What next?

This week was our ‘follow up’ appointment following my miscarriage.  We could have gone a few weeks ago but I needed time and space before I ventured back there.  IVF clinics are strange places, nervousness and optimism hang in the air, silently people wait for whatever is coming next for them.  I have lost count of the number of appointments that we have had in clinics.  Too many too count & probably more than anyone should have in a lifetime.  On the week that would have been our 12 week scan, instead we waited to see the consultant to talk about our next frozen embryo replacement.  To say I had mixed feelings would be an understatement.  I sat waiting and just kept thinking, I shouldn’t be here, I don’t want to be here.  I imagine everyone else sat waiting is also thinking exactly the same thing.

We had it in our minds that we would do the next cycle in June.  The plan was two weeks away on holiday and then come back to start treatment a few weeks later.  It felt like a good plan.  As soon as I sat down I clocked the notice that said they were closed for lab work in July, which meant that between certain dates patients are unable to request treatment.  I know my cycle dates, June isn’t happening.  I will miss the cut off by about 3 days.  Just brilliant.

The consultant kept us waiting for 25 minutes.  How appointments are running 25 minutes late at 10am I have no idea.  At least she will have read our notes in that time…surely?  That will be a no then.

Sitting in front of a new consultant who hasn’t read our file was a little frustrating.  She was lovely, but I just wish they would at least read the file.  What don’t they get about how exhausting it is to keep going over the last 10 years?  Her first words took me by surprise…’how are you?’ and ‘I’m so sorry for your loss’.  Wow, some compassion.  Instantly the atmosphere changed.  She asked me some questions about the miscarriage, when I started to bleed, when I stopped taking drugs, if I had taken a test 2 weeks after to make sure it was negative…all of this is or should be ON MY FILE.

Her view is that it was a positive thing that I got pregnant.  Obviously the miscarriage was not the outcome everyone hoped for…but…for the first time ever I got pregnant.  We have 5 excellent quality blasts in the freezer.  As this is my first miscarriage, there is nothing to indicate that there is an underlying problem with me, the likelihood is (in her opinion) that the problem was with the embryo.  She is very hopeful (her words) that I can get pregnant and have a baby.  No more tests needed.  Just bad luck I suppose.

I asked about the steroids and clexane.  She prefers a natural approach unless we have known issues. Do I have killer cells?  Yes…READ THE FILE.  Ok, she will prescribe steroids.  Do we have known blood clotting issues?  Yes…READ THE BLOODY FILE.  Ok, she will prescribe Clexane.  If I get a positive I start aspirin.  Progesterone injections are my choice, I choose them.

My body dealt with the miscarriage as it ‘should have’, which apparently is positive.  My cycles have returned to normal straight away.  We can go ahead with another transfer, as soon as I feel ready.  I came away filled with renewed hope.  We have some great quality blasts and maybe at least one will become our future child.  The cloud of ‘this is never going to happen’ has started to lift.  The sadness is fading and being replaced with a new feeling.  A feeling of hope and optimism.

She talked to us about the clinic closure.  My cycle in June falls after the cut off date.  Why is nothing ever straight forward?  Why am I always left with huge decisions to make?  So, we either start again in a few weeks, whilst we are away on holiday.  Or we wait until mid-July.  We have a week to make the decision because I will need to take the delightful oestrogen patches on holiday with us if we decide to start on the next cycle.

I suppose the question is, do I feel ready?  I will never be ready to see another embryo on the screen before it is put back inside me & I will never be ready to take another pregnancy test again.  I have come to the conclusion that I will never ‘feel ready’, we just have to make the decision and go for it.  Is 2 months long enough to wait in terms of being physically and emotionally ready?  Is 4 months too long to wait and will I just end up being an anxious mess in the meantime, it feels like a long time to wait.  Part of me wants to wait because then we have hope for longer, the other part of me wants to get going again because I am loosing patience and I want to be pregnant again.

Either way we are heading towards transfer cycle number 8 with embryo 14.  I am left with 2 questions:

• How the hell did we get here?
• Why us?

Right now this is how I feel about infertility…

 

 

 

The question of “Giving Up”

I’ve been asked over the years if I’m ready to give up.  Our latest cycle seems to have raised that question again.  Before I go any further I want you all to know that it hurts to hear these words.  I wonder if those that ask this question have ever walked this path or have ever thought (and I mean truly thought) about what they would do if they had been dealt this hand.  For most people, they fortunately will never have to make decisions about the path they choose to take to try to have a family.  I am glad that they have never had to even think about the things that we think about every day, I hate that anyone has to go through this.

Why should I give up?  8 years, 7 transfers, 13 embryos…maybe it is enough, maybe its never going to work.  We have 5 more embryos frozen.  At the moment, that is 5 more chances.  Of course, there may come a point in the future where we decide to move on, but that is very different to ‘giving up’.

‘Giving up’ somehow implies that I don’t want it enough.  It implies that I need to admit defeat.  I have news.  This isn’t something that either defeats you or you beat it.  We entered the world of assisted conception 8 years ago, completely naive to the fact that we thought IVF would work first time.  Even the GP told us we would ‘just need a little help getting pregnant’.  For us, IVF it didn’t work first time.  We seem to live in a place where hope is given and then within a few weeks it is gone again.  Yet we continue to move forward.  Our relationship has been tested in ways I never thought possible.  I have had more medical procedures than I care to admit.  I have suffered depression as a result of not dealing with things when it didn’t go well.  I have felt left behind, out of touch with those around us and I have lost people who were once my friends.  There is a vacuum of silence between me and most people ‘close’ to us as they struggle to know what to say and I brace myself for what they might say.  Its a lose lose situation.  Everyone else around us moves forward, mostly with families that have grown over the past few years and will continue to do so over the coming years.  Our route to parenthood isn’t as simple as it is for many, but does that mean I should now ‘give up’.

Infertility will never defeat me because I am not at war with it.  It is part of me, it is part of us and our lives.  Saying the words ‘we give up’ will not make that go away or change it.  We have made the decision to continue to try to have a family.  I know it is not in the conventional way, but for us it is the only way it is possible.  Whilst we have the strength, courage, hope and probably just as important, the money, to keep having treatment, then we will.

There will come a point where we will move on.  In fact, this time last year I thought I was at that point.  It didn’t feel like I was ‘giving up’, it felt like I was starting to move on in a different direction.  I spent what felt like weeks and weeks in counselling sessions saying that I thought I would ok if we didn’t continue with treatment, but seemingly going round in circles, probably trying to convince myself that it was the truth.  We hadn’t had any treatment for 12 months & I was feeling the best I had done for a long time.  It turns out that I wasn’t quite ready to move on.  Something was telling us both that we would regret it if we didn’t have at least one more cycle of IVF.  It was a joint decision to find a new clinic and have more treatment.  It was the right decision for us.  Just as the decision right now to have further treatment with the embryos that we have frozen is also the right decision.

I went into the last frozen transfer with a renewed hope and positivity.  I am afraid of treatment, but that is because I know the reality of what it feels like and what the drugs do to me.  Yet, I am still willing to try.

