8dp5dt

Sigh.

Really struggling with this, and everyone could read how sure I was that it had failed so I was as geared up for the BFN as I could be. I still spent last night sobbing until I couldn't make a sound anymore. My eyes hurt and I was making noises I didn't even know a human could make.

I'm so angry, at everything. I went to sleep feeling better, but woke at 3am and didn't get back to sleep. I was too busy thinking about spending the day at work, explaining to people that our treatment had failed. I tossed and turned until 6.30am and then just cried again. Cried and cried and eventually decided I needed to stay home from work today. Martin decided to pull a sicky and stay home with me so we could be together, that helped. We watches Game of Thrones, went shopping, bought some new bedding and decoration for the bedroom and I browsed around some clothes shops.

Now the evening is here and, although I was coping earlier on in the day, I know have a a pit sitting in the bottom of my stomach that is just sheer panic and despair. Beta is tomorrow, which I'm angry about because I know it's negative yet I need to get up at 6am, drive 30miles and be late for work just to ring them and them tell me. Hopefully, as stupid as it may be, we can jump straight into FET number 2 when AF arrives. We have three good blasts left (not perfect, but good) and I have a feeling they'll thaw all three and choose the best one. If FET #2 fails it will be straight into our second, and final, fresh IVF cycle.

Sheesh, we could be doing IVF in June.

I will be better soon.

7dt5dt

Sorry guys

7dp5dt

Well, this is it. It's 5am in Poland (thank god for free wi-if), Martin is snoring next to me and our flight home is in 5 hours.

I'm wide awake and googling "7dp5dt no symptoms" to see what dr google had to say about things and I can't sleep. I know this is going to be bfn, I just have the gut feeling this isn't it for us. But I can't stop thinking MAYBE I'll be like one of these woman on the internet that after talking about no symptoms for days on end, suddenly pops up on the message board with "MY BETA WAS 3567854!". But I'm not one of those woman, I've never had those sorts of endings.

4am UK time and all I can picture is that FRER that's waiting on the bathroom cupboard for me when I get home in 10 hours and I feel sick. (To the point where at 4am I've already been to the bathroom twice with an upset tummy...totally not symptom related, I have an emotional bowel!) I'm trying to pre-emt myself and practise seeing a negative, and remember that I have numerous things to do to get ready for going back to work tomorrow. I've already scheduled in 3-6pm for crying and general moping, and then I can iron and shower, drink wine, watch game of thrones and go to bed. But, that stupid little
Niggly voice in the back of my head is whispering "...imagine if the second line came up! You can be one of those woman!"

SHUT UP NIGGLY VOICE, you are not doing us any favours!

P.s Can I just take a moment to vent frustration at woman who say "I had absolutely no symptoms what so ever! I mean, I did have some tugging in my uterus area, my boobs increased two cup sizes, my nipples took over my chest, I gagged at the sight of cheese, peed every 20 minutes and slept for days on end...but apart from that nothing! Good luck with beta!" SERIOUSLY WOMEN?!

6dp5dt

Still feeling overwhelmingly negative. Anybody who has ever said "oh...I'll just enjoy being PUPO until beta day" is a HUGE FAT LIAR. Don't get me wrong, I understand how extremely lucky we are to even be going through FET (ha. Can anyone ever be lucky to go through FET?!) but nobody can enjoy THIS!?

Feeling tired and exhausted. I'm not attributing that to anything biological as we spent 3-4 hours solid walking around the city yesterday, and passed out after dinner (and my one illegal TWW beer!) at 7.30pm. Slept right through til 7.30am! Had nothing 4-5 mile walk today to visit schindlers factory and the old Jewish ghetto on Krakow, came back to the hotel at 3pm after 5 hours on foot and slept for another 90mins. Not like me at all, but neither is walking for this amount of time.

I keep getting lower back/hip-ache after walking for a while. I don't remember ever having it before, but again, I don't tend to walk 10km a day.

Boobs are a little tender, but I am 11dpo so it could be AF gearing up to arrive. No noticeable cramps. We walked past a pharmacy earlier and Martin asked if I wanted to buy a test (as it's my birthday and I wanted to celebrate with a glass of red if I was able to) but I said no. Part of me knows it's too earlier, part of me, despite expecting a BFN tomorrow, still doesn't need to see it just yet.

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me....happy birthday to me.

P.s Ladies, how many attempts to you give a friend before officially dumping them? My best friend who I met at University and lived with, the one having the affair that I was expected to keep from Martin, is seriously causing me nothing but anger. She texts when she feels like it, or wants to tell me she has a new car/dress/shoes/something expensive or that she's getting a raise etc.... Will ask about baby-related treatment very occasionally, but never actually seems to care how it's going. Just a general "oh good news!" Or "I'll keep me fingers crossed" and that's it. E.g. Many people text me the night before transfer just saying "good luck for tomorrow". She texts me that afternoon saying "are you at the hospital today?" And I haven't heard anything since. She is the sort of person who blames her phone when she doesn't text back, claiming her signal was bad, she did but she doesn't understand why it didn't send etc... Despite the fact she has an iPhone and doesn't live in the 18th century. Today, it 4pm and she has yet to wish me a happy birthday.

