Day 46

Success!

We got the needle in.

First attempt!

My lovely nurse and I even exchanged a high 5

This was the quickest, easiest procedure I have had so far. It took all of 3 minutes and the drugs worked great!

9 eggs were collected today. I have to say, I was a bit disappointed with that number. We had the most follicles growing in this treatment, but that's the least amount of eggs.

Flex Thunderstache was watching the screen showing the needle going into each follicle. He told me later that the Dr didn't go into all of them. I am guessing the Dr could tell which ones were too small and not likely to contain a mature egg.

So I am hoping that tomorrow, when I get my phone call, the majority of those 9 will be mature and will have fertilized.

Now we enter into the waiting game.

(all ready to go with my elephant socks)

Thank you everyone for your good wishes and prayers. 

Xxx Alana, Flex Thunderstache and Frankie

Day 45

Yeehaa! Today was my first needle free day after 25 days of injections. 

Yesterday I got the call confirming my trigger injection and egg collection.

For the last last 10 days I have been been doing gonal f injections. This over stimulates my ovaries so my body produces lots of follicles and hopefully lots of eggs. At the same time, I have been taking an injection called lucrin which stops my body from releasing the eggs. The trigger injection (done at a precise time) releases the eggs so that they are ready for collection 36 hours later.

My trigger injection was last night at 11pm, meaning my egg collection procedure will be tomorrow at 11am.

Today I have been feeling tired and uncomfortable, much more so than I remember from the last 2 rounds. Hopefully this is a good sign that there are lots of eggs. But not to many. If I get 20 or more then it becomes a 'freeze all cycle'. With ivf treatment, there is a risk of OHSS - ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. While there is always a risk of developing it, if you get 20 or more eggs then the chance is higher and they will freeze your embryos to use at a later date to give your body a rest from all the drugs and stimulants. 

Tomorrow, I am hopeful we will get between 15 - 19 eggs. (Feeling optimistic!)

You may remember that at my first cycle, there was great difficulty getting the intravenous needle into vein. After 5 attempts, I ended up having a local. For the second round, they skipped the first part and just went straight to the local injection. With the first round I was pretty numb and didn't feel anything. (I think some of the drugs must have gone in with the intravenous needle) Second round was quite different - I felt the needle stab into every follicle.

So for tomorrow, we are going to try for the intravenous needle. For the last 3 days I have been drinking 3+ liters of water. I am hoping that if I am super hydrated then my veins will co-operate! We will see!

Today I arrived home to find a care package from my sock buddy. We were sock buddies for our second round and it has been so great to journey along side her with round 3. We are in this together and have been able to encourage each other along the way.

I wouldn't say I am looking forward to tomorrow - it's not the nicest procedure, but I am excited to find out how many eggs we retrieve. 

Another update will follow tomorrow after egg collection.

Much love,

Alana, Flex Thunderstache and Frankie

Day 43

My scan this morning showed good results.

As usual, my left ovary has been more active than my right. I have 14 follicles growing. No wonder my belly is feeling full.

On my right side I have 6 growing: 17mm, 12mm, 15mm, 16mm, 14mm, 16mm

On my left side I have 8: 19mm, 12mm, 14mm, 15mm, 16mm, 20mm, 13mm, 17mm

They grow pretty quickly, around 2mm a day. I was hoping that I would be doing my trigger injection tonight and have egg collection on Monday. Alas, my eggs need a little more ripening. I have to go in for a 9 am blood test tomorrow and then hopefully I will get the go ahead to do the trigger injection tomorrow evening.

I left my scan feeling pretty positive this morning. In my first cycle I had 13 follicles and for round 2 I had 9 follicles. 

We are off to an excellent start.

I keep reminding myself that what we need is quality, not quantity, but I guess the more eggs I have, the more chance there is that one of those will be good quality. Hopefully all that linseed I have been having has helped. 

Time will tell.

Xx Frankie, Flex and the Egg Factory

Day 42

Day 42

Day 23 of injections

4 Blood tests.

My week has been filled with needles. I have been doing 2 injections daily since Thursday 29th March and I have had a couple of blood tests this week. Actually, make that 3 blood tests, because on Tuesday, my left arm didn't want to give up any blood so I then had to have a second one in my right arm. Fortunately today's blood test was much easier. I put it down to the 5 glasses of water I drank in the hour before hand. 

Today I am definitely noticing the effect of the drugs. My belly is feeling very full, much more so than I remember feeling with the previous 2 rounds. Hopefully this is a sign of good things to come.

