All four were unbalanced

Just had the confirmation I wanted: all four embryos were unbalanced.

Snake

Looks like I spoke too soon. We've just been kicked down a snake again. Of our four embryos, 'none are suitable for transfer.' I don't know if that's because they were all unbalanced or whether some did not survive the biopsy or whatever, because the guy telling me this news did not have any of that information. So I'm very hacked off. In addition, our 'follow up appointment' is not for another four weeks. Four weeks wait to get more information. It can't change what's happened, but it would be nice to know the details. This whole thing has been another spectacular waste of time... and of hope.

Hope

An odd, unfamiliar feeling has come over me over the past couple of days, especially since yesterday. It's a feeling of lightness, replacing what I realise is a persistent heaviness. I think it's hope. We haven't been kicked down yet another snake yet; we are still hanging on to a rung on the ladder. As of yesterday, we still had four embryos. They'd survived since Saturday and today we'll find out if any of them are free of this unbalanced translocation. I realise that I've actually hated being alive these past three years. I know it is utterly ludicrous compared to people living with chronic or terminal illnesses, but I have actually hated being conscious this whole, entire time. My mind has not been able to stop thinking about our situation. From the moment I wake up to the moment I fall asleep, that's the dominate thought running through my brain. Every other activity offers only temporary distraction. You know it's got to be bad when you actually look forward, as I did on Friday, to the oblivion of a general anaesthetic. For half an hour or so my poor, exhausted brain was completely switched off, getting a much-needed rest from the never-ending battering of its own thoughts.

Embryos

They rang us this morning, and out of our nine eggs, five were mature and of these five, four fertilised. So we have four embryos. Let's hope they last till Monday when they will be tested for this BT.

Eggs collected

The egg collection happened this morning, and they got nine. We'll find out by the end of Tuesday whether we have any embryos suitable to transfer.

Olympics - a welcome distraction

For anyone living under a rock these past few months, yes, the Olympics are here and they've finally started. And for anyone living in London who somehow wasn't aware, every square inch of space seems to have been taken up by bright fushia flags proclaiming 'London 2012', meaning that there is absolutely no escape! 

But the whole thing is proving to be a welcome distraction from this IVF, which was fine at first but now feels like it's getting more tricky. Since I have PCOS, I'm reacting pretty strongly to the Gonal F injections I've been taking since last weekend, and the follicles on my ovaries look like an accident in a popcorn factory... This shot is very similar to what they look like: 

The reaction is so strong, that after four days on 150iu of Gonal F a night, they cut it in half to 75iu for two days, then told me to stop entirely. I've had a blood test and a scan two days in a row now, and at first they thought they might do the egg collection in two days time, but I guess they want to give it a bit more time for for more of the follicles to develop to sufficient size (I have 20+ of varying sizes on each ovary, yikes), so I've just given myself another 112.5iu of Gonal F tonight. At first I felt fine, as I have done since this whole thing started at the end of June, but now I'm getting lower back pain and I'm not being quite so blase about things. 

I'm back again at the hospital tomorrow morning for another blood test to see what should happen next. At this rate, they'll do the `egg collection' (what a lovely thought!) by the end of the week. 

Update

I thought I'd write a few words on what has happened since I last posted:

• my cousin has had her baby, a boy
• SIL1 has had No2, another boy
• SIL2 has had a m/c
• I have started IVF/PGD

I started the 'down regulation' at the beginning of the month, taking a nasal spray twice a day. On Friday I had a scan to see if it had worked, i.e. if my ovaries had been shut down. That showed that they had, and since I have PCOS, I had about 18 folicles on each ovary. So the scan was the green light to start the injections, and last night I had my first injection of 150iu of Gonal f, which will kick start my ovaries into producing eggs. I will inject once a day while still taking the nasal spray; then I will have a blood test on the Wednesday (25th) which will determine what happens next: if they need to alter my dose of Gonal F etc. Because of the PCOS, they will probably need to scan me every other day to make sure I am not overreacting to it, and risking ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS). Anyway, that's where I'm at. Hopefully not long to go now until we find out how it's going to go.

Finally, a reason WHY

The chromosome test DID come up with something. It’s a new test, called array CGH, and it turned out that both boys had something called an unbalanced translocation of chromosome 6 & 9. The geneticist rang to let me know. I was SO relieved. We finally had a reason for our three-year nightmare.


So what is an unbalanced translocation? We each have 23 pairs of chromosomes, one set from our mother and one set from our father. In our babies’ cases, bits of chromosomes 6 and 9 had broken off and swapped places. But one boy ended up getting too much of chromosome 6 and not enough of chromosome 9, and the other boy had the opposite problem, too much of chromosome 9 and not enough of chromosome 6. They found the problem first in our second baby, and they then tested tissue they had kept from our first baby’s 2009 post mortem, and this showed the same issue. Because that both boys had the same issue, this meant that either myself or my husband had a balanced translocation of chromosomes 6 and 9.


And we have just found out that it is me.