Seeing 2 lines for the first time in 12 years truly was one of the best days of our lives together.  The day I started to bleed was one of the worst days of our lives together.  Being pregnant and then miscarrying has made our grief and sadness so much deeper that it has ever been before, but it has also given us renewed hope that one day somebody may call us ‘mum and dad’.  Should we ‘give up’ on that now?  Yes I am sad, I am angry, I think why me, I have no explanation as to why 6 transfers haven’t worked and why 1 did work and then didn’t continue to develop.  There is a place in my heart for all 13 embryos and there always will be.  I will always think of the dates that they would have been here with us and how old they would be now.  That will never leave me.  I know that 17th November will be etched on my brain and in my heart forever.  We have been through a lot, maybe if I was reading this story I too would be asking why we ‘keep going’.  And yet we are not ready to move on.  Our last cycle did the opposite, it gave us hope that at least one our 5 remaining embryos may actually stick around for the duration.  Whilst I know I am in the depths of sadness right now, I also know that in time it will lessen and I will be ready to transfer another of our embryos.  And as I keep being told, hope is everything.

Maybe its easier for those around us if we ‘give up’?  Of course it probably would be, they wouldn’t have to ride the roller coaster that we ride with each cycle, they too could get off.  Maybe they have ‘given up’ on us after all this time.  That’s ok too.  I get it, our story is now getting a little boring.  We don’t have a baby for all of our efforts, the reality is we may never have one.  It is probably hard for those people around us to watch us each time we are plunged to the depths of sadness and hope that we crawl ourselves out of it.  Each time we do.  It perhaps scares people that I may drift to a place of darkness.  Just because the tears are flowing and I feel sad right now for what might have been, it doesn’t mean that I am going to get to the same place I did before.  I got there because I didn’t cry or talk about it.  The fact that I am is a good thing.  It means I am dealing with it and not burying it.  How many times can we go through this?  To that there is no answer, I know that we will know when it’s time to move on.  I wonder if people would like me to say I’ve given up so that I can somehow forget what we have been through the past 10 years and just ‘get on’ with life?  I will never forget any of it.  I am changed.  I am different to most people that I know in the real world.  Infertility and our journey means that I always will be.  I have accepted this, I just hope one day that others can also accept this about me.

So, please don’t ask if it is time we gave up or if I’m ready to give up…when it is time for us to move on, we will let you know.

Endings…& New Beginnings

Two weeks ago I felt like my life was falling to pieces and there was nothing I could do to stop it.  In my last post I wrote about surviving the first seven days after my miscarriage.  Another week has passed and still the grief hits me in waves.  I have also felt the anger come to the surface.  The questions that no-one can answer, why me? why us? why did this happen?  In reality, we will never know why.  All we do know is that we have been through so much in the last 10 years since being given our infertility diagnosis, I really don’t know how much more we can take.

For the last week, each morning when I left the house for work I have cried.  It starts when I tell our puppy, J, that mummy loves him.  I haven’t stopped saying it, I have said it to him since the day we had him, just now it seems more loaded.  I know one day it won’t bring the tears, but for now, it does and that’s ok.  My grief, my tears are an expression of love.

The loss, the grief, the hope that gives us nothing but heartache, the sadness, the tears, the anger, the feeling of being broken, the emptiness, the sheer exhaustion of it all.  In the immediate days after our loss, I wondered if I would ever be able to put me and us through it again.  Sometimes I feel done.  I can take no more.  Then I think about the 5 embryos that we have frozen, the embryos that we created (with a lot of help from the embryologists of course) and I know I cannot walk away from them.  I also know that it has changed me, just as infertility changed me, this too has left a mark on me that will last forever.  I know I have already started to move forward.  But I will never forget.

Each day feels a little easier and then it hits again.  But that’s ok.  We have tried to resume normal life.  We have even started to think about the future again, we have to otherwise what else do we have.  The FET cycle that we just went through is now over, it has ended.  It ended in the most awful way and I wish it hadn’t, but no matter how much I want to change it, I can’t.

 I am reminded that with endings, come the possibility of new beginnings.

We have 5 more embryos waiting for us.  I need to start looking after myself again, getting healthy and basically I need to stop consuming my body weight in chocolate.  I have no idea how long it will be before I feel ready to go through another FET cycle, but I know I will get there.  And when I do, I need to be as healthy as possible.

We have a holiday booked so we can get some time away and hopefully some sunshine.  It will give us some time out and hopefully some space to heal.  To breathe.  To just be.

This week I finished my college course.  Another ending.  I have spent the last 6 months with some truly amazing people, all on their own paths, but all of us trying to reach the same end point of becoming counsellors.  I have been touched by each and every person in some way, the stories that they have shared and the safe space that was created so that I too could grow.  I feel lucky to have been on a learning journey with each of them.  Many of them are continuing to study together, my path is different.  So, I said a heartfelt goodbye to each and every one of them.  The tutor has held us together as a group, encouraged us, questioned us, guided us and most importantly has allowed us to just be us.  I feel privileged to have been taught by her.  She too has touched my life in a positive way and she has helped me to grow and flourish.  Saying goodbye to them all was hard, but I know in this course ending, we are all moving to a new, wonderful beginning.

It is 6 months until I start my university course and I can’t wait to get going!  Last week in the throws of sadness and anger I was going to withdraw from the course but with the dark clouds slowly clearing I can see that would be a huge mistake and if I want this I have to grasp the opportunity with both hands and give it my all.  No-one else is going to change my life, my career, only I can do that.

And so I have made progress.  I have bad moments, sad moments, angry moments, moments when I think depression is seeping back into my life.  But they are just that, moments.  Moments that pass.  Moments that are followed by brighter moments.  One day at a time, things are getting easier.  The miscarriage has changed me, why wouldn’t it?  I will never forget and I will never stop thinking about what might have been.  But I am digging deep to find the strength & courage to move forward.  It is all I can do to get through this.

Time for Self Care

More and more I hear the term ‘self care’, but what does it actually mean?  Being stuck running the gauntlet of infertility puts a spotlight on every aspect of life, including relationships with those around us.  One thing I have learned is that I really can’t rely on anyone around me to take care of me.  That doesn’t mean that people around me can’t walk with me, hold me for a while and help me through the tough times, but in terms of looking after the essence of me, that’s up to me.

