Showing posts with label process. Show all posts
Showing posts with label process. Show all posts

Monday, November 19, 2007

Consuming thoughts...

Amazing how many times you can google things like :success with low grade embryo's" and "grade 3 embryo" and "day 2 transfer" and get different stories. Sigh. It seems some babies are born from shite embies, and some top grade embies result in failed cycles. So there is no real way of knowing. Though the chances are obviously lower, doesn't mean there is NO chance. So, we wait. And we wait, and we wait, and we wait. Its hard to go from appointments every few days and being very much in go go go mode, to the epu and transfer and pain and watching for OHSS... to now trying to switch it all off and forget about it. Its SO hard not to let ti consume my every waking thought. It is hard when you invest SO much in so many ways, to try and let it go and ce la vie...

Rationally, I have worked out when we will be able to go again (need a cycle off for the recovery, and to get xmas and first terms school fees over with); so probably February... but am glad that we will be on flare cycles now, not down regulated. This means no pill stage. Once I get a period, its straight to the fsh injections, no pill! So instead of 6 weeks+ cycles, it will be 4ish. Means we can easily get through 4 or more cycles by the years end. At which point its crunch time again if we are not successful. I still believe by end next year, we will be. Geez. I have so said that before...

Anyway, I have made those back up plans, and I know that if this is negative, I will be disappointed, and devastated... but I know I will recover eventually, and get back on that horse. In the meantime... we wait.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Are you good at hurdle races? I hope I am.

Feel odd today. Up and down. I am excited, about the prospect of becoming pregnant. I feel confident that this will work for us - in time. Assuming we can remain strong enough to give it a decent try (e.g. 12 months).

Feel absolutely sick with nerves at the scariness ahead though. IVF is basically a series of hurdles you have to get over. Obviously the scheduling was one, though I didn't realise that until it went wrong. From now on, I see the hurdles as thus:

1. Scan on the 25th, needs to show no cysts and thin lining, need to be ready to inject.

IF I am indeed ready to inject the next hurdle is a big one, and one I have real potential at failing.

2. Scan to assess fsh injection affect, i.e. follicle growth. I suspect mine will be slow, and will need longer than the usual one week only. I hope that I do have SOME growth though.

This leads to the next hurdle:

3. Do I have enough follicles EVENTUALLY? Even if slow, will I have a decent number. If not, I could be cancelled and this would be extremely distressing. Any of these hurdles causing us to stumble will be devastating. To not even get the chance... ugh. So, responding effectively.

Assuming I do relatively okay, the next hurdle is OPU.

4. How many eggs are retrieved? We want a decent number. 10 would be brilliant! We only need one to put back, but we want a few to choose the best from, and some may not progress and I would love to have some frozen to avoid another long cycle if this one fails. So number of eggs.

Assuming we pass that hurdle and get a few eggs at least; we then need to:

5. Fertilisation. Need to get them to fertilise, hope that they don;t sit and refuse to socialise with the sperm. Hope like hell they fertilise. Often, many do not. Again, we'd like one beauty to transfer, and a few for the freezer and expect some not to make it any further as well.

After fertilisation, we want:

6. The embryos to continue developing. So cell division, not just not growth... Again, I expect we could lose some here. And it depends what stage of development they reach. The more they grow, the better their chance of sticking. Would love some top grade, beautiful embies. Please.

Assuming this goes ok, we then transfer one and freeze (hopefully) lots more. The final hurdle is the biggest.

7. Implantation. We need any transferred embryo to burrow in and implant into the uterine lining, thereby making us pregnant, as shown by a blood test 2 weeks after transfer.


There are so many chances for failing. It literally makes me feel sick to think about. It will be good to complete one cycle, negative or positive, to tell us whether there are any other issues we didn;t yet know about at the egg quality or fertilisation stage. If not, then we can expect to get there eventually.

I feel exhausted just thinking about it!!! The biggest thing I think, is to get lots of good eggs. If this happens, it makes failing at the latter stages a LITTLE less likely (assuming we've on issues with fertilisation).

So scared.