Martin is best friends with her boyfriend (the one she was cheating on) and I don't want to cause trouble between them but....really?! I don't have many close friends, I don't feel the need to. I have my best friend from school who I know is there whenever I need her, and I did have this person, but having written all of this down on paper (blog...) I can see how referring to her as a best friend is seeming increasingly stupid.

I wonder if she'll remember to ask what our result was later this week? This is after everything I did for her back at Christmas when she was busy cheating. What would you do, my wise ladies?

5dp5dt

I committed a TWW cardinal sin!

I'm so convinced that out FET hasn't worked, and since it's my birthday tomorrow and there's absolutely nothing worth celebrating, I had one beer with my dinner this evening.

Yep, you heard me. Try and hold back your gasps of shock. I had a beer!

Absolutely zilch on the symptom front, boobs are fine, cramps have gone, no bleeding, no nausea, no nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

Tomorrow will be a) my birthday and b) the final day before I get home and pee on that god damn stick while Martin pours me a glass of wine

3dp5dt

Today I am negative nelly. I apologies in advance for my 'woe is me' post. I'm glad I'm home alone because nobody deserves my wrath. I don't feel anything today. I'm tired, but I haven't had much sleep. I think I had cramps last night and waking up this morning, but I think I was imagining it because I'm watching for stuff. Now I feel fine, no different to normal.

5 Days til test day. Which at the minute, I'm seeing as confirming the inevitable and the start of our next FET.

2dp5dt

Today I feel....very aware of my uterus. If that makes any sense. Not cramps or anything per say, but I know it's there. Which I know is nonsense, but I don't know how else to describe it. Like my uterus is a small weight I'm carrying around, not painful but you know it's there. Like a bra!

Today is my spa day, and I'm currently sat in my friends living room who lives in a village called.... WOMBWELL. Honest

Birthday cake idea...

What else can you do when you're home alone 1dp5dt with nothing but the internet to keep you company?!

1dp5dt

Nothing to report. I just never thought I'd get to write that blog title!

Feeling a little 'tender' in the baby box region, although that's to be expected when it's been poked with a long plastic tube. I've woken up this morning and can't stop sneezing. I woke up at 6am perfectly healthy, by 7am I was a snotty mess with swollen eyes and unable to breath without wheezing. I'm putting it down to allergies of some sort, but with every sneeze I feel terrible for rattling our embryo about...I imagine them bouncing around the walls of the uterus.

I am suffering from FET bi-polar. Ridiculous positivity one minute with soul crushing negativity coming along 30 seconds later. They don't warn you about how much of an anti-climax ET is. Once embryo was transferred that was that. Hopped of the bed, escorted to our room and told to come back for blood test in 9 days. No balloons, nobody crying and congratulating you in the corridors, no fanfare playing in the waiting room and confetti bursting out of cannons. Just put your knickers back on and off you go.

I feel like I should be doing more. But I don't know what. Completely and utterly powerless to change the outcome of this, whether I like it or not.

I've been ordered to rest by Martin, who think if I pick up the Hoover I'll damage the little embryo nestled inside. It struck me last night, rather depressingly, that if our embryo wasn't going to make it past blastocyst, it would already be dead, so to speak. But then I have to remind myself that at 1dp5dt he/she should be hatching and getting comfortable in their surroundings. (That's the FET bi-polar!)

Just had to email my manager and tell him that on my very first day back after 14 days off work, I'll be at the hospital in the morning so will be late. It's a good job they're understanding...not sure how understanding they'll be if another 2+ cycles are required though.

Today will be the worst day...it's the only day until testing when I'm on my own with nothing to keep me occupied. I've resigned myself to the fact that googling will do nothing to ease my worries. It seems there is absolutely NO correlation between embryo grade, age, uterine environment, transfer technique etc... And positive outcome. Woman have had perfect everything and have had negative cycles, plenty of woman have had 'OK' embryos and had success, plenty of woman have had pretty shitty embryos and had success...so it is very much a game of luck. Little one is either going to stick around, or they aren't. The decision has really already been made, and there is very little we can do to change it.

Tomorrow I will be going to the spa with my oldest friend to celebrate our collective birthdays (hers 20th April, mine 28th) although it turns out due to the little one on board, there's actually very little I can do at a spa! No swimming, no saunas, no hot stone massages etc... So looks like it will be more of a girly evening in a fancy hotel with some good food and non alcoholic drink! I return Friday afternoon and then need to pack and prepare for Poland. We'll be leaving for the airport around 2.30am Saturday morning, then fly off to our European home for the next 4 days. Every medical professional that I've spoken to has said I'm absolutely OK to fly in TWW, but I'll still worry! After 4 days of sight seeing around Krakow and celebrating turning 26 while PUPO, we'll return on the morning of the 29th April before preparing to return to work the next day. We've already agreed we'll test when we get home on the 29th, which will be 7dp5dt. Possibly still a little early but with returning to work the next day, is rather prepare myself either way as I'll be getting the 'official' result while I'm at the office anyway.

