's a file that says "Vanessa-Lab Rat Extraordinaire".

But I do still feel positive about this cycle, actually.

And I feel positive for the other woman, too.

About the BBC thing-I'm a bit torn.  On the one hand, you did get the impression that desperate women were being preyed upon.  On the other, it is a private hospital-they can charge what they want.  They do have good success rates, but I did wonder if all that they offered up was really necessary.  I remember in that Child Against All Odds programme that at least  one of the women on the show was at that clinic.  She wound up getting pregnant, so where there's smoke...

But he did smack of "cowboy" a bit to me, but then I go to a very conservative clinic, so what would I know.

Onwards and upwards.  The cycle continues.

*for those of you new to this game or from the other site, an IVF protocol generally works thus (and this is the easy version, I don't do the technical side of it):

1- you put yourself into a state of menopause using a nasal spray or injections.  This is where I currently am.  You want to keep your body from ovulating, have a period and strip the uterus back to the hardwood floors, and ensure your lining gets very thin.  This part is called down-regulating.

2-once your lining is nice and thin and the ovaries are "quiet", you then throttle back the other direction and take a new drug, an injection, designed to kick the shit out of your ovaries.  This part is called stims, for stimulation of the ovaries (although I can't stop wondering when they're going to scream "Yes!  Yes!  Yessssssssssss!")  You start producing eggs (follicles).  You keep taking the menopause-like drug, but just enough to keep from ovulating, because if you do that it's party over for the cycle.  You want a good number of eggs, our clinic believes this is anywhere from 6-20.  For an egg donor, I need at least 8.  In my last two cycles, I had 21 and 19, so I'm hoping to be somewhere around that mark.

3-once you have lots of nice follicles that are nice and big, you take a final shot, called a trigger shot.  This is a hormone like hcg, which is the hormone you produce when you're pregnant.  This shot is designed to get the follicles ready to ovulate, only the doctors come in with big needles (and nice dreamy anesthetic) before that, and take out the follicles.

4-at this point, you start taking progesterone (in the States it's usually a painful injection, in the UK it's usually a messy vaginal suppository) to get your body ready.  The clinic introduces the eggs and the sperm by first name.  They make out and (if you've sacrificed enough virgins) become embryos.

5-our clinic transfers the embryos after 2 days into the nice shmoopy uterus.

6-thus starteth the dreaded two week wait, or 2ww, during which time I keep shoving the suppositories (aka waxy bullets) up the hoch and wait and see if the embryos will take or not.  A pregnancy test after two weeks will provide the answer.

I've Always Hated Rubberneckers

Many years ago I dated a guy my friends and I called The Painter, not because he could paint or was sensitive or had chopped his ear off to show his love or anything like that, but because he was a real insensitive thick-o (proving that A) what a crazy and zany cat I am for using irony and B) I used to really pick some winners, I tell ya.)  The Painter was very, very close to his family, in a weird way that smacked ickily of "the family that lays together stays together", although I'm pretty sure it had never gotten that far before.  Anyhow, while we were together my grandfather took very ill and then passed away.  I called The Painter to tell him that I was off to a funeral.  Before I knew it, I had him and his family in the living room.

"What happened?" his mother asked gently.

I explained about my grandfather had been ill and then died.

"Oh," she said, her eyes a limpid pool of Deliverance blue.  "What kind of illness?"

Taken aback, I replied.  "Cancer.  It spread from his lungs through his body."

She nodded and looked at her husband, also nodding.  "Yup, cancer'll do it."

And I realized what they were doing-they were doing what old people do.  They were collecting statistics.  The elderly seem to have an internal notebook in their head, marking down the ways to go and the number of ways people fall headfirst into the coffin.  This is not me being ageist- I did get this verified once by an elderly woman I knew, who confirmed that as you get into your "twilight years" (and whoever coined that term needs a good sucker punch in the gut), you do start getting pretty matter of fact about it and wanting to gather info on those who punch their final time card and how they did it.  You find out how, say, Sid went or how Mary popped her clogs and you cluck your tongue and say something along the lines of "Yeah, that's a bad one.  I know a woman who went that way, you wouldn't believe the medications involved!" and then you drink more tea.  You like to know how people go as it populates the internal Excel spreadsheet in the mind, proving that while you only need 4 hours of sleep at a time and have the memory of a banana, you can indeed place your bets on the Grim Reaper.

