Tag Archives: BFP

Posted in Questions About Infertility

The Nature Of The Beast

Comments:16 Comments

The beast being infertility! Its odd, my IF journey has changed me in many many ways, one of the oddest is that it has made me surprisingly superstitious, something I never was before. I was also always an optimist, now I think I’m somewhere in the middle, not overly optimistic but not overly pessimistic. I mean if I was a pessimist I wouldn’t keep going at this now would I? I like to think I’m a realist, nicely stuck in the middle of the two, I have hope and optimism touched with a hint of realism, learning that things don’t always work out as we optimistically hope that they will, I guess I’ve learned this from falling onto the wrong side of the stats one too many times.

So in T-12 days I will be starting FET #1 and the optimist in me is hopeful. The optimist in me is saying that sooner or later, the dice will roll in my favour and I will win the gamble, the optimist in me sees all the recent BFP’s and particularly those coming from FET’s and believes that this is going to be it for me to.

The realist in me knows that to think like that is scary, to think like that, I set up myself up for heartbreak if this cycle fails, to think like that sets in motion months of emotional recovery. The realist in me wants to be the optimist but is afraid.

The pessimist in me brings out the superstition in me, the superstition tells me that the winning streak of all these BFP’s has to end somewhere, and my past experience has taught me that the winning streak has often ended with me. The superstitious pessimist in me is very afraid of what may lie ahead.

But the optimist in me is winning hands down today! The optimist in me is jumping for joy as yet another of my friends crosses over to the other side. Please head on over to Conceive This and giving loads of love and congratulations to Cindy, who found out today that she too is pregnant from FET #!

Posted in Infertility

Since My Failed IVF….

Comments:10 Comments

There has been a rather large shift  in one area of my life since my last failed IVF. Somehow the obsession with TTC seems to have past. I have no desire to try, I have no desire to have treatment, I’m not sure if its because I’m gun shy or just fed up. I do know I still really want a family of my own, I just don’t seem to have the guts to do the work to make it happen.

Its been 4 months since my IVF failed, in that 4 months, I have not tracked my cycle, I have not temped, I have not checked for ovulation and I’ve certainly not bothered to try & convince W that we should have s.e.x. (not that he needs much convincing) if anything, if I’ve suspected that its been any where near ovulation, I’ve avoided s.e.x. all together. I suppose part of it is that I feel like its a waste of time, I’ve started to feel like its never gonna happen and the other part of me is afraid to face the disappointments that come with TTC’ing all over again.

So its with a bit of a shock that I realized this am that I thinkI’m late! I’m not sure how late, hell I’m not even sure if I am late, but I’m pretty sure I had EWCM on Monday, two weeks back, so if I have a regular 28 day cycle (which I do) then surely by now???? With that sudden realization, all the sucky thoughts that go along with it came rushing back, I immediately had this urge to POAS (BFN) not that I actually trust those things, cos believe me, if you want to see a BFP you can pretty much imagine a second line there. Then I started symptom checking and aside from being overly tearful there is nothing to suggest I could be that which shall not be mentioned!

I don’t feel like I am, I don’t believe that I could be and yet just realizing that I’m late has totally messed with my head. Ugh I hate this, I’m so tired of this, I’m so sick of this!

Edited To Add: About 2 hours after hitting the publish button on this blog posting, guess what happened?? AF arrived! hahahahahahaha

Posted in Questions About Infertility

Thoughts In My Head

Comments:15 Comments

I’m really torn with this IVF, my mind and thoughts are all over the place and I’ve not even started the 2ww yet. How am I going to manage until the 30th March to test?

I am still in a state of disbelief over how well things have gone so far (barring OHSS), I’ve never never never had such good results before. My first IVF, long protocol with Lucrin and Gonal F yielded 10 eggs, by day 5 only 2 embryo’s remained.

My second, natural IVF, I had no fertilization due to very poor egg quality.

My third IVF, I had a short protocol IVF, using Lucrin, Luveris and Gonal F, I battled emotionally through out this IVF and again at day 5, we only had two embryo’ s left to transfer.

So this time around, I”m battling to process how everything has progressed. I woke up from my ER in a state of disbelief, I woke up to the words: “Well done Sharon, we got 16 eggs!” It was only back in the ward, about an hour later when the fuzziness of the sedation started to lift that I began to comprehend the number of eggs we’d retrieved. I still can’t believe it. I cannot believe that at almost 37 my body could do that, but I must be honest, when I lookd down at my hands and saw “16 eggs well done :-) ” I knew I was heading for OHSS. 