I decided that I wasn’t going to blog through our frozen embryo cycle.  I suppose this is part of my idea of self care.  I wanted to protect myself and hubby from the outside world when it came to finding out the result of our next cycle.  We both agreed that I would keep the cycle off the blog until we knew the outcome.  We are now mid-way through our cycle, I am pumped full of drugs and the embryo will hopefully be transferred in the coming days; yet I am wondering if I made the right decision about closing down the outlet for my thoughts and feelings as we go through this process yet again.  Writing has been part of my self care for the last few months and yet here at a time when I probably need that outlet more than ever, I cut it off.  It feels good to be writing but I’ve realised I don’t need to blog the in’s and out’s of our cycle at this point.  That can come later.  What’s important is that I write what I am able to write and what I feel able to share with you all.  Being honest, if my blog was anonymous I would probably write about the intricate details of this current cycle, the tears, the doubt, the anger and the anxiety.  I would also probably give a day by day account of the two week wait that I head into within the coming days.  I don’t feel able to do that on this cycle…but that’s about me rather than anyone that knows me who may be reading.  I suppose it’s part of my self care strategy, I don’t want to expose myself by giving a blow by blow account as this cycle is happening.  I don’t want to be vulnerable, I don’t want to show my lack of positivity, I don’t want everyone knowing that I’m struggling to get from day to day and I don’t want to feel pressure to let everyone know the outcome as soon as we know.  But that’s what infertility is doing to me right now.  I haven’t had an embryo transferred, yet I cannot get to a positive place thinking about the outcome.  All I can see is negativity.  I do not want to hear the words “just stay positive”.  I’ve done that 6 times before, I’ve thought positively about 12 embryos.  It made not one bit of difference.  So, I know I’m struggling and I’m trying to take care of myself.  Which leads me to one self care strategy that I’ve not had in my previous transfer cycles…counselling.

I sometimes wonder whether those that read my blog regularly get a little bored of reading about how vital counselling has become to help get me through each stage of our infertility journey.  I see it as looking after my emotional health.  Given how anti-counselling I was until I had a breakdown, I’m as amazed as anyone at my complete shift in how important it has become to getting through these times.  I have been to the depths of depression because of hope, positivity and IVF cycles that did not work.  I am not going back there.  I will not stand in the shower after a cycle hasn’t worked and question my reason for being on this planet, it is not happening.  I have spent the last few weeks swinging through all sorts of emotions, I have felt numb, I have felt angry, I have been in floods of tears and I have been full of hope too.  The feelings can change in an instant and I had no idea where they were coming from.  So this week, I spent time with my counsellor talking through some of the feelings.  I reached the point of realising that most of them were being driven by deep rooted anxiety.  I just thought I was becoming an out of control emotional wreck, but I’m not, I need some self care to help me manage my anxiety.  We then talked about how I could manage my anxiety through the coming days.  Not weeks, not into the future, not thinking about all possible outcomes, but the coming day or two.  That’s where I needed to start.  It is hard but all I can do is try.

I have found so much support through Twitter, but I realised in the same counselling session that by being on it so much I was surrounding myself with the journeys of others and that was causing me to worry about our own cycle.  I have been through this so many times and I have only ever had a negative outcome that I don’t think I believe it will ever actually be positive.  Seeing others also have negative outcomes is heartbreaking and I just couldn’t cope.  It was starting to fuel my anxiety.  I try to support others as much as possible, but I had to admit that I was struggling and unfortunately I had to take a step back.  I know I have to put myself first, care for myself.  I also know that my infertility sisters on Twitter will understand and they know I will be back with them as soon as I feel able.  I also know that they will be rooting for us and supporting us every step of the way.  So to my Twitter buddies, a huge thank you for being you!

Talking of support, I facilitate a support group for Fertility Network UK.  Through this group I have connected with some amazing people.  I offered to start the group so that I could help others.  It has also helped me more than I ever thought possible.  Our support group is relatively small but I love that I have been able to meet with people who ‘get it’.  We speak the same language of IVF.  It makes a huge difference & for their support I will always be grateful.

I am struggling to keep my weight to the normal levels.  I put too much pressure on myself when going through IVF.  I have hormone patches stuck on my belly, my body is being pumped full of drugs and not fitting in my jeans has led to tears.  I have to be honest and say that I have skipped the odd meal here and there over the last few weeks to try and keep the weight off, it hasn’t worked.  I won’t be doing that moving forward.  I need to take care of my body and nourish it the best I can.  If I put on some weight I will go and buy a new pair of jeans.  If the cycle works, I will be putting even more weight on and if it doesn’t I will loose the weight.  It isn’t important right now and worrying about weight will only fuel my anxiety further.  So for now, it is parked.  I am not thinking about it any more.

I haven’t put my life on hold this time, like I have done for the previous 10 years and 9 cycles.  I haven’t started to think about the ‘what if it works’ scenario.  I can’t because I know it will start to creep into other things.  I applied to go back to university for a part time course, I had an interview this week and I nearly didn’t go because, well if the treatment works how can I possibly study and the whole process was worrying me, should I be doing it right now because I’m going through treatment?  I decided to go for it, I need to know I have a future even if I’m never going to be a mum.  I figure it is also part of my self care, putting me first.  What I thought was going to be a 20 minute interview turned into a 2.5 hour group discussion and interview.  They said I would have to wait 2 weeks to hear if I got a place.  I got an email the next day to offer me a place.  And so, putting myself first, feeling the fear and doing it anyway, not thinking or stressing about the ‘what if’s’ now means I have a place on a course that could see a whole new and different future for me.  It isn’t my plan B, its my life, my future.  There is no ‘plan’, I feel like I have accepted that my life will just be what it will be.

Self care means that I need to take things day by day.  I need to try not to think about whether the embryo will thaw, whether I will bleed early or whether I make it to test date and its negative.  I need to get through each day and see what happens.  I need to look after my emotional and physical health.  I hope I reach a place of positivity and I hope that our little embryo decides to stick around this time.  I know I will be heartbroken if it doesn’t work, but I also know that with lots of self care I can get through just about anything.  Self care isn’t about the big gestures, its about the little aspects of everyday life.  In the words of my counsellor…

“…if it feels like no-one else is around to hug you, then you have to learn to hug yourself”  

Wise words indeed.  Self care is about loving and looking out for yourself, that is what I need to do right now.

I know it’s hard for those around us to really understand what this feels like, and so this cycle I have no expectation of you.   All I ask is that you walk with us if and when you feel able, that you ask how we are both doing from time to time and that you understand that we are going through something pretty huge right now and we may need to put ourselves first, it is self care all the way for the next few weeks.  To those of you that have reached out to us in the last few weeks, whether through social media or in our ‘real’ world, from me to you a heartfelt thank you.  It means more than you will ever know.

A New Perspective

When I started this blog I wanted it to be a true reflection of our fertility treatment journey.  Fertility treatment is about more than going through a process of drugs, scans, egg retrievals and embryo transfers.  It is about the person as a whole, mind & body.  It is about the people we meet along the way & the relationships that come and go.  This post is about where I am with all of that right now.

I met someone new this week who has given me a different way of looking at what I have been through.  Its amazing how a few sentences can bring a change of perspective.

One of my favourite musicals is Wicked.  I don’t know why, it just is.  The words to one song always resonates with me, they always have…

I’ve heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return

I’m a huge believer that people come into our lives at the right time.  Some stay for a while, others just appear and disappear again.  I find that people enter when they are supposed to and leave when they are supposed to.  I honestly didn’t think anyone could teach me something new about myself where my own fertility journey is concerned.  I was wrong.

