Very low - again

Donor drops out

The past year has been pretty difficult. We gave the green light to our agency to find a new donor back in November, which they did pretty quickly. But for all the paperwork and health checks to be done by them and then the hospital took another four or so months, so we didn't get going until April. I started all the meds again, and she did the same on her side. Unfortunately the day she was due to start the injections she decided she couldn't go through with it and it all got called off. I could barely believe it. But my sympathies were with her as I didn't like the idea of doing the injections for myself, let alone someone doing them for a complete stranger. 

Egg share BFN

And so there we thought we would leave it. But only a week or two later the hospital rang to say they had a match for egg sharing and did we want to do that? We agreed and I started up the meds again! To cut to the chase, we got 12 eggs, of which 8 fertilised, of which five made it to day 3 and two to day 5. They transferred 2 c-grade (A-D) blastocysts on August 10th and we've been waiting. From the 14-18th I really felt like I was starting to feel some pregnancy symptoms. Stupid really, as I had have never noticed them in the past until I was about 6 weeks gone. I tested on the 19th, 20th, 21st and 22nd, but only got BFNs. So gutted. Stopped meds and now bleeding heavily. With the bleeding I have gone from feeling 'OK, what else did you expect, nothing ever goes right' to feeling very low indeed and very drained. Feeling terrified that I tested too early and gave up on the meds too early and that I was pregnant really. But in that case WHY the BFNs?? They should have shown up even a faint positive by that time. Burst into tears this morning. It's such a lovely day with the sun shining, but again it's another day where I wish I didn't have to be conscious. 

If men got pregnant, abortion would be legal everywhere

Great article - so true!

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/feminism/2015/12/if-men-got-pregnant-abortion-would-be-legal-everywhere

Changes & Mistake #5

In the past few months I've made some long overdue changes in my life. Finally, after almost seven years, I changed my job. I was bored out of my mind, there were zilch opportunities for promotion, no matter how hard I worked, and my two male bosses did everything they could to make my life a misery. I interviewed in lots of places, but I either didn't like them or they did like me! But in the end the right thing come through and I gleefully handed in my resignation. Then followed a six week break where I travelled lots:

First stop, New York!

Central Park:

The newly-opened Freedom tower:

Here's me at the Top of the Rock in New York!

Then we went to Tenerife in the Canary Islands for some R&R:

Then I went sailing on the Solent for a week and took part in the Round the Island Race, which was great fun. Here's one of the 1,500 boats going around the Needles. It took us 10 hours to get round the whole of the Isle of Wight!

Then I started my new job in July, and it's been great. I'm no longer being bullied by odious misogynists, I'm working in a fab part of London I've never worked in before, and my job is much more interesting. A win all round! 

DH and I took a week off in August and sailed around the beautiful Ionion Islands in Greece - utterly stunning:

A Greek cat sheltering in the shade of the gangway

Breakfast: thick, delicious Greek yoghurt covered in fresh fruit with local honey, washed down with a glass of freshly-squeezed orange juice. Bliss!

But it wasn't to last. For which I take full responsibility. Four weeks ago I discovered I was pg. Oh dear. I went to get dated at my local early pregnancy unit and they told me I was just over seven weeks gone. Today we had the 11/12 week scan. And I'm sure you can guess the outcome, dear reader. Our miracle was not to be. The nuchal was 5-6mm, making a CVS totally unnecessary. It was clear this baby is unbalanced like all the others. So that's the end of that unfortunately. The consultant saw me today and said that sterilisation would unlikely be suitable for me as I've had previous serious abdominal surgery, which would heighten the risk of complications if they tried to operate to clip my tubes. We are still on the egg donation waiting list at the hospital and we have enrolled with an egg donation agency, so perhaps something will turn up. It's just such a shame to be pregnant, and not to be able to love and look forward to the arrival of your baby, like it seems the rest of the world gets to do. 

Egg donation update

Just to keep you up to date on our egg donation cycle. As I mentioned in my previous post, we found an anonymous, altruistic donor willing to undergo IVF on our behalf. How amazing is that? Lady, you are a legend: your kindness is humbling. With all the Bad Stuff happening in the world, thankfully there still remain some, considerate, kind human beings, and she is one of them.

At the end of her cycle, she produced 11 eggs, which was wonderful. Even more wonderful, 10 of them fertilised! After a couple more days, we were told that eight were developing well and that it was worth waiting until the blastocyst stage to do a transfer. So we went to the clinic yesterday, on Saturday. Unfortunately they had stopped developing as well as they had initially. We didn't have any blasts as hoped, but two had got to the pre-blasts stage, which I think is called morula. They gave us the option of leaving both until today to see if they progressed, running the depressing reality that if none of them hadn't turned into blasts by then, then they never would, and we wouldn't have anything to put back. So we had a decision to make.