Phoning for the ferilization report on Friday was terrifying. Walter and I took bets, do you know what we were hoping for? We were hoping for 8 fertilized eggs! When I made the phone call I was so nervous I was hyperventilating. I’m sure that I must have thought I was some sort of heavy breathing freak on the line.

Since then our news has gotten better and better and with that, the war in my mind has begun. On the one hand, I so badly want to believe that this is it, on the other hand, I can’t believe that this is it. On the one hand I want to believe that one of those sparkly little embryo’s is going to turn into a living breathing baby for us, on the other hand I’ve walked this path so long and been dealt so much bad news, I can’t imagine a different outcome.

I so badly want to believe this is almost over, but I’m so afraid of setting myself up for a major disappointment again. The worst part is seeing how excited W is getting. I really want him to have hop, I really want him to be excited, but I’m so afraid of seeing him disappointed again. We have a busy two weeks ahead as well and I’m worried about how I’ll cope with everything if I start to spot or bleed in the middle of my 2ww like I always do. Its W’s birthday next Monday and its his Mother’s 50th Birthday next Wednesday, we’re hosting a 50th Birthday Party for her next Saturday, two days before my blood test. I know I will have POAS about 20 times by then, what it its all BFN’s, how am I going to plaster a smile on my face and make it through the celebrations???

God, in all his glory has brought me this far, I’m just praying that this is it, that this is His way of fufilling what He has promised me.

Posted in Questions About Infertility

Hope – Sometimes You’re Such A Bitch

Comments:35 Comments

First – a warning – long, whiny assed, self pitying post ahead, forgive me, I’m in a very bad head space at the moment.

Now for the promised blog posting that has everyone so intrigued. And an apology, it sounded far more intriguing than what it actually is. Its just another example of how infertility sucks HAIRBALLS. Of how infertility can make you loose your mind, of how infertility can give you a glimmer of hope and then rip it away just as fast.

W and I are scheduled to start out IVF in approximately a month. This was our last cycle to give it out best shot. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting anything, but in an attempt at being optimistic, I figured miracles happend all the time to other infertiles, there’s no reason it can’t happen for me.

And so we started this cycle, determined to do everything within our power to save ourselves the planned R36 000 IVF layout. I charted diligently,  we ate healthily, I used OPK’s which I hate and find extremely tiresome, as soon as I started seeing the surge on the OPK’s we ensured we had intercourse on all the right days. We used PreSeed to get around my Hostile Cervical Mucous issue. I think we covered all the bases. And then it happened, my picture perfect chart (for the first time since I started charting 7 months ago) showed ovulation exactly on CD14, one day after I’d had the surge on the OPK and one day after I’d had my fertile mucous showing. And for the first time in months I got a glimmer of hope. I thought with such a great chart, surely we had a good chance at success.

Then on CD22, exactly 8 days past ovulation, I got bright red spotting, very light and only once, it hasn’t happened again. And what’s the first thing that goes through an infertiles head when they see spotting around that time of their cycle? Yes! You’re right, as stupid as it sounds, I thought it may be implantation spotting, even though I’d NEVER had it with any of my 6 previous pregnancies or with anyof my chemical pregnancies. But I justified it to myself saying this would be my first pregnancy in a healthy uterus. There would be no polyp to interfere with the implanting embryo, there would be no toxic fluid leaking from my right fallopian tube damaging my embryo, there would be no scar tissue and no septum, the embryo would be able to implant into healthy endometrium lining and perhaps that is why for the first time in my life I was experiencing implantation spotting.

So what do you think I did next? Of course, if you’re infertile you’ll know the answer to that! I rushed to my local pharmacy and under the guise of buying magazines, cotton wool and supplements, I lined the bottom of my basket with every brand of Home Pregnancy Test I could get my hands on. You see, with all of my previous pregnancies, I’ve aways shown + results very early. With my last pregnancy, for example, I tested + with a home test on CD22, I had a + blood test with an HCG count of 30 on CD25. I had my repeat test done on CD27 with a count of 79 and my final blood test was done on CD29 with a count of 200. So I figured there’d be no harm in pee’ing on the home test straight away – POSITIVE result. So now I’d like to draw your attention to my chart below:

21d1de

What followed was torture like any other wait with fertility treatment is torture. I spent the rest of the day unable to work, staring at this + pregnancy test. Dumb founded, trying to convince myself that it was in fact not true. But unable to deny what my eyes could see. That’s when the anxiety started kicking in.  I usually hate telling W about these things because I hate to see how I get his hopes up only crush them a few days later, but this time I had to tell him. So on Thursday morning, with my first morning urine, I did another home test,this time with him at hand to witness the result (see how infertility has messed with my mind, I don’t even trust my own eyes anymore) and sure enough, there it was, within the first 30 seconds, undeniably a + result. I couldn’t believe it.

