Inexplicably Missing

The pregnancy blood test was negative. And so far... I'm oddly unaffected. Blunted perhaps. My dad said "if I were you I'd be out howling" (really dad? I don't think I've ever seen him cry. But it's sweet that he shows such empathy). My friends are concerned about how upset I must be. Maybe it will just hit me later... which is definitely a me kind of way to take bad news. Yes, maybe it will hit. But maybe it's just a long accumulation of pain that I've been living with for years and maybe that pain just hasn't really been made any bigger by another 'no'. The situation just is what it is. I'm thinking that possibly the way I'm feeling... a kind of numb acceptance... indicates that it's time to get off the dizzying IVF merry-go-round. I don't have enough hope in the process working for me to keep investing in it. It seems pointless for our situation. And expensive. And draining.  It feels like it has way more potential...

Okay so last night, trying to get that balance of Sunday evening --- relaxation for the end of weekend but accepting a week of work ahead... I decided to: 1) eat cheese. Not just any cheese. Ridiculously good cheese.... époisses ... made by monks in burgundy. It's funky and it's a SOFT centred cheese. 2) drink wine. Not much. Certainly not "getting drunk" or anything near it. Just a small glass... ok maybe 2 small glasses. Mind you it was a DAMN good pinot noir from Tasmania. And it was SO SO good with the cheese and bread. I feel like some people would not dare take the risk of those things, especially after how much effort and expense I've put in to all this getting pregnant process. But you know what, I'm ok with it. I think it is just my insistence on staying "normal" during this extremely weird process and avoiding "Guilting myself out" --- (which--- I am guilty of...) But then I'm also wondering, am I actually just being a re...

So, my Doc is delaying his foot surgery till next week. Since I had already done a week's worth of induced menopause injections with a new drug for this round called decapeptyl, I thought, ok, I'll stick it out. In hindsight the menopausal induction may have contributed to the huge frazzled feelings I mentioned at my last post! I felt bloody awful. Tomorrow I've got Egg pickup. It's been a weird cycle. This doc has us on a serious drug cocktail and a half. I've been taking human growth hormone and menopausal urine injections... My partner's been instructed to "put the balls on ice" for half an hour per day (kid you not) and eat goji berries and drink aloe vera juice. So it's feeling a bit zany. Throwing a lot at it.  I've been doing 4 injections a day of various weird things these last weeks. A colleague who has done some ivf with this doctor warned me "don't be too freaked out by the singing" at egg pickup. That sounds like a...

I called my IVF clinic today to let them know it's day 1 of my period. I've started this long-down reg protocol over the last week or so, taking some Decapeptyl injections and a cocktail of some other stuff. So I had to call up to arrange a day 6 scan.  Anyway, bit of context, on any Day 1 of my period I am typically a frazzled woman. In the last few days I cut a weekend holiday short because of realising I forgot to pay a tax bill and tax form that was due, came home early to organise the paperwork and then realised the paperwork was not actually due, I still had a few more days so didn't really have to cut the holiday short...  I also had been tasked with packing for the holiday and forgot to pack any teeshirts... and my partner's swimwear (for the beach). So my brain feels somewhat fried. Then the fried brain effect has just been upped a bit. Because when I called the clinic today, the nurse there let me know that my doctor (the guy we waited 9 months to get i...

Old mate fertility specialist likes to use technical language whenever possible. Hence he refers to my oocyte retrieval as "sucking your eggs".  He's all class. It really hasn't been a great round, and my heart is not really in it. While we retrieved 18 eggs and made 8 embryos, they all grew badly and were massively fragmented. Except for one, which was not so fragmented, but still not a blast at day 5. It is inside me now, along with the runner up. So we'll see how it goes though I'm not holding out much hope. I'm not sure if it's really more me, and getting too "serious" about all this.. but I have to say I'm tired of the attitude at my clinic. I don't think I will go back there. It's kind of like the Jetstar airline of fertility clinics, where the staff have a jovial "laid back" attitude to things like safety and professionalism. I would imagine that working in a fertility clinic you might naturally develop a ligh...

We started stand up paddle boarding this weekend. We just went out, bought some boards, and gave it a go. No lessons. Just got out there on the water. It was pretty great. The weather was just beautiful, and there were stingrays everywhere. (side note- Personally, I am quite scared of stingrays. I think they are stunning creatures, just so... other-wordly... that they freak me out a bit). The paddling was mindful.. a wonderful meditation to be out there on the water on such a beautiful day. Though I found myself at times rather frustrated with how little power I had, when I was trying to get somewhere. I shifted my weight, I tried engaging my core, I tried different strokes, I tried specific patterns of alternating from left to right. But I felt so underpowered. I decided to just trust. There was only a shore to get to. Even if I just drifted down with the wind, and had very little power, I would eventually reach land. But then yesterday, I was talking about the paddling to someon...