During my very first counselling session nearly 2 years ago, after I had given a whirlwind tour of our fertility treatments to that point, my counsellor observed that I was traumatised.  All the years of treatment and embryos not implanting had meant that time after time I have suffered one trauma after another.  When she used the word trauma, I honestly thought it was a bit strong.  Yes, I’d been through a lot, felt like I’d lost something (even though I never had it in the first place), yes my heart was broken into a thousand pieces & I couldn’t see how I was ever going to feel ok again, but traumatised, a bit OTT maybe?  I have heard the word a few more times during my counselling sessions but I haven’t quite been able to relate to that word being in my world.  I have of course been in denial for a long time about the impact of infertility on me and its taken many sessions for me to truly open up about the devastation that it has caused in my life.  We have also talked more recently about the mind and body connect, both have to be in balance and it is clear that I’m not quite there yet with the balance.

And so this week, I met someone new for acupuncture.  I was reluctant to find someone new but circumstances dictate that I can’t see the person I have seen previously.  I was gutted about that because she has been an important part of my journey thus far.  I’m hoping acupuncture can help me stay balanced through our upcoming cycle, as it has done previously.  As with all of the professionals I meet about our fertility struggles, I have to go through the last 7 years with a fine tooth comb, reliving each and every cycle that didn’t result in a positive pregnancy test.  When I got to the end, she put her pen down, sat back in her chair and said something that I’d heard before

“You have suffered so much emotional and physical trauma, how have you coped” 

As she said the word trauma, I was sent back to my first counselling session.  A thought flashed through my mind, 2 people in my life saying the same thing, it can’t be coincidence, its time to take notice and acknowledge the trauma that I have been through repeatedly.  I sat there and wondered why the hell I was about to put myself through this again, why do I want to go through that trauma again.  There is a simple answer, I don’t want to go through it again but hubby and I would like a family and to have a chance of achieving that I have to do IVF.

Our conversation continued.  Talking about our IVF cycles she asked me about the outcome of FET number 5, I said, that one failed too.  She looked straight at me and said that she never wanted to hear me say the word failure again.  In her view, it brings a negativity that is hard to shake off.  In that moment I knew she was right.  In using the word “failure” I’m setting myself up to feel like I’m the one that has failed.  I have not failed because our embryos did not implant.  The reason I ended up in some very dark places previously was because I felt like I had failed.  Our embryos not implanting is not a reflection on me or anything I have done or not done.  It is what has happened.  Its not my fault.  And so as I prepare for a new cycle, I have found myself with new grief, acknowledging the loss of our embryos.  And that makes me sad.  Sad more than words can describe.  I still need to grieve for our 12 precious embryos that didn’t make it to this world, even though we wanted them so much.  Its ok that I still need to grieve.  I will never stop thinking about them.  Its probably hard to understand the position I find myself in and that’s ok.  No-one else needs to understand.  They were our embryos, part of us, me and hubby, and they are gone.

You will never hear me say or write again that it failed or that I failed.  I can no longer use that word when talking about our fertility struggles and everything that we have been through.  I am not a failure because I can’t get pregnant.  I am many other things, but I’m not a failure.

The third moment of enlightenment came with a conversation about me not thinking treatment will ever work for us.  Why would it, it hasn’t so far?  Each time I think about an IVF cycle I relive the one before and the one before.  Its all negative.  It is the impact of suffering repeated trauma.  It is something I have talked about in counselling, that I don’t believe I will ever be able to get pregnant, and I have worked to try and understand the connection between mind and body but I’ve never really managed to understand why I feel physically tense when I think about IVF.  The person I was sat with explained that if I hold negativity about what has previously happened then my whole body will react to this negativity, it will become tense and so things may not work quite the way they should.  She said that I need to let go of the past and move forward positively without the dark cloud of the previous cycles hanging over me, both physically & emotionally.  Yep, she is right about that too.  This hit me like a bolt of lightening.  This has to change, I have to continue to change.  I have changed so much since my breakdown but I know I still have a way to go to being healed.  I need to heal physically as well as continue to heal emotionally (and I have already come along way on the emotional front).

We talked about whether I was ready for another IVF cycle.  I started to get a little angry because I’m ready and I’m committed to this next cycle, we are doing this, its the right time.  As we are doing a freeze all I explained that I know the stimulation cycle is going to be traumatic for me, both physically and emotionally.  Mainly because I’m petrified of OHSS and rightly so.  Pumping myself full of drugs isn’t ideal and I wouldn’t choose to do it, but I don’t have a choice.  After a lengthy discussion, I had my acupuncture session and I felt good when I left.  This person has definitely entered my life at the right time & is another person who seems to ‘get it’.

And so once the first part of the IVF cycle is done, it will be time for me to heal myself before we move to a frozen embryo replacement cycle, as long as we get some good quality embryos that is.  I have promised myself that I won’t jump into another FET, I will do it when the time is right.  After all, this is likely to be our last cycle so I have to make sure that I am ready for it, both physically and emotionally.

This week we also visited the clinic, got my protocol, had blood tests and we are all set to go.  My protocol has changed from Gonal F to Menopur.  I wasn’t expecting it and Menopur has made me so ill in the past that when I saw it written down I had a panic.  This isn’t going to be easy, but lets hope its worth it.  I’m starting on 112 of Menopur, which is different to both my previous cycles.  I get a blood test on day 4 of stims to see what my E2 is doing and then the dose may change.  It already feels like I’m being taken care of.  The nurse told me there are notes all over my file about being an OHSS risk and that everyone is aware of it.  I was going to ask if they knew of me because of the Twitter blocking incident, but I didn’t feel it was quite appropriate!  So, now we wait for day 1 of my next cycle and then make the phone call to ask to start treatment.

We also had a couples counselling session after our prep appointment which helped us both massively, even if it did get emotionally charged a few times.  We now know what each of us needs from each other to get through the next 6 weeks.  We have never done it before a cycle but I’m really glad we did.  We have to be kind to ourselves, to each other and most of all we have to talk.  Even if we don’t want to talk for fear of upsetting the other one, we have to say how we are feeling.  Its the only way and we are both more than ok with that.

So, for this cycle I have a new perspective and a new approach.  No more negativity.  No more doubting the clinic.  Hubby is firmly by my side, holding me whilst I grab onto him for dear life, going through every twist and turn together, after all this is as much about him as it is about me.  We also have our friends and family around us helping us to hold ourselves together as we head into something that I know is going to be traumatic.  I also have 2 people walking with me, both helping in different ways to keep me balanced and focussed.  Both encouraging me to look after myself, reminding me to be kind to myself and acknowledging that what I’m heading into isn’t going to be easy, but that I’m going to be ok.  One is new in my life, the other has been walking with me for nearly 2 years now, I know I need them both in order to stay positive and work through the inevitable melt downs that are going to come over the coming weeks.  All of the people that are supposed to be in my life right now are here.  In previous cycles hubby and I have closed ranks, tried to do this alone and I certainly haven’t let anyone help me.  I have hidden away hoping to get through it as best I can.  I cannot do it this time.  I know I am surrounded by love and that I have some amazing support.  That is all I can ask as we venture into our 9th cycle.