Tomorrow I will be at the blood lab at 8:30am when they open, for yet another blood test and then I will be getting my first scan. I am actually feeling a bit excited about it. My nurse has told me that my blood test results have been great, but the scan tomorrow will be my first opportunity to really see what's going on - how many follicles I have growing and what size they are. I am hopeful that it will all be looking good and that I will do my trigger injection tomorrow night. This will mean that egg collection will be on Monday.

We are nearly there. 

I am feeling excited.

 

And nervous.

And very at peace about it all.

I will update again tomorrow.

Alana, Flex Thunderstache and Frankie

Day 35

Day 35 this of cycle.

Day 16 of injections.

Roughly 10 more days of injections to go.

Apart from how annoyingly long this cycle is, everything is going well.

I had my first blood test on Tuesday and everything is as it should be. I have another blood test on the 3rd and I expect I will also start having scans from late next week.

Yesterday I started my second injection. Gonal F. This one will zap my ovaries into production and help my body to produce lots of follicles and eggs.

Finally, I feel like I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. It has been a  very long tunnel but he end is in sight. One way or another, it will come to an end soon.

I have surprised myself this round with how laid back and relaxed I feel about it all. Yesterday I did my injections sitting on a bathroom floor in a restaurant. Tomorrow I will be doing them at a wedding. 

I think I have come to a point where I realise that I have done everything I can. It will either work or it wont, but that's not on me. I have done my part. The rest is up to God. And I trust His plans. 

Isaiah 43:18-19 'But the Lord says, do not cling to events of the past, or dwell on what happened long ago. Watch for the new thing I am going to do. It is happening already - you can see it now! I will make a road through the wilderness and give you streams of water there.

Thanks for reading,

Alana, Frankie and Flex Thunderstache Xx

Day 21

Injections have started!

Finally!

Although we started treatment just over 2 weeks ago, now that I am doing the injections, I feel like things have really started.

Flex Thunderstache didn't even know we had started treatment until a couple of days ago! I am not sure if he wasn't listening or if I didn't tell him. 3rd time round and I am feeling pretty relaxed about it all. It's amazing how casual we have become about it. Its just part of our routine and injecting myself each night just seems normal. 

As this is a long cycle, I will be doing injections for about 25 days. 2.5 times longer than the previous cycles. 

Lucky me.

This time I am using a drug called Lucrin. For this drug, I have to draw it up in the needle out of a little bottle. This is new for me, but fortunately they make it all pretty straight forward. The great thing about using Lucrin, is that I wont have to use Orgalutran this time. (The one that stings heaps and has a fat needle) Yay!

So for now I just carry on with the injections. My first blood test will be in about 1.5 weeks. This should give us an indication of how things are going and how well I am responding to the drugs.

Until next time,

Alana, Flex and Frankie

Day 12

Day 12 and everything is ticking along nicely. Actually it's been pretty uneventful but I am getting closer to the day I start my injections (15th March) and then I will really feel like things have started.

I had an appointment with my naturopath on Monday and all is well there. I am continuing with my current plan which is hopefully going to give us some good quality eggs this time. I have loosened up (just a little bit) with my strict diet so I need to tighten that up again. We are so close. I just need to be strong and disciplined for a little bit longer.

Last night Flex Thunderstache and I completed our consent forms for this cycle. I was thinking back to the first ones we did and how it felt like such a big deal. I think I actually had a bit of a melt down over them. Now we are experts. It took all of 2 minutes as we confidently ticked boxes and crossed out options. How things have changed!

Last weekend, I headed up to martinborough (one of my favourite places to escape to) for a girls werkend. I went with my mum, aunt and sister in law. The fair was on and we had such a great time. Great conversations, lots of laughs and lovely food. 

The word I have found myself using a lot for this round of treatment is hope. While checking put all the amazing stalls at the fair, I saw a necklace printed with the word hope and I new I had to have it. My lovely mum insisted on buying it for me and when I put it on, my aunt commented on how it was the perfect lenght. The word hope sits right on my belly. And my sister in law said that one day I will be able to get the second disk printed with the birth date of my baby.

Sometimes I feel foolish for being so hopeful.

Sometimes it's really hard to let your heart be so vulnerable. Infertility has hurt it so many times.

But one day I will be able to tell my child that I believed that they would be mine. That I hoped and waited with expectation

for them to arrive.

This is why I choose hope.

Xx Alana, Flex Thunderstache & Frankie xx