How could this be? It sounded like one of those dreadful stories that fertiles try to soothe us infertiles with. About how so-and-so had tried everything and when she decided to adopt, voila, she found out she was pregnant. Or so-and-so who was preparing for IVF and wouldn’t you just know it, she found out she was pregnant. My heart so badly wanted to believe that I was going to live one of those miracle stories. That I was goig to be one of those phantom people we all hear about but don’t actually know. But my mind kept telling me to stop living in fantasty land. That that would never happen to me!

So guess which one was right? I’ll give you a clue – the answer is in my chart.

On Friday morning when I woke up and took my temp, there was a massive dip, again, unable to believe I could be so lucky, I used another home test. W and I had agreed that if I continued to get + results, I’d go for the blood confirmation on Monday. But in my heart I felt that I already knew the result, if the + on the home test had been so good that even W could see it without over analyzing it, then it had to be. Boy was I in for a shock with Friday’s test. BIG FAT NEGATIVE! I spent the entire day obsessing over the result, unable to focus on anything, with my hope and my heart swinging from dispair to a little bit of hope and back to despair again.

I didn’t want to tell anyone about this because I feel so fucking stupid. But when I started this blog, I started it as a place for me to express my emotion, in all its ugly glory and that was why yesterday I hinted at what was coming. But I had to wait for confirmation one way or the other first and this morning, confirmation is what I got.

I did another test, with the idea that if it came up +, I was going to get in my car and drive straight away to my fertility clinic and demand and early blood test. Well none of that was necessary. I took every different brand of test I had and used them all this morning. NEGATIVE. NEGATIVE. NEGATIVE.

There’s no denying it, its totally over. What I don’t know, what I’ll never know, is if it was just faulty home tests, which I find really hard to believe, or if this is yet again me having another chemical pregnancy, God, I’ve so many of those I’ve lost count.

So once again, hope you little bitch, thanks for nothing. So once again I have to drag W down and tell him how sorry I am that this is happened.

God some days (like to today) I feel I”m trapped in hell with no chance of escape.

WHEN WILL THIS EVER END???????????????

Posted in Infertility

Compromise

Comments:18 Comments

So after lot more tears and a whole lot of talking, I think a compromise has been reached. Not really sure how I feel about it to be honest, it kinda puts me in a place at the start of my next IVF I really wanted to avoid.

We’re going to give it one more shot. My next IVF will also be my last IVF. So I really have to pray very hard that this one last attempt will work because if it doesn’t I don’t know how I’m going to cope. I really didn’t want to start off the next round of treatment with that kind of pressure but I guess there was no getting away from it. I have to compromise. Fair is fair and its not like I can’t say I haven’t given it my best shot. By the time my next round of treatment is over, W and I will have been trying for almost 7 years. We will have spend hundreds of thousands of rands, I will have cried oceans of tears, I will have endured thousands of injections and blood tests. I will have been poked and prodded and lost my dignity more times than I care to remember. I will have picked myself up and dusted myself off more times than I thought possible. The simple fact is that while I feel I could continue on this journey till I crossed the finish line triumphantly holding a living breathing baby, my husband does not feel the same way and I can’t really say that I blame him.

So how do I feel about all of this?

TERRIFIED! But what will be will be, I just have to square my shoulders and face whatever is coming my way and pray that I have the courage and the strength to face whatever the outcome may be.

Posted in Questions About Infertility

Total Mind F*&%#

Comments:6 Comments

I’m even too afraid to blog about this because I feel like such an idiot. My OCD HPT habit is in over drive!

So I was due for my blood test on Monday, which I felt was a total waste of time because I was completely symptomless and it was just a matter of hours before AF arrived. I was seriously impressed I’d even made it to blood test day without actually bleeding. I did an HPT and it was BFN! No surprises. I usually have a 14 day lutheal phase which meant that AF should actually have arrived of Sunday but ok, I’m back on treatment so its possible the meds have messed with my cycles a bit.