I think infertile women are much the same.  We check in on some regulars (as you do), but we also wander on to websites of women that are cycling, purely in a rubbernecker statistics kind of way.  Maybe a website (for example Cyclesistas) leads you there.  Maybe it's a link in a post-"Go visit Sheilaz_dogs1471 as she sits through her tormented 2ww!", and you think "Christ, I have to check that out.  She's on her 2ww!  How many transferred?  What grade?  How old is Sheilaz_dogs1471?  How many cycles has she had?" because this all adds up in our own internal Excel spreadsheets.  If Sheilaz_dogs1471 gets a negative, you shake your head and swear with her in deepest empathy.  If you're a veteran like me, you stop visiting Sheilaz Doghouse regularly when it goes positive, and when she gets that strong healthy heartbeat stage, you really stop visiting, since (generally speaking, and I know that sadly exceptions happen) she's in the "breathe a sigh of relief" stage. 

The worst is when Sheilaz_dogs1471 starts complaining during pregnancy-call me a bitch (and some do) but I'm going to be honest here- unless Sheilaz_dogs1471 is suffering the hyperemesis (as some have in the blogosphere and I truly feel really badly for them-when I read about them I want to tell God that ok, he's had his fun already, leave the poor women alone), Sheilaz_dogs1471 is going to get little sympathy for sickness during pregnancy.  When I was knocked up you bet I had morning sickness, but I was also Captain Thankful-"Brrrrrrruuuuut!"- that's the sound I make while vomiting, something like a cross between upchucking a hairball and a horse coughing-"God I am so sick!  But it's working!  So it's fine by me!  Where's the ginger ale?  Brrrrrruuuuuuut!"  I made the mistake of stopping by a chick who is knocked up the other day, and she had written about how annoying it was that her developing little nubbin was on the big scale of the measurements.  She bitched about it for a while. I wanted to drop kick her, honestly. 

(This might make you think I'm a bad person, but I personally think that ship sailed a long time ago.)

Soon Sheilaz_dogs1471 will be posting pics of the little nugget, and you know then that you're really in for it.  Wish Sheilaz_dogs1471 luck at the heartbeat stage and hang amongst your own.  You know the ones-you all seem to be cycling together again and again.  It doesn't mean you're not ridiculously happy for those that succeed because you are.  It means that you have to keep a bit of space to protect yourself.  This comes and goes, and with it, your visits to their sites come and go.  If someone gets a negative, you can hear a collective cluck of the infertile blogworld tongue, we drink our tea and commiserate in silence with you.  You become part of our statistics. 

The spreadsheet exsist.  I'll go on and be honest here, too-if you're like me and you've done IVF as many times as you've had a Pap smear, we tend to not be so charitable at those who blow out a puff of air, have IVF once and get pregnant on the first try.  This does not apply across the board, as I love some of the women it did work for and am honestly happy for them.  But in general, if you're one of the lucky ones that it worked first time for, then I'm likely not reading you.  It's not personal.  It's self-preservation-I've done this far too often, honestly.  It's also protecting my karma, because god knows I need all of that I can get.

As my cycle goes on more and more (a week from now I should be on stims), I'm sure people will be popping in here for their own spreadsheet in their heads.  It happens as cycles peak-more folks show, then regardless of the result (a self-preservation positive or a tick in the Excel spreadsheet negative as we nod in sympathy), people will disappear.  I know I would.  I know I do.  I've got a team of women that I check in on regularly and love and root for, and hopefully they know who they are or I've been remiss.

PS-anyone watching Panorama tonight?  We will be.  Scares me.

What Do You Do With a Drunken Sailor?

I'm so dizzy I'm coming across as drunk.

Seriously, the Buserelin has me lurching my way around like I'm permanently pissed.  This despite the fact that we've had a white week in our house this week (white week = no alcohol, aka "God this sucks", aka "What are you doing hovering over the bottle of cooking sherry, huh?").  So I'm not drunk, hungover, or anything fun like that, even though in the morning I get up and have to brace myself against the wall and/or test the dizzy waters in bed and have to drop a leg to the floor to keep the room from spinning. 

But maybe this isn't such a bad thing.  I have all this and I don't have to take any Tylenol, beg the dog to please stop breathing so loudly, or apologize for telling the neighbors that it was really me that chucked the dead bird over the fence into their yard, but it's ok, because I LOVE YOU MAN.

That, and I have the normal bruised stomach I had forgotten one attains when stabbing oneself daily in the stomach with needles.  And the injection sites itch.  And my uterus hurts.