The clinic's view was that they probably wouldn't make blasto, and thus the likelihood of us ending this cycle on a disappointing note was high. It was such a shame as I really thought that this time it would be ok, and we'd get blastos, including some to freeze for a sibling later down the line! 

So we decided, sod it, put them back now. We decided to do both rather than a singleton or to wait an extra day. I think if we are going to be disappointed I'd rather delay it for another couple of weeks!! So we run three scenarios: none of them take, one does, or both do and we get twins. Or, as I joked, they split and we get triplets or quads!! 

Anyway, it doesn't look good and we are both quite down. I'm continuing to take the progynova and the cyclogest, and hopefully they will maximise our chances of me sustaining a pregnancy if they have become blastos today.

Anyway, here's a pic of our 'pre-babies':

Best wishes and generous sprinklings of baby dust to you all.

Latest

I guess it's been an up-and-down few months (when is it not?!). So, the last time I'd posted, we'd gone along to a Donor Conception Network weekend in May for couples thinking about going the egg or sperm donor route; that was after going through our third TFMR in March.

After that, we went to a few London clinics, before deciding that we liked one, and we asked to go on their egg donor waiting list. We went it at number 56! So in an attempt to speed things up, we also enlisted the help of an agency, Altrui. I am delighted to say that they came through for us, having found a lady who is a good physical match for me and amazingly, is willing to go through IVF on our behalf. I do have to say I find it amazing that another person is prepared to go through all the that IVF entails for someone they don't know.

What I do know about her is that she is in her early twenties, married and already has one child. We got her profile and her personal statement said that she really wanted to help people who can't have children; that her heart seemed to be in such the right place really swung it for me. I really want someone who is doing from the heart, rather than because the money (which isn't much) will be handy. If it succeeds and we have a child, and they want to track her down in the future, I really want them to be able to know from her that she did it because she's an amazingly generous person. And I do think she is. Hurrah - thank you to any existing or prospective egg donors reading this, your gift is astonishing! With any luck, we will start a cycle in January. I'll keep you posted.

The faces of a heart-breaking choice

http://stillstandingmag.com/2014/06/face-heartbreaking-choice/

'Disabled & Broody - an impossible choice'

There's only three days left to listen to this, but this is a BBC Radio programme discussing people with disabilities and the choices they make whether or not to have children, including via PGD. Do listen if you get a moment:http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b043x48s

Donor Conception Network

Last weekend, hubby and I went to a weekend workshop organised by the Donor Conception Network. It was really good and I definitely recommend it to anyone thinking about going the donor route. What I wanted to get out of the weekend is what donor children think about themselves as they grow up - are they angry with their parents for essentially depriving them of half their genetic parentage? Do they consider their mother to be their real mother? By the end of it I got a much better idea of what it might be like to go down the donor route and the essential point that children seem to deal with it much better if they are told from a young age, rather than being 'surprised' at a later stage.

There were three facilitators, who all had gone down the donor route for different reasons. It was good to speak to them about their experiences and good to speak to other couples who were in a similar situation to DH and I (the first time I have met anyone in the same boat, tbh). It was quite an emotionally 'heavy' weekend and by the end of the workshop I was exhausted, as the issues raised are very serious ones and ones that will have profound consequences. But all the people on the course were really nice, and we may even have made a few friends, and most importantly, what I learnt allayed a lot of my concerns about going for a donor.  

Fertility Focus Teleconference

Haven't taken part in this before, but if anyone is interested, this is a series of teleconferences discussing different aspects surrounding infertility. I hope it helps people:

http://www.fertilityfocustelesummit.com

Nature is too cruel - yet another example

So this morning I hear on the radio that three children have been found dead at a house in a town not too far from me. As the day goes on, the story evolves, and so far we know that the mother has been arrested in relation to their deaths. They were a family of four children, the three youngest (including twin boys) all suffered from 'spinal muscular atrophy', a defect of the SMA1 gene on the 5th chromosome. Her and her husband found out that they were carriers of SMA while she was pregnant with the twins when one of their daughters was diagnosed. I can only imagine what it must have been like to be told that your child has a disorder that is going to kill her, that you and your husband are the cause of it, and that your twin sons are going to face the same fate. From imagining a happy, hectic family life as a family of four children, they were then faced with life as a family with three disabled and dying children. The blow must have been enormous, and (almost) unimaginable. I wonder if they sought or were offered any psycological support?