This Monday, I am in another state of disbelief... and in asking myself "how did I get here, how did this happen?" one plausible answer seems to be... I am cursed. Here is the run down of events... Looking back, I was in good spirits all week. It was my birthday a few days ago on on the Saturday- the 11th, and I decided to organise a few get togethers - a dinner Friday night with family, and a brunch on my birthday with close friends. And Sunday, I also had a baby shower with a very close old friend who was actually doing some rounds of IVF the same time as me. I felt good about attending this shower, with my recent news of pregnancy. So we were due to have our seven week scan on Wednesday. I was really cross because we had to reschedule it to Friday, the clinic had called to say they had overbooked this week. I was then in a bit of a flap complaining about my fertility doctor and trying to find a new doctor to deliver the baby. I wasn't having much luck there either...

*Trigger warning - this post mentions positive pregnancy tests* I am seriously confused about my hope levels. They are as confusing as HCG levels. I don't know how hopeful to be. Maybe I can even be excited? This round of IVF has been different somehow. It is kind of sweet when friends tell you that they "have a good feeling this time". But it also sets you up for a bigger fall. Something about this round of IVF brought so many of these kind of comments which I hadn't had previously. The weirdest one was a receptionist from my work, who actually had no idea I was doing IVF, came and told me that she'd had 4 vivid and repetitive dreams about me being heavily pregnant. My partner, he turned 40 recently, and we had a big party a week ago. We were hoping with the current IVF cycle that we'd be able to freeze everything and so we could not be in IVF headspace for the party. But those plans went awry and I had to have a fresh embryo transfer a few days before...

I am not really an angry person but this week I've been raging a bit. After my first catheter experience I can say I was already a little on the unhappy side. Then I got the somewhat good news - that this time we had 12 fertilised embryos. But I would not hear until day 5, Monday, what the plans were for freezing. The cycle I did this time was supposed to be a "Freeze all" cycle. At the last minute I told the doctor I was a bit concerned to trust this since we have never had anything to freeze at all, so we changed the trigger injection to ovidrel incase we needed to do a fresh transfer. Since egg collection,  I've been injecting myself with this horrible medication called Clexane which leaves bruises everywhere. So we pencilled in a fresh transfer for Monday at 1:30pm, and I'm told "You will find out first thing Monday morning whether it's going ahead". First thing Monday morning, no news. I call the clinic. Sorry, no one can talk to you...

Catheter. The word should lead to a shudder of dread. Be grateful if you have not needed one! Thanks to being infertile and doing ivf I got the opportunity to 'lose my catheter virginity'. It's been a while since my last post so here's a little update. I've been seeing a new doctor, new clinic, new lab, new medication regime. The clinic is interesting, they seem to pride themselves on an approach that some might say is casual, others might say is.... Rather unprofessional. It comes from the top down, the director (my Dr) is a bit of a larrican who seems to never be serious and opts for terminology like 'shagging' and 'vag' . Well I went in to do my egg pick up and this time opted to do it in the chair under local anaesthesia rather than getting general. It really wasn't so bad. Took hardly any time. The only slightly disturbing thing was the nurses were chatting away about drinking a cheap coconut liquor called 'wipe out' . I was moment...

I heard a great radio segment the other day on the importance of belonging.  Belonging is a pretty core and pretty basic human need I would say, and we certainly don't feel great, in fact we probably do things like turn to drugs and alcohol or other addictions or avoidant behaviours, when we don't have a strong sense of belonging somewhere in the world. These notions of belonging got me thinking about the infertility/trying to conceive journey. I guess getting online and reading and writing a blog has been all about gaining a better sense of belonging in this process. But even in this lovely online world there is a sad kind of aspect to it that... some people move on to the world of having kids and it doesn't feel like I "Belong" with them in the same sense. Some move on to have no kids, but as I am still trying to have kids, in a sense, don't "belong" there either. I can perhaps feel that I belong wholeheartedly with other people in my position, bu...

I was recently talking to a friend of mine who has a "no kidding" life after painful infertility experiences involving many miscarriages. So the conversation started out with us chatting idly about a gym I had recommended to her and she was super excited about it. I had gone to this gym myself but pulled out of my membership because it turned out most of the classes were heated and those that weren't were hard-core cardio. I just knew that it was not going to be consistent with trying to conceive. I know that this is a very "first world" problem of me to have, but I had a bit of a whinge about how it sucks that lots of decisions you make just have to be put on hold while you're trying to conceive. The reason I recall this otherwise pretty trivial conversation was her response... she said to me...  if you could figure that out, how to "not be on hold" then you've just about solved the suffering of infertility.   Her argument was based on her ex...

I thought I was getting good with just not knowing. But then maybe I'm kidding myself to say that, because honestly, this whole infertility thing has got me feeling far less tolerant of uncertainty.  Right now I'm sort of doing nothing. I guess I'm doing something... I'm getting information and opinions, and just waiting... as always. I'm also doing a bit of just not thinking about it, which is good too. I'm also spending some time thinking about it way too much and trying to work out silly things like if I could only just get my diet exactly right maybe that will sort it out? So it's all a bit of a foggy mix and I'm confused. I'm trying to navigate around the idea of using donors. Am I ok with it? Is my partner? Is that even where are we headed? The weird thing about unexplained infertility is that on one hand I swing to the possibility that since no one knows anything about what's happening, something really simple might get us pregnant, maybe ...

