Mothers Day

I've calculated that this is our third Mother's Day since we started TTC, and that we're 3 months away from 4 years. But to be quite honest, I've stopped counting. I got a big card and purple flowers from the cats (really!) and while Marts goes to visit MIL et al, I'll be sat at home nursing the worst AF cramps I've had in a while. To everyone else it's Mother's Day, to me, it's CD1 of our FET :)

FER round One

To call it a nurse consultation would be a bit far fetched... We walked into a room, the nurse asked of I had 'normal' cycles and ovulated, then when I said yes informed us we would be doing natural cycle FER and that was about it! We wait for AF to arrive (in around 2 days as I've stopped my pills today) then we can the clinical and they do nothing until day 11. No injections. No scans. No daily phone calls. Just go in few days before natural ovulation so they can check my follies, wait to see when one is about the right size and take bloods. Use bloods to show my LH surge and then check again the next day to see if ovulation has occurred (so 1dpo follows) or if it will occur the following day. Then they defrost the embies and replace them on the day they were frozen. So one day5 blast will be joining us 5 days after ovulation is detected. No further drugs, no more tests, just let the body do what it natural does and hope the little one sticks. I feel like I should be doing more?! Excited. Nervous. Excited. Nervous. Excited. Nervous.

26th March already?!!!

It's our FER consultation tomorrow afternoon. Can you believe it's been 5 weeks since we had the trauma of egg collection and subsequent OHSS?! I have successfully managed to delay AF, and I called the clinic this afternoon to ask how soon after our consultation we could start treatment. They said my first period after, whether that was the day after consultation or the week after. So I guess, unless AF arrives tonight...we're starting our frozen cycle next week. I have 4 weeks to achieve my life goal of getting pregnant at 25....

I've been quiet lately...

For no particular reason other than work and sleep has taken over. Work is really busy currently, medical exams going on for all years so plenty of need for my student support expertise. Despite the business, I still love my job. Remember how much I hated my old job?! I spoke with my new manager today and he's very supportive of helping me move up the ranks. I'be signed up to a training programme called 'Springboard' which is management training especially for woman. He even encouraged me to look into masters and PG Cert courses to further my career. Makes a nice change! It's now 3 weeks until our FER appointment, and I have my progesterone pill to delay AF for a max of 17 days. This means when we have our appointment AF COULD be due either the week after or 2 weeks after, fingers tightly crossed we can start then. This means transfer will be just before we jet off to Poland for my birthday, so that should take my mind off of it. However, knowing our luck. I do have a juggling feeling they "won't be able to fit is in" two weeks after our appointment and we'll end up waiting until may anyway... I miss my snowflakes! They're SO far away! In other news, Martins cousin is pregnant again (the one who intentionally tried to miscarry her second she didn't want) I don't know what makes me angrier. The fact she's pregnant and doesn't deserve it, or the fact she's 22 weeks and I had to find out from a Facebook update?! Sorry for the dull update. My life is quite dull currently and I'm still struggling slightly with my babies (I know they're not babies, but they are!) being kept so far from me :( Second acupuncture appointment on Monday, she is so good! I love acupuncture!! I spent the rest of the day trying not to fall asleep! I recommend to anyone! P.s Jess I can't read your blog! I need a birth story pronto! Welcome to the world little Connor!

I did a good thing today!

I joined the Anthony Nolan bone marrow and blood platelet donor register. I send in a sample of my saliva so they can keep my biological information on file, then if someone is diagnosed with blood cancer and we're a match - I get a call and off I go to London to donate my platelets/marrow and it will be given to them on the hope of curing the cancer. Now I just got to wait to see if I'm a match to anyone. It feels good to do good things! You can also donate umbilical cord stem cells once you've given birth (like just after birth) and they are stored to provide a cure for a matching patient. Nifty. Apart from my good deed I'm doing good. We had a brilliant weekend away which is just what we needed to get refreshed and recovered from the past few weeks. AF kicked in fully on Saturday, it was one of the most painful AFs I've experienced. Enough for me to find a pharmacist to get some codeine to get me through the weekend. AF almost subsided now and I have my prescription to delay next AF so getting ready for FET at the start of April. I had my first acupuncture session yesterday lunchtime and I'm going to go once a week until treatment, I'm not 100% sold on the idea of acupuncture and fertility, but I do know that I felt so relaxed and calm after the session and slept SO well. That's enough of a reason for me to keep going! Smiley

:( edit: :)

Despite taking 400mg of progesterone daily - AF arrived tonight out of the blue (I believe) FET appointment is 26th March and we start the first AF after this. AF is now due 24th March. 24th March! We could potentially miss FET in March by a matter of 72hours. Edit: I didn't know that for certain prescription drugs, that aren't really medical as such, you can get an 'on-line prescription' for. I do now. Boots, a very reputable pharmacy in the UK will prescribe utovlan, a progesterone only pill designed to delay AF by 7-10 days for holidays, special events etc... Once you've had an online consultation with the pharmacist. Utovlan is perfectly safe, and within three days of stopping, progesterone levels fall and AF arrives as normal. Steph 1 NHS 0

How do we act now?

I'm out of hospital and back home, feeling much better and will be going back to work tomorrow and back to normal life as we know it. Getting up at 6am, arriving at the office at 8.30, working through lunch, coming home, meeting my husband with a kiss at the train station, eating tea then watching TV for a few hours before collapsing into bed and repeating the next day. But now we do all this with seven snowflakes being kept in a lab 35miles away just waiting...just sitting there. My babies (well, you know) just sitting there. I feel like I should have some sort of pass or special Tshirt to wear about my babies in the freezer. If I was 2 weeks pregnant people would gush and discuss how my body is changing and names and silly old wives tales...but when your embryos are fertilised and sitting in a hospital embryology lab, you don't get any special treatment. I feel like a mummy to these little snowflakes, but I'm not, or an I?! I don't know. This is a weird limbo that I've never thought about before.