And as I head into another cycle I just have to remember to breathe & remember that I’m going to be more than ok…

 

 

Dear You…A Review

I was so happy to be included in the blog tour as part of National Fertility Awareness Week for :

Dear You: A Letter to my Unborn Children by Tessa Broad

Written by someone who, like me, desperately wanted to have a family, Tessa embarked on the rollercoaster of IVF and experienced the hope & failure that inevitably comes with that journey.  At the same time, normal life carried on around her and she had to navigate the complexities that come with just living, being in a relationship and learning to cope with grief and heartache.  Treatment unfortunately wasn’t successful for Tessa.  She had to grieve, heal and learn to live a life she never expected.  As part of healing process she wrote a very honest and personal letter to the children that she so badly wanted, but never got the opportunity to meet.

On so many levels this book struck a chord with me.  Entering the world of fertility treatment can be daunting and this book describes just what treatment requires of you, the impact on every aspect of your life, how we have to re-arrange our lives, put our lives on hold even.  How we hit the low points when it doesn’t work and yet somehow find the strength to go again, and again.  It describes perfectly how it wreaks havoc with who we are, our relationship, our sex lives, our diets, our careers, our friendships, well just about every aspect of everyday living.  It took over her life and it became her ultimate focus, just like it did for me and many of those that I know travelling the same road. In explaining to her unborn children the lengths that she was prepared to go to get them, the number of times she put herself back onto the treatment treadmill, she shows just how much love there is for them, even though in reality they don’t exist.  In her heart they do and always will.

As I read the book, I thought many times, she is describing me, what I’ve been through & how I’ve felt!  It is so rare to find books that hit so close to home where infertility is concerned.  Most end with the inevitable miracle baby, this book is the first one I have read where that isn’t the case.  Tessa takes her unborn children on a journey through what she hoped their life would have been like, the values that she would have tried to instil in them & explores how she would have allowed them the space to grow with confidence into whoever they wanted to be.  It is something that I too have thought about.  What kind of mum would I have been?  What would my children be like?  How would we have raised them?  It is a very brave step to write about a future that you so much wanted and yet no matter how hard you seem to try, it just didn’t work out the way you planned.

Tessa describes perfectly how it feels to be infertile in a very child focussed world.  This quote struck a chord:

“…being with children didn’t soothe me as I had hoped it might, it made the ache to have my own even harder to bear” 

I thought I was the only one that struggled to cope around other peoples children, even when I so desperately wanted to be around them, to spend time with them and to experience them in my life but yet for some reason I just couldn’t cope with it.  Throughout the book Tessa describes how it feels to want to engage in life, but somehow it is just to painful, too raw and filled with too much heartache.  And yet she managed to find the strength to keep going.

This book made me feel normal & less alone, so many times it described how I have felt throughout my own journey and yet I have struggled to express it to those around me.  She reminds us of the lasting impact that infertility can have on us & the need for it to be acknowledged:

“…infertility is life changing.  It is stressful, painful and deeply upsetting and to have it ignored or brushed aside, diminishes the experience.”

Tessa continues her story through the highs and lows of her relationships & ultimately to the point where she realised that there would be no children in her future.  It wasn’t the path she had planned to travel and yet she has managed to get to the point in her life where childlessness doesn’t define her.  In writing to her unborn children it felt like she was in fact nurturing them through the life she had planned for them and then through her love for them she let them go, in return she allowed herself to pursue a very fulfilling and worthwhile life.  I can only imagine how hard this book must have been to write and yet at the same time it feels like she allowed herself to move forward from the havoc that infertility had created.

This book is a brilliant example of life happening whilst we are busy making other plans, we don’t always know where it will take us, but that’s ok.  We may not have the life we had planned but that doesn’t mean to say we can’t still live a rich life, full of great experiences and  find passions for things that we never thought possible.  She also reminds us to put ourselves first and to try to be kind to ourselves, always.

A must read for anyone trying to navigate the world of IVF and perhaps wondering what happens if it never works.  I can guarantee that this will fill you full of hope and make you feel less alone.  Tessa managed to continually find strength through her infertility journey and beyond.  A huge thank you to Tessa for sharing her story.

Dear You is written by Tessa Broad and published by RedDoor

The Greek IVF Experience

It was time to start a new IVF cycle after our previous failed cycle & a bit of time out trying to recover from hitting rock bottom.  I never thought it would be me that travelled to another country for IVF.  We had very good reasons for choosing Greece, it was the home of medicine, the clinic had a fab reputation amongst fellow infertiles and it was cheaper than the UK.  I also felt that we were getting a much more tailored approach and that is what we got.

The plan was to take a high dose of Clomid, go to Greece, get the eggs removed, make the embryos and come home.  There was no pressure of a two week wait, no chance of failure.  We could get some embryos frozen and then go back for a frozen replacement when I was fully recovered from my recent breakdown.

And so in late February 2016 I contacted the clinic director to say that I was ready to start again.  Even that statement shows how different it is to the UK, I had email correspondence with the main consultant, the woman that we had met 12 months before and the person we were putting all of our faith and hope in.

Day 2 of my cycle and I started 150mg Clomid per day, plus a high dose folic acid and melatonin.  All designed to get some perfect eggs growing.  I then had to go to Greece by day 8 of the cycle for a scan.  No need for a scan before I started because I was on a low stim protocol and they knew I had lots of follicles.  She said I could fly home on the day of egg collection if I wanted so I would be in Greece for 4 days.  Sounded brilliant.  So, flights booked and hotel booked, I started the drugs.  This was going to be ok.

Transferring the money was a bit of a pain, but 4000 euros for a 2 cycle package sounded like a bargain compared to the thousands of  pounds for a single cycle in the UK.  At todays rate that’s about £3,500.  If we got more than 3 embryos to freeze then we would have to pay an extra 1000 euros for every three that needed to be frozen.

4 days in and I felt dreadful.  I was in agony on my left side, I felt like my ovary was going to explode.  What the heck was going on inside of me?  This was supposed to be a gentle stimulation.  I emailed the clinic and told them I felt unwell, she replied to say it was ok and if I wanted I could arrange a scan.  I was ahead of her and I’d managed to get a scan in a private practice for later that afternoon.  It was over an hours drive away which wasn’t ideal but I just wanted to know what my ovaries were doing.  Call me paranoid but its not surprising after what I had been through with the OHSS x2.  I went for the scan and she sent the info straight to the clinic in Greece.  The scan showed I had 34 small follicles across the 2 ovaries…eek, but there were no issues.  And so I carried on with the Clomid and the next day we flew out to Greece.