PUPO

For the last 86 minutes we have been PUPO. Transfer went SO much better than expected. No clamps needed, just a bit of pushing and a swap for a longer speculum and she was in. Then we got to watch them out little Pingu in, nice a bright on the screen. Very strange. We still don't know much more about quality etc...just that he/she is not quite blast yet, but would be if they had another few hours to grow. Hopefully they'll continue doing so now they're nestled in downstairs. So far no spotting, slight cramping but nothing to write home about. Now to relax at home and wait. OTD May 1st!

Our little early blast

Little bugger

Just had our call from the embryologist. Out of our three remaining embies, this morning one had the structure it should have before becoming a blastocyst. It's still growing, but it's not quite blast just yet, maybe due to cell loss in the thaw?? At 11.50 I'm going to have my knees hoisted up to my shoulders, they're going to spend a good 20mins faffing around with my cervix (on the phone embryologist said it was a quick procedure...ha!) and then they're going to pop the little bugger in. There MUST be some reason they're going with early blast over thawing one of our three frozen blasts. I'm not feeling too positive but we're going to go with the flow and see what happens. For the next two weeks he/she will be referred to as Pingu (UK 90s cartoon about a penguin...frozen.ice?) and I'll add a pic of little Pingu when I get back later so we can all send positive thoughts their way

Fingers tightly crossed

Our embies were thawed yesterday. We lost one, and the remaining three all suffered "...up to 50% cell loss". We don't know if they lost 1 cell, 2 cells etc... As the embryologist was very vague. They're growing them on to tomorrow to see if any of the three will make it to blast. If not, we have three blasts waiting to be thawed. I know blasts thaw better than day 3 embies, but I was concentrating so much on them just surviving thaw, I never even thought about cell loss!! Anything more than 50% loss and the embies aren't viable, so we know we do have that on our side. Let's just hope they're dividing away in the lab and ready for us tomorrow. Our lab doesn't grade embryos as they don't think it gives a good indication of success as many top grade fail and many lower grade make perfectly healthy babies, so why add to the stress. We just know they're not perfect, but they're OK. I've already written off this cycle in my head and thinking towards fresh IVF in a few weeks when AF starts. But until then, as of 11.50am tomorrow I will be PUPO if any embies survive.

It's happening!

I have to trigger ovulation tonight as the clinic are getting inpatient. Embies being thawed on Sunday, we'll be reunited with one of them on Tuesday 22nd April. :D

Well, what do you know!

Very nervous when arriving at the clinic this morning, dreading what we would be told. Turns out my pesky follie has grown only 2mm in two days, not unusual the nurse said, although agrees it's odd for me. But this time it works in our favour, no ovulation tomorrow means day 5 won't be Sunday and we won't have to cancel!! Actual good news! But jeez Louise is this going to be a long cycle, looks like ovulation won't be until around CD23-24, instead of 17-18. We'll just get to sneak the little bugger in before we jet off to Poland for my birthday.

Spoke too soon....

At our appointment on Wednesday my follie was only measuring 10mm, the doctor said it should grow around 2mm a day so come back in on Saturday and it should hopefully be around 15-16, which would make ovulation Monday and 5dt Friday. So off we went yesterday, hopped onto the bed, legs in the air waiting to see what this little follie was up to. Well, it was now only measuring 13mm, so a little on the small side and still had some growing to do, frustrating, but back on Monday. I was getting dressed when it dawned on me that ovulation day would very, very likely be Tuesday. This would make day 5 transfer a Sunday, the only day of the week the clinic is closed, which would mean our FET would be cancelled and we'd have to try again next month. Seriously?! Nine months of treatments, two cancelled IVF cycles and now a possible cancelled FET? We're on our third treatment cycle and so far haven't made it more than half way with any of them. Needless to say I spent yesterday crying, screaming and generally hating the world. There zero way of knowing how big this follie will have grown by tomorrow, couples with the fact that they also don't know how big my body lets them get before starting my LH surge. It can be anywhere between 18-28mm. But I know my body and I always ovulate on day 17 (Tuesday) please keep your fingers crossed that this month will be different, and we'll actually make it through one cycle without cancellation.

This week!

Has been the slowest moving week in the history of weeks. Every day seems to have lasted a week in itself! I don't know if it's because I'm waiting for the hectic-ness of FET next week, or because I have 2 weeks holiday coming up. My 2 weeks holiday start next Thursday, transfer should be Friday which means I will be spending my whole TWW away from work! Completely accidental, holiday was booked months ago. I will be spending 2 days at a spa with my best friend, 4 days at home with marts as we have a long bank holiday weekend, then 4 days in Poland. The day before we fly to Poland will be 7dp5dt...to test or not to test, that is the question. They have remarkably cheap beer in Poland...

FER first scan

Not much to report. CD11 so wasn't expecting them to find follies etc...for a good 3-4 days or so. Lining is 'lovely', nice and thick and perfect all the way around. Follies still growing, but one dominant one appearing on my right ovary to watch for. Lots and lots of little follies! Back for my next scan on Saturday and hopefully ovulation will be close. That's when things really get going. They're hoping to transfer next Friday. Let's see.