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2610940/Woman-arrested-murder-3-children-New-Malden-south-London.html

Mother's Day, Egg Donation and After Tiller

It seems fitting to post on Mother's Day. When you're not a mother and want to be, the whole day is a bit of a downer. I saw my own mother, but stayed well away from the BILs and SILs, principally because they are so unbearably smug, at least to me. 

Anyway, on Thursday DH & I went to a clinic in London that is one of two clinics setting up an 'egg bank'. While I'm told they are still some way off from actually having a reserve of frozen eggs on tap, they did say that the HFEA's increased payments to potential egg donors means that a lot more women are now willing to donate, and that they no longer have a waiting list. I think we are still keen on trying the UK first, simply because it's easier in terms of travelling and secondly that at least the child has the option of being able to trace their genetic mother when they are 18. However, it does seem extraordinarily expensive. It's going to be much more expensive than PGD. The basic cost, at least with this clinic, is £8,800, and by the sounds of it you can easily end up spending £12/15k on just one cycle, depending on all the 'extras' you may need. Gulp. 

In terms of a match, I would rather have a lady who looks like me as much as possible, but you really are in their hands in terms of who they ultimately pick. In terms of timing, because I am still recovering from TFMR No3 (I can't believe I typed those words) , I need to wait at least two periods before starting anything, which sounds sensible. Given my irregular cycles, this probably means that we are looking at June before starting anything. So that will be half of 2014 gone already, and we will still be no closer to having a family than when we started in 2007. Ho hum. 

On another note, I watched After Tiller the other day. If you haven't heard of it, it's a documentary about the doctors in the US who carry out late pregnancy terminations. Because of the ire that abortion causes in the US, there are only four doctors who carry out the procedure in the whole country. It's very, very odd for me to think that a subject as deeply controversial as a late-term abortion is now part of my own personal experience. Before I was just a spectator - it was a topic that had nothing to do with me but I could pass an opinion - but today it's a topic that effectively defines me. It's a big part of the reason why this blog is anonymous - would it be safe for me to known? It's probably not worth the risk. 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/after-tiller/id796532325

The baby was UBT

I got a call from the genetics team. The analysis of our baby's chromosomes did show that they were unbalanced. I forgot to ask if it was a boy or a girl. I haven't cried at all since the scan, but the past couple of days have been very hard, as if I am wading through syrup. Work has been totally unproductive and it is glaringly noticeable among my colleagues, I'm sure. Yesterday I rang one of London's leading clinics ( read expensive) to enquire about egg donation. I have an appointment next Thursday afternoon. Our options for egg donation seem to be a) go via a clinic and hope you can take part in an egg share b) go via an agency to find an altruistic donor and c) go abroad, typically to Spain or Cyprus. I'm going to try the clinic route first and see what they say. I'd rather, if we go the donor route, stay in the UK, as then any child would be able to trace their genetic mother at the age of 18. Going anywhere else in Europe would mean that the child would never be able to find out about its mother, as donation is totally anonymous. I was reading through the posts on http://anonymousus.org, and basically it's lots of donor children who are extremely hacked off at having coming into the world this way. So I wouldn't go the anonymous route lightly, if at all. Anyway, it's all theory for now - I'll update next on what this clinic say (£180 later).

The inevitable news

Prior to having the scan and CVS, these were my fears: 1) I was frightened that the baby would already have abnormalities that would make a CVS redundant, 2) I was frightened that the baby might already be dead 3) that I wasn't pregnant at all and the whole thing had been my imagination. Apart from absent periods, I haven't had any pregnancy symptoms - nausea etc - although this is just like my previous pregnancies. 

We were both hoping that the baby would look normal for that stage of the pregnancy and that we'd go into the CVS with some hope. 

However, it has not turned out to be. I am currently 11wks and have just returned from the hospital. The baby is covered in hydrops/oedema (it's like a halo around him/her and the nuchal is 6mm. Our poor little baby. We went ahead with the CVS anyway, but knowing full well what the results are going to show. We know there's no hope, and we've already told the hospital of our decision. I should be scheduled in for Tuesday or Wenesday. 

Sorry to give you all this bad news. I rolled the dice, played with the fire and got burnt. 

I promised DH from the outset that I wouldn't be the mess I was after the first two times and I don't think I will be. I'm going to take the whole of next week off work or see if I can work from home for when necessary. Then our next decision is whether to tell our families. Apart from me, DH and you, my online friends, no-one knows about this pg. I may tell my sis and test the water about telling my parents. Who knows, we will take our time deciding. Anyway, that's it for now. 

Yikes!