It was February but the weather was lovely, it was nice to be away from home and not at work whilst going through this.  The next day we were due in the clinic for a scan.  We made our way to the clinic through the bustling streets of Athens and then we entered the calm of the clinic.  I was called up for my scan.  As soon as the consultant saw me she came towards me and gave me a huge hug.  She said that I needed to stop worrying and that she would take great care of me, I was shaking like a leaf but I believed her.  The scan showed I had 4 follicles developing well.  She then said the words that made me shudder…I want you to take Menopur as well to help get some more follicles.  My first reaction was no, absolutely not.  It had made me so ill before I just couldn’t.  And then she explained that she would look after me and that I would be ok, but if I wanted to get a half decent number of eggs then she would advise that I took it.  So, we added in 150 Menopur.  I continued with the Clomid and Menopur for a few days, I still wasn’t ready for egg collection and we were due to fly home.  So we had to change our flights from Wednesday to Friday, which of course came at a cost.

Egg collection day and I felt ok, just wanted to get the eggs out of me and then we could get home.  I think I was more emotionally unstable than I was admitting to myself at the time.  I knew I was fragile but it was ok I would be home in 2 days.  They retrieved 6 eggs, which is a great number for mild IVF, usually you may expect only one or two.  I was pleased with the news.  And then came the bombshell.  I wasn’t supposed to have a transfer because the Clomid damages the lining so much at high doses.  For some reason, it hadn’t caused any damage to mine.  Whilst I was under they had, with hubbys permission, carried out an aquascan and found the lining to be ok, but they had also found a polyp.  She didn’t think the polyp would cause an issue but if this transfer didn’t work then she suggested that I get it removed before another cycle.  So, did we want a fresh transfer?  What, where was this coming from, how was this happening?  Hubby had already extended his annual leave and needed to get back to the UK, but it would mean a fresh transfer & that we hopefully wouldn’t have to come back.  So, we agreed.  Heck, what were we doing?  Was I strong enough to go through this again?  Well, it was too late, we were doing it.

We were aiming for a day 5 transfer which would be the following Tuesday,  Hubby booked a flight for Sunday and we moved hotels because we couldn’t stay where we were.  It was turning into a logistical nightmare, changing and cancelling hotels and flights every few days.  The good thing was that I felt really well post egg collection, no signs at all of OHSS.  I ate as much protein as possible.  We went off and enjoyed the sights of Athens, we also had to buy new clothes because we didn’t have enough with us.  We were expecting to stay 4 days and it was going to be closer to 14 days for me.

The day after egg collection we got a call from the clinic, of the 6 eggs only 3 had fertilised.  I was floored, we were both disappointed.  We had come all this way and we may now not end up with anything as we had such low numbers.  We were still hoping for a day 5 transfer & I had started the progesterone and steroids in preparation for the transfer.

Sunday came and the taxi came to pick up hubby.  There I was left in Athens on my own with nowhere to go and 2 days to wait for embryo transfer.  10 minutes after he left I got a call from the clinic.  Could I come in now for the transfer, we had lost one of the embryos, another was looking good and the second looked iffy.  I was shaking, this wasn’t sounding good.  Half an hour later I was in the clinic, alone, waiting for our precious embryos, our chance at a family to be put back inside me.  Hubby hadn’t even reached the airport when I phoned to tell him.

I don’t speak Greek, but you know when news isn’t good.  I knew by the tone in the conversations they were having that the quality of the embryos wasn’t good.  The consultant said they preferred to get embryos to day 5 but she felt it was ok to put these back at day 3 to give us a chance.  I knew in my heart that it meant we had no chance, it was over before it began.

I left the clinic, booked a flight for the next day and then packed to come home.  I had a blood test the next day to check my progesterone level & then got a taxi to the airport.  I had syringes in my case and drugs in my hand luggage.  I got stopped in Athens airport and finally got let through with the drugs after I showed a few guards the letter from the clinic.  I got through Heathrow and then had to fly up to Manchester.  This simple trip to Athens for some embryos to be made had turned in to a stressful nightmare.

We had only told our parents about the transfer, as far as everyone else knew we weren’t having a transfer and we made sure it stayed that way.  I wasn’t prepared for this and I didn’t want to have to go through another negative with everyone knowing.  I had injections of HCG to keep the bleeding away, which it did.  It also meant I couldn’t test early because it would give a false positive.

I got home and a few days later I returned to work on a phased return.  I hoped to have 2 embryos still growing inside me but in my heart I knew it wasn’t the case. I was devastated and I didn’t even know the outcome.  I lived the highs and lows of a two week wait.  In some ways I was numb to it, convinced it wouldn’t work again.  Work came as a good distraction.  Test day came.  It was another Big Fat Negative.  I was utterly devastated, we both were.  No-one else knew.  When anyone asked us we just said it hadn’t gone to plan and the embryos hadn’t developed, well they hadn’t.  I didn’t want everyone knowing I had failed again.  The Greek wonder that helped so many people get pregnant hadn’t been able to help us, there was no miracle for us.  It was starting to become clear that there probably never would be.

I emailed the consultant to let her know.  An email pinged back, she said how sorry she was, she felt it was down to poor embryo quality due to poor sperm parameters.  She suggested that we consider having treatment using donor sperm.  As I read the words my heart exploded.  I was struggling with another failure, how was I going to tell hubby this news?  I couldn’t tell him so I just showed him the email.  His face said it all.  He didn’t need to say anything, he was rocked to his core, we both were.

I emailed the consultant to say that we would need some time to recover and decide what to do next.  A donor wasn’t something that had ever been suggested to us before.  She emailed to say we had time to decide what to do next and that I could contact her when we were ready for our second cycle.  I knew that we would never go back to Greece.  We had spent about £5,000 and had nothing other than broken hearts to show for it.

The same day that we got the negative, got the news that we should consider a donor and delivered more bad news to our parents, I emailed the counsellor.  I briefly explained I had gone back to work and was struggling, oh and I happened to mention that I had also been through another failed cycle.  I hoped for a reply.  I needed her to reach out and grab me for a second time, and that is exactly what she did.  A few days later I had an appointment.  There was no judgement on the decisions I had made.  Here I was completely floored, facing a future of nothing, our relationship in tatters, me in a depression and I knew this time I needed help to grieve and heal.  All of the previous failures and treatments came back to haunt me, I wasn’t going to get through this alone.

I will leave it there for now.

We went to Greece expecting a simple cycle, it ended up being complex and gave us news that we never expected.   The care we received was second to none.  Aside from the logistical nightmare because of the unexpected transfer, it was on the whole a good experience.  I wasn’t ready for the transfer but I suppose that going through it meant I started my journey of recovery and self discovery sooner than I might have if we hadn’t gone ahead.

The beginning of healing…

I was at the lowest point I’d ever reached and I was now set to embark on something new, something utterly terrifying.  I had made the first step in contacting a counsellor and within a few hours I had an appointment booked for the following week.

There are some shocking statistics around the impact of infertility, according to a Fertility Network UK study in 2016, 90% of people experiencing infertility reported feeling depressed, 42% experienced suicidal feelings and 70% of respondents reported detrimental impacts on their relationship.  All of these applied to me.  The impact ran deep and through every aspect of my life and relationships.