I had a thought while swimming in the ocean recently. The sun was warm. The waves were gentle. The water clear. At that moment I don't think I could have been more content, even though I was at the same time sad, feeling the loss of my failed IVF round, not knowing what the future held. In that moment I thought that.. life is just a series of moments. And no matter the circumstances of my life, whether I have a child or not, a series of moments is what I will most definitely get. It's up to me to be in the moments that happen.  Some joyful. Some content. Some painful. I just get to experience them. These thoughts were mixed in with days spent by the ocean, watching as whales came out and splashed, and onlookers awed at the fortunate fact of being right there and looking at just the right spot on the horizon to catch that fleeting moment.  The whales of course were totally  oblivious to the the above-water inhabitants takin...

We have just had a little break away from our usual life... (back into it this Monday, eek! ) This last week we gave ourselves permission to just enjoy our break, and decided not to think or talk too much about fertility struggles. I think we did well. We stayed by the beach and were able to watch whales every day just splashing about out there. One day we saw about 40 dolphins, surfing in waves and jumping out of them, just for pure fun. We ate amazingly good seafood, had gelati, and the odd afternoon beer or wine. We tried out surfing, and we didn't do too badly. We went bike riding around the bush near the beach and on the beach too, which was so much fun, and our dog came along with us for the ride, he absolutely loved it. Our little cat finally got out of hospital, and he came with us for the holiday. So in all we had our dog and two cats with us on the break, which did kind of feel like our own little family. For me, there is nothing like being with nature to reconnect to a b...

The fight for baby making, round 5, has drawn to a close, with a negative result as the outcome. My doctor just spent half an hour on the phone to me after I got the news of the blood test today. He's very sweet, but I think it was to make sure I've had the news properly sink in. He used the phrase "I don't think there's anything more I can offer" (without going down the route of donors). I'm grateful that he's saying this honestly now rather than have us waste years trying, like I know can happen. So this occasion marks a spot I think. I don't think there is going to be any more plodding along the IVF path for me, unless there is something radically different to try. We will have to work out what direction the journey will fork off from here.

Monday this week was egg harvest time for me. They've pulled out 12 good ones, and I got the news today that they have created 8 little embryos. We will just have to see how these little embys grow now. While the numbers sound good so far, we are cautiously not getting too excited about it since last round we got 9 embryos at this same stage, but by day 5 there was only the one good one, and another one that was barely passable. Well, all we can do is hope! Do your best little guys! grow well!

I am up to my 5th time doing this IVF business... And yet, somehow, my head doesn't quite get used to the strange warping of time while I am in an IVF cycle.  I find that life gets divided into "before cycle", "in cycle", "after cycle"... Like the other day, I called up dad because I felt as though it had been SOOOOO long since I had spoken to him. Then I realised it was only about 2 weeks,.. less actually? I couldn't even work it out. I thought about all that had happened since then. Not much really. Just me going to work, and giving myself needles. I really didn't have anything newsworthy. So why did it seem like a lifetime ago?  ... Before cycle. A coping strategy for me is to try to stay somewhat straightforward about day-to-day life while on a cycle, to just go through the usual motions of life. I learned this after the rollercoaster of cycle 1 , that it might be better for me to remain in a state of emotional equanimity, just focus...

It seems to me that the happy-ending story that is so often "out there" about infertility is this: "Here is a couple who struggled and struggled to have kids, and then, finally, they had a baby. The end"... I think something about this story feels like a lack of honouring of the losses felt along the way for infertile couples. I know life goes on, and I know it does no one any good at all to get stuck in grief or pain. But surely there is some kind of transition for people to adjust from infertility to parenthood? Maybe there is a certain loss that is always felt? Transitioning to parenthood seems like it would be a hard process following infertility battles, and different somehow from a "normal fertility" transition to parenthood which I am sure would be hard enough (and I think is spoken about a lot). Something about the "...and then they had a baby" part of the story seems a bit dismissive about the infertility dramas, or gives a message of-...

(warning - some explicit language) Round 1 of IVF. It started in 2016. It went like this. I was excited! I was actually really excited. I love my fertility specialist! He is so lovely and caring and he listens! Each day I felt like I was injecting with intent. Injecting with a cause. My eggs were growing! I had 17 follicles, and they were looking good. Felt like a super star. I was getting almost manic. I had another friend who had just fallen pregnant using IVF. She fell pregnant round 1. I assumed it'd go the same way for me. I had more eggs than she had! YES. Winning. I have lower doses of the medicines and still more eggs. YES. Winning. I have nice sized follicles. YES, winning. Lalalala... Everything is all going so well! It's all going to be good! Surgery day to take the eggs out. Loved that sedation. BOOM. Lalalalala!!!Loved that pain relief. Yeeeeah. Even loved the stupid sandwiches in hospital, I was starving. (I still fucking love those sandwiches...