My next post was meant to be about the start of the post Christmas/New Year diet - I'm jumping on the 5:2 Fast Diet wagon.  Having gained another birthday (37) and an extra stone, I thought I should at least attempt to lose the latter ahead of any fourth attempt at IVF/PGD or egg donation cycle. But then I was waiting for AF to turn up. It's never regular: 33-46 days is normal. But after our last PGD cycle in October, my first period was on December 12 (I remember it clearly since it was the evening of the office party), and then there had been nothing since, taking me up to 46 days, the outer edges for what is normal even for me. So I did a test, and as you can see, we have a BFP. Now I know the chances of this ending in tears is very high. This time, I have gone into it with my eyes open. If it goes wrong again, I will NOT be the mess I was the last time. On my own head be it. I will go to my local early pregnancy unit on Saturday morning and get dated. Then I will ask to get booked in for a CVS at the earliest opportunity, assuming I don't miscarry before then of course. The roller-coaster begins again...

Fertility Show - London 2013

So last weekend we went along to the Fertility Show at London Olympia. There were lots of IVF clinics there, not just from the UK, but also from Spain, Greece and the US. It was a really interesting afternoon, and I'm glad we went along. There were interesting seminars from people/experts working in the industry and it was just a good way to consider our options, even though they are limited. We came back with lots of bumpf - a lot I've chucked, but some I've kept for future reference.

I guess our choices boil down to the following: try PGD a fourth time (£9k/$15k), try egg donation (around the same cost as PGD, possibly more, whether we do it here in the UK or aboard), adoption or do nothing at all. And I guess there is trying naturally again and hoping we beat (my very poor) odds. None of these options is easy. I guess I/we are moving more towards egg donation as the most realistic chance of us having a family. In the UK, egg donation is non-anonymous, meaning the child is entitled to trace their donor when they are old enough. But elsewhere in Europe, such as Spain, it is totally anonymous, and the child will never be able to trace their donor.

How do I feel about all of this? To be honest, I'm quite tired of the whole thing. The past few years have been very gruelling and I'm quite exhausted just thinking about it all. Our three PGDs didn't work for one reason or another, and I don't think it's an unusual experience. In the same vein, there's been a small flurry of articles about the impact of IVF when it doesn't work, which I thought were interesting:

Five million babies have been born thanks to IVF. But few people talk of the many more times the treatment doesn't work, says Lisa Jardine, the departing chair of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24652639

A recent Magazine article by Lisa Jardine about the frequency with which In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) fails prompted readers to send in their own experiences.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24725655

There may be five million IVF success stories, but for many millions more women, the treatments have failed. So why do we never hear from them?
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/sep/27/ivf-where-all-grief-going

PGD 3 - Results

Unfortunately both embies were 'unsuitable for transfer', which again means that they were both unbalanced. Trying not to be gutted, but am. Just very, very sad.

Still hanging in there...

The eggs have survived so far and have both fertilised! They get biopsied on Thursday. Fingers & toes crossed...

PGD No3

Today we underwent PGD No3. I've been doing the short protocol for the past two weeks -  a cetrotide injection in the morning and a Gonal f injection in the evening - and it was looking good. I was producing lots of plump follicles; just what was needed for a good harvest of eggs. But it was not to be. Even though I had over 20 follicles that were over 14mm (big enough for there to potentially be an egg inside) , one ovary did not yield any eggs at all and the other yielded only two. The egg collection was this morning. When I came round from the sedation, the embryologist told me they had got two eggs. I thought I had misheard. My heart sank. The consultant later came round and said that sometimes this happens. We are both very discouraged and right now I'm writing this with the iPad in one hand and a much-needed vodka and coke in the other. They'll let us know tomorrow if either of those eggs was good enough to be fertilised. I hate the way your hopes get built up by IVF and then you have to ride the way down as you get knocked back. Will let you know how we get on.

``Where were you when my baby died?!''

Just been having a look at the TFMR boards I read, and one of the posts really resonated with me. The poster has just broken up with her boyfriend after a TFMR, and she had this to say:

''I'm gutted it's pushed us apart. I just feel numb. I'm more devastated at everyone else's reaction. Everyone is rushing around, so worried about how I am. WHERE WERE YOU WHEN MY BABY DIED? Nobody wanted coffee then.''

That's so true. Is losing a baby, regardless of the circumstance, regarded by people as too serious to even 'go there' so they never mention it or do people really think that losing a baby is no big deal? Being of a pessimistic nature, I fear it's the latter.

Podcast on Infertility

An interesting podcast about the cons & pros of living child free from Resolve, a US infertility support association:

http://resolve.streamguys.com/A%20Family%20of%20Two-Exploring%20the%20Option%20of%20Childfree%20Living%202-1.mp3