Beyond all that, I'm totally ok.

Also?  This week is de-lurking week (I procrastinate at everything, including and not limited to childbearing, remembering to take the trash out, and mentioning this at the end of the week), so go ahead and say hi, we can grab some Buserelin and talk about Grey's Anatomy or the exporting power of Micronesia, whichever you prefer.

(I joke a lot, but actually I am ok.  Really.  I don't even think about this cycle so much, I just act like a human top.)

OK, I Might Have Been Off About the Side Effects...

Right, so remember when I said no side effects?

I had severe dizziness all day on Monday, to the point where I kept sitting down, in case it was that I had stood up too fast, even when I hadn't just stood up from sitting down. 

You know what I mean.

Turns out dizziness can be a side effect of Buserelin, so luckily it's not all that crack I'm smoking.

That's just a joke, although I do like to inhale of the whiteboard markers when I'm drawing diagrams in meetings.

Then today, it got worse.  In this conference I'm in, we're split up in teams and expected to compete against each other.  Wouldn't you know it, I'm a team leader who previously had a more competitive nature than the scary Reese in that Election film-I thought I'd gotten past it but clearly the beast comes out with Buserelin, and when that beast comes out I get so competitive that I think Tonya Harding had a good idea.  Add this competitive element to the fact that my team was docked points for something that had nothing to do with us-a few guys were late signing in to the meeting because they needed to pick up one of the competition judges-and it was a recipe for down-reg disaster.  I battled fiercely to get the points back, and was promised them.  When I hadn't gotten them by the end of the day I made a point of it.

"Oh Vanessa," they laughed in that patronizing Meryl Streep way, "the points are a game, they're only to add an element of fun to the conference!"

Fun? FUN?  Mother fucker, you want to talk about fun?  Let's get a gallon of KY and George Clooney in the room, that's fun.  Open up a crate of Veuve Cliquot champagne and give me a reason to celebrate, that's fun.  Let me have some tweezers to pick out the ingrown hairs in my panty line, that might even be fun.  But points in a competition?  Fun?  What do they do on the weekends, pluck puppies?

On the drive home I got so depressed I started crying.

CRYING.

OVER FUCKING POINTS.

And I called Aidan and when he was unavailable I nearly flung myself from the bridge-we lost points and he wasn't there to console me!  This is worse than the day I adjusted my wedgie in front of the Starbucks window!  This is more depressing than 1,000 pictures of Paris Hilton wallpapered in my bedroom!  This was huge-we lost points!

Seriously, the wig factor was high today. 

I have calmed down significantly now.

And tomorrow morning when the conference kicks off at 645?  I'm getting there at 630.  I'm going to sign in every single delegate to the conference early.

They want fun, I'll give them a laugh a minute, man.  I'm all about the fun.

And We're Off For Real This Time!

Right.  So I'm now on Day 4 of down-regulation. 

*crickets*

So far few symptoms-on the Buserelin shots I take, the only real side-effects I've had before were hot flashes (think: sweat pouring down the body) and tears (think: Noah's ark.  Then multiply it with every changing commercial involving-among other things-tampons, car tires, and mortgage assessment companies, and you have the degree of my weepiness.)  On the suprecur nasal spray, I become crazier than a Hatter, so the shots are an acceptable alternate.  I'll take the tears over the Carrie-style behavior any day.

I looked at other protocols on Cyclesista, and once again I swear I've got the raw deal in the UK.  The US ladies will be escorting their IVF babies to kindergarten by the time I kick off my stims (which is about two weeks from today).   

I don't think about this cycle so much-we've been on holiday and now work is a bit messy.  The needles were packed in my carry-on in their own see-through Ziploc bag complete with a doctor's note, but they didn't even cause an eyebrow to raise either at Heathrow or in the States.  Seriously.  My needles just zipped on through the X-ray machine.  The fake buckles on my boots, on the other hand, were a serious security alarm.  Serious.  They got scanned multiple times.  Very dangerous, these boot buckles (they're fake buckles on otherwise nice boots, don't get the idea that I dress like Oliver Twist or anything, m'kay?)  Obviously wielding a fake boot buckle is far more of a concern than putting someone into a state of premature menopause.

But we're off, anyway. 

And-perhaps mistakenly-feeling positive.

I Know I'm on Holiday, But...

OK, so we down-reg in two days.

We don't get home for five more days.

Also?  Aidan proposed to me yesterday.

I said yes :)