Yesterday I had to pop home quickly to meet my estate agent for a private viewing, of course, the first thing that crossed my mind was no af, lets POAS AGAIN! And wouldn’t you just know it, I had no sooner finished recapping the blasted thing when my estate agent arrived. Shocked at being caught red handed POAS, I flung the cursed thing into the back of the cupboard, and promptly forgot about it. Our viewers were extremely and annoyingly thorough and only left after an hour in the house. I dashed back into the bedroom, flung open the cupboard and snatched the blasted test out of there. Of course by now, its more than an hour since I pee’d on it, but guess what? BFP! I almost had a heart attack. Especially because I’d used my worst kind of HPT, a Clear Blue one. I hate them mostly because they do not allow for any indulgence of my OCD HPT behaviour. They’re either + or -, not like the others which you can stare at and sometimes imagine the evaporation line as a +. But there is was, the second blue line.

Then this morning, I recalled a friend of mine once telling me that HCG and LH are chemically similar and act in a similar way in our bodies, hence an OPK showing a strong + after having a trigger injection administered and that one could use an OPK as an HPT because by this stage of my cycle there should be no LH hormone. So, of course, OCD me, I went and POAS of the OPK kind this am and guess what? +

So now the true mind f*&^# begins. Because I’m to embarrassed/stubborn to go for a blood test and I’m seeing my RE on Friday. I figure if AF still hasn’t arrived by the time I go for my consult, he’s going to send me for one anyway. So my plan is to wait until the shops open at 09h00 this am, then I’ll be heading off to stock up on a secret stash of HPT’s to tide me over till either AF arrives of my Friday appointment with my RE.

I’m an unbeliever when it comes to HPT’s especially like this. Mostly because despite their claims of the impossibility of a false positive, for those of us who’ve had fertility treatment before, we all know how possible a false + actually is. Secondly, if I were to be pregnant now, this would be my 7th pregnancy and also the weirdest one of them all because it would be the first pregnancy without ANY symptoms!! Thirdly, I believe in miracles, but experience has taught me that they just don’t happen to me.

Wish me luck while I slowly loose my mind!

 

Posted in Questions About Infertility

Finally!

Comments:12 Comments

One of my fertile friends understands me.

 

I’m really ashamed to admit this, but some of the thoughts I’ve had surrounding my infertility and my fertile friends pregnancies have been really shameful. I’ve had some wicked and nasty thoughts. It really has felt like there has been a constant tug of war in my mind. Part of me knowing I have to do the right thing, wanting to do the right thing and another part of me feeling like I’m completely misunderstood and wishing that somebody could understand me, that somebody could experience what I’ve experienced, fighting to not be over whelmed by self pity.  I don’t want to become one of those bitter infertiles. I really do want to be balanced and fair and good. So here’s the thing, don’t be shocked ok? But I have, on occasion, wished that one of my fertile friends could experience what I experience, I have held my breath as each of them announced their pregnancy and wondered if they will get to experience the pain of an early loss. Oh this is hard to admit, but I’ve actually wished that some of them could experience the pain of an early loss. There I said it. I’m a horrible horrible person I know. And trust me, when I think through these thoughts logically, I know I don’t want an innocent baby to die just so that I could feel like somebody actually understands me. Because that is truly not what I want, I guess what I’m looking for is to not feel so isolated. Because I do feel isolated. I feel like I’m the worst kind of infertile. The kind that actually has the audacity to fall pregnant by herself, over and over again. The kind spoken about by other infertiles, the large portion of the infertility group, the ones that cannot get pregnant, the ones who say: “As least you know you can fall pregnant”! Although I have managed to surround myself with the most wonderful group of infertile women, I still on some level feel isolated and alone. I know the joy of seeing two lines on an HPT, I know the joy of having a lab phone me and say: “Congratulations, your Beta confirms you’re approximately 5 weeks pregnant” I know the joy of waking up feeling nauseous, of being so exhausted by the end of the day that I literally fall asleep on the couch, even when we have visitors. Of having the smell of meat make me want to throw up. So yes, I suppose, I feel isolated and misunderstood even amongst the community of people who are more likely to understand me. There are a couple of infertiles out there who do get me, who’ve had to walk the same shitty path as me and for that I am grateful, it helps me not feel so alone.

But I wanted to be understood by my fertile friends, secretly I always hoped that one of them could understand me. A miscarriage is a strange beast, it really doesn’t seem like such a big deal, until you’ve experienced one yourself, you may think you know what the other person is feeling, you may think you know the right things to say, but trust me, you don’t. Do you know how I know this? Because I had a best friend who miscarried her first pregnancy before I was even married. I thought it was sad and was sad for her, but I did not realize the magnitude of what she was experiencing. I did not realize how dibilitating the pain could be. Till I experienced it for myself.