For those that have read my previous posts, you will know that I refused counselling each and every time it was offered and yet here I was in the throws of depression reaching out desperately hoping that this stranger would be able to help me.  The day of my first appointment came.  I had no intentions of backing out, something inside was telling me that I had to do this, I needed to, otherwise I would never get better.  I had to travel an hour from home and I remember the journey like it was yesterday.  I cried pretty much all the way, thoughts of why me, why is my life destroyed, what have I done to deserve this, running through my head.  I was early so I parked up on the local supermarket car park and then the sheer panic hit.  I couldn’t do it, I needed to just go back home, I would be ok, wouldn’t I?  I didn’t need this, I wasn’t that much of a failure, was I?  I was shaking like a leaf, just like I had been for the previous few weeks.  I talked myself into going and so that’s what I did.

A cold December morning and I met the person that has truly helped me to change my life.  I didn’t know that at the time and I was very unsure what it would actually be like.  The session started and I just felt cold, freezing cold.  The room wasn’t cold, but I was frozen to the bone.  I’m not sure if it was nerves or emotion.  I was very aware that I was shaking & clearly in a bad way.  She has since said that when she first met me I looked grey, and I suppose that’s an accurate description.  I was in such a dark place, I was a shadow of my former self and a shadow of the person I wanted to be.  I hated being like this, it was time to face it, whatever that meant.  After she went through her background, some formalities and I signed a form she asked me why I had come to see her.  Where the hell do I start, infertility or work?  I explained that I was signed off with stress and there was lots of work stress, but that I was struggling after so many years of infertility.  And then I just started to talk, the infertility stuff came out first.  I talked through our initial diagnosis, our treatment history & all of the investigations.  The failure, the hope and yet more failure.  I felt the tears coming as the enormity of what I had been through started to emerge in front of me, yet I didn’t cry.  I was shaking, my voice was shaking, part of me was screaming to stop, yet I kept talking.  I reached the point in our story where we were supposed to have treatment in Greece but I explained that I just couldn’t do it.  That the thought of me sent me into sheer panic.

She listened as I spoke, she wrote things down, she asked questions as I talked about cycle after cycle, after all the story was quite complex and it was clear I lost her a couple of times but she stayed with me. Her tone was soft and caring and she spoke like she actually wanted to know this stuff about me, she seemed interested.  Everyone else in my life seemed to switch off when I started talking about infertility, she seemed the complete opposite.  When I had stopped talking she put her pen down, looked straight at me and asked me how I had survived the last few years?  She commented that it was no wonder I had found myself in the position that I was now in and that it was perfectly understandable that I would be feeling the way I did.  With 2 sentences my feelings were validated, my position was validated and most of all she made me feel that it was ok for me not to be ok.  Why would I be ok after being through so much?  In that instant I knew that she was the right counsellor for me.  She was to the point and yet she seemed to get me. For the first time ever, someone seemed to understand the complexity of what I had been through and acknowledge that of course this would be having a huge impact on every aspect of my life.  She didn’t brush my feelings to the side, she didn’t try to tell me I would be ok or that what was meant to be was meant to be, all of those things that those closest to me had said in the years leading up to this point.  She had simply listened, she had listened to the actual words, she seemed to understand and most of all she showed compassion and empathy.  For the first time in along time it felt like someone actually got me.

The hour passed and she asked if I wanted to see her again.  I made another appointment.  I left the appointment and I felt like a huge weight had been lifted from me.  I knew I had a long way to go, but I had made that first vital step, I had asked for help and it was there.  I think those around me thought that I would have 5 or 6 sessions and I would be fixed, whatever that even means.  When people asked me how it had gone, I said that it had gone ok and that I was going to keep going, I needed to keep going.

The next session we talked about work, after all that was why I was there.  Being off work sick had triggered me to seek help.  Yet, as I talked about work, infertility stuff came into the story again.  It was here again and it wasn’t going away.  None of it was going away.  I left that session feeling lighter but now a little scared of how long this might go on for and where it might end up taking me.  A huge can of worms had truly been opened.

Christmas 2015 came and went, I remember very little about it.  I was due to go back to work on Christmas Eve but another GP signed me off for a month.  We were due to go to the Maldives in January.  I begged the GP to write me a letter to say I was too unwell to travel so that we could cancel, she said that couldn’t be further from the truth and the holiday may do me the world of good.  I suppose it just highlights the depths that depression sends you to.  I lost all perspective.  Who in their right mind would not want to go to the Maldives and Dubai, it was the holiday of a lifetime.  And that’s exactly what it was.

          

I didn’t have any more counselling sessions before we went away and whilst we were away my next appointment got cancelled.  I said I would re-arrange when I got back home.  She could only offer a phone appointment for the next few weeks.  It gave me the perfect excuse not to go back, I didn’t really like the idea of a phone appointment but maybe I was just too scared to keep going.  I knew would go back when I could have a face to face appointment.  We came back from the holiday, two weeks in the sunshine and I felt much better.  I was due to go back to work and felt ok to go.  I contacted my boss to say I was coming back and she said they were going through huge changes so it may be unsettling.  I made an appointment with the GP and she signed me off for another few weeks.

So, time off work, no stress from work.  The perfect time to do another IVF cycle.   Writing this now I just want to scream at myself, what the hell were you thinking?  But the truth was I felt ok, I felt like I could cope and of course the new approach in Greece was going to work.  I wouldn’t have to wrestle with work for time off.  There wasn’t going to be an embryo transfer because the drugs I was having meant I would have to be a freeze all, so I wouldn’t have to contend with a two week wait, this was just the technical part of making embryos and I was ok with that.  2016 had to be our time, didn’t it?  Surely we deserved a break…surely we deserved a positive outcome.  And it was done, the wheels were in motion and we embarked on an IVF cycle in Greece.

I will leave it there for now.

I know lots of my fellow fertility warriors have not been to counselling so I hope that this post gives some re-assurance that its ok to ask for help, it really does help.  My first session was a really good experience.  When I walked in I felt like I was at the bottom of a pit that I would never get out of.  When I walked out I felt like I was at the bottom of a pit but it was no wonder I was there & I had hope that I would be ok.  It was such a relief to talk to someone who wasn’t emotionally involved with us and someone for me just to talk to.  That’s all I wanted to do, talk and not be made to feel like I was a burden or that the person listening wanted to give me the answers.  The truth is no-one can do that.  I suppose I have been lucky that my first counselling experience was very positive and I knew instantly that I had found the right one for me.  If I hadn’t then I would have kept looking.  I needed it and I was no longer afraid or ashamed to admit it.  Yes I had a wobble after a couple of sessions but as my story continues it will become clear that counselling has truly helped me save myself.

Hitting Rock Bottom

Failure number 5 hit me hard, it hit us both hard.  It didn’t seem to matter what we tried, IVF just wouldn’t work for us.  I was floored.  The new clinic that we had put so much hope into still couldn’t get this to work for us.  I was already at a low point going into that cycle, coming out the other side with another negative, another blank screen on a test and I was done.  Hubby wanted to go for a follow up with the clinic, I reluctantly agreed.