Recently, one of my friends, who has three children has suffered two miscarriages in quick succession. The first miscarriage was a spontaneous one, the second, she carried to 12 weeks before discovering that the babies heart had stopped beating. And for the first time ever, I have somebody in my circle of fertile friends who understands what its like to walk a mile in my shoes. Finally there is somebody who gets why I want to punch people on the nose when they say stupid things like: “At least it happened now and not later” “Well it wasn’t the right time” etc etc. But instead of feeling any kind of relief from finally being understood, all I feel is a tremendous sadness for her that she has to go through this. So I guess I’m not quite the horrible peace of work I thought I was.

Posted in Infertility

Stressed To Kill.

Comments:8 Comments

You have no idea. As I sit here at my desk, its exactly 06h30, its the third morning this week I’ve come in at this time and still I feel like I’m literally buckling under the pressure, the really sick part is that I LOVE it! I absolutely thrive under this kind of pressure, sick hey?

My line of work is very seasonal. Gaming is massive around all the holidays, so I work at a fairly even pace throughout the year, but around Easter, June school holidays and then from September to end December, I work like a demon. This week I felt the Christmas pressure start to build. My to do list has gotten so long I’m actually trying to ignore it because I fear it may bring on a full blown panic attack if I even look at it! My stomach pains and my hands shake. I’ve got so much to do I don’t know where to start! I’ve started getting cramps in my legs at night, so I haven’t had a good nights rest in a few days, I’m thinking it must be stress related as well.

I also think the stress is having an impact on my cycles. Its all rather confusing really, looks like I’m going to be having another very short cycle:

So I’m guessing I won’t be announcing my BFP this cycle either, because I think we may have missed the big O.
Oh well, nothing to do except remind myself to stay calm and not get overwhelmed by the work load.

Wish me luck!

Posted in Infertility

HPT Anonymous??!!

Comments:5 Comments

The torture has begun!

Even though I have told myself, and anyone willing to listen that I do not actually care if I get a BFP this cycle, the truth is, that’s a total lie. Of course I care, I care so much its become an obsession. My other favorite piece of internal dialogue currently is: “I don’t think this cycle has worked” but of course I would not be a true infertile if I actually believed that. No, hope reigns supreme in me! I wish it didn’t, it might make this all easier to cope with, but there’s still that little bit of hope in me, that little bit that refuses to believe failure until that ugly fat lady sings.

I’ve had a rather interesting week of symptom watching, am I or aren’t I obsessing. I’ve gotten sooo good at hiding it that I bet nobody even notices, aside from my fellow infertiles who would recognize the signs of a desperate infertile anywhere! I’ve actually been excited by the fact that I’ve felt so yuck this week. I’ve battled insomnia, headaches and tummy troubles since CD20 and that makes me happy!! FREAK!!! This cycle is also first of my many planned rebellion cycles. NO more clinics, no more FS’s, no more dildo cam’s, no more injections, no more medications, no more early morning rushes to the clinic. NO MORE!

So as part of my symptom watching/obsessing, you will of course all know what I have done? I toddled off to Dischem two days ago and bought 4 HPT’s ala Maritzastyle. My cupboard is now also stocked with a bunch of stuff I don’t actually need but felt I had to buy in order to hide the boxes of HPT’s buried at the bottom of the basket! At this point, let me just say SORRY HARTJIE, I know you get cross cos you say I waste money on these things, but please understand, they have so much power over me, I can’t contol myself! :-( Of course, today being CD24, I have POAS twice a day since my hidden purchase and of course its far too early to ever get any kind of reliable result, so of course, they have all been BFN’s! :-( But that has not stopped me from staring at them, from looking at them in ever kind of light, from turning them this way and that way, and chucking them in the bin and then running back to get them out of the bin and examining them again for the slighest hint of a second line. Do you see how they control me??

I’ll have to make a plan for a second shopping trip as I’ve now finished all my HPT’s and there is NO WAY I can make it through the next 4 days without POAS! NO way’s I can wait for AF to arrive with out POAS! The compulsion/obsession is so strong that I’ve actually begun thinking I need to join a support group, something like AA or NA but for HPT addicts!

Hi. My name is Sharon and I’m an HPT addict!

For my non Infertile readers, family and friends, please go to Fertilicare for the explanations of the acronyms used in this post.