2 months later we were sat with the consultant, talking about another round of IVF.  I remember pulling into the car park of the clinic and saying that I can’t do this again.  I was visibly shaking, full of nervous energy whilst we sat and listened to the consultants verdict of the failed cycle.  In his opinion, it was embryo quality that was the problem.  He suggested a further round of treatment, starting again.  I asked about avoiding OHSS, he started to reel off a list of drugs that I would need to take, I couldn’t listen, I couldn’t hear it.  I was absolutely terrified and completely exhausted.  We left the clinic, no commitment to start again.  I knew in my heart there was no way I was ever going back to that clinic, I couldn’t get OHSS again.  I couldn’t take all of the drugs again.

The summer of 2014 slipped by, I was a complete wreck, shaking with nerves, anger, sadness and anything else in between.  Those around us getting excited about yet more new arrivals that we due, me in a state of despair.  When I thought about my future, all I saw was a big black hole of nothing.  I crawled from one day to the next, in a stressful job that I now hated because it was all just too much, yet somehow I had to keep going.  I was sick most mornings, and that was the stress.  I was exhausted, physically and emotionally.  Our relationship was in tatters.  September came and we went to Spain, we had a nice time, I slept a lot and started to read some books about adoption.  After all, that seemed to be the next step for us.  We talked about adoption and whether that would that be something that was right for us.  We knew we needed to grieve, but as ever we tried to move forward.  We went to an adoption information evening when we got back from holiday.  I sat listening, I wanted to cry, all sorts of feelings came to the surface.  Any questions?  No, I was out of there are lightening speed.  It was too raw, it was too soon, I just wasn’t ready to move on.  Hubby came away full of enthusiasm, he wanted to pursue adoption.  We weren’t on the same page.  In fact, we weren’t even in the same book.

A few weeks later and I was back on the hunt for a new clinic.  I wasn’t done with IVF.  Trawling the fertility forums for clinic recommendations I started to look at clinics abroad.  It was seemingly much cheaper, lots of stories of positive outcomes for people with lots of failed attempts and lots of positivity around standard of care.  I kept reading about a particular clinic in Greece and the more I read the more I thought it was the one.  That was our next step.  It sounds pretty crazy now to say that we were considering IVF in another country, but it felt like we were running out of options, time & money.  I got in touch with the clinic in the Autumn and filled in all of the forms.  Still a nervous wreck, in the throws of depression, this was my only route out.  They suggested a test which involved sending a sample of my lining via the post to check for infection.  Sounded utterly disgusting but by this point we would consider anything to try and get some answers.  That came back clear, phew.  We got an appointment through for January, the only problem was a little trip we had booked to the Maldives & Dubai for our 10th wedding anniversary.  We agreed that this was more important and so the trip got cancelled and the deposit moved to a holiday in Italy the following summer.  Hubby wasn’t best pleased at all, it was his trip of a lifetime, it was on his bucket list and there I was asking him to cancel.

Christmas 2014 was the worst one I have experienced for feeling sad, lonely and utterly useless.  I was moving between anger and sadness of epic proportions on a daily, if not hourly basis.  Work was getting more and more pressured and I just hated life.  We took the house off the market because it hadn’t sold, so I was also living in a house that I just couldn’t settle in.  Somehow I had to get through January to go to Greece.

Instead of sitting on a plane to the Maldives, we were on an EasyJet flight to Athens.  We flew out on the Monday, had appointments on the Tuesday & Wednesday and came back on the Thursday.  We walked into the clinic and it was calm, welcoming and just felt so different to the UK clinics we had been to.  We were about to see the consultant that I had read so much about.   This was it, she was going to help us achieve our miracle. We went through our history, we’d had some tests, I had a aqua scan and then we met with her to discuss our case.  She dismissed some of the immune test results from our previous clinic and didn’t agree that all of them were a problem.  Hubby had been on their sperm improving protocol so it was time to see if there was any difference.  And there was, it was at the lower end of the normal range but it was the first time it had been normal.  We talked about a Mild IVF protocol, which sounded amazing to me, no OHSS.  We sat in her office, surrounded by photos of babies, clearly ones sent to her by her success stories.  I was still a nervous wreck, still in the depths of depression, shaking like a leaf, I found it hard to have hope, but I did.  At the second appointment, hubbys DNA fragmentation test on his sperm came back as normal.  Her words to us were:

“You aren’t a case for IVF, you can do this on your own”

What?  We were floored.  I walked out of the clinic with my head in a spin.  We had been through 2 fresh cycles and 5 frozen cycles and she was telling us we didn’t need IVF.  There are really no words to describe what that felt like.  I felt even more useless and I felt like we had just wasted the last 5 years of our lives.  She had told us that if we hadn’t been successful after 6 months then we were to contact her to talk about treatment.  We flew home the next day in a complete daze.

My depression remained, we didn’t have a plan and I became more and more isolated.  I just wasn’t coping with life and certainly not family life around us.  One Saturday morning I logged onto Facebook and I was faced with the usual happy family posts, how life was complete with a family, how children are the light of life and what would there be without them, so all that said to me was that I was completely useless and worthless, I had no purpose.  That was the last day I used Facebook for 10 months.  I just couldn’t bare it, it was destroying me.  My heart felt like it was shattered into a 1000 pieces and everything around me was zooming at 100mph, meanwhile I was barely treading water, in fact it felt like I was drowning.

There never was a positive pregnancy test and by April I was looking for a new clinic, I wanted another opinion.  Time for the big guns.  We had already spent about £1000 on the Greece trip, we were now going to see someone on Harley Street in London.  This was going to be pricey.  Another consultant that I’d read great things about and he was hot on the immune side of things, I was still convinced that these were our main issues.  One Friday morning in May was went to London, paid £450 to sit in front of a consultant.  We took all of the results we had with us and he sifted through them.  He asked if I had a stressful job, yes was the reply, he looked at me as if to say ‘well what do you expect’ but he didn’t say it.  He wanted us to have an extra test and a re-test on one that was borderline.  No mild IVF, he wanted a full stim cycle and he would try to avoid OHSS but couldn’t promise anything.  I paid the bill, she asked if I wanted to book in for the other tests which would cost around £900.  I said we would leave it and get back to them.

We left the appointment, heads spinning.  It all sounded very extreme in terms of treatment but I’m not sure what I expected because I’d read so much about his approach and treatments, I knew that’s what it would be.  We sat in the BHS cafe and talked about whether we should do more treatment, we agreed we should.  We agreed that we needed to put the house back up for sale to release some funds, but I was relieved about that anyway because I just didn’t enjoy living there.  At that point we weren’t sure which clinic we would go to, but we felt like had options and we had hope.  I suppose I should have been happy, but I wasn’t.  I was sad, just so sad.

The house went up for sale a week later and sold within 3 days.  We were now on the hunt for a new house, luckily we found one quite quickly and forged ahead with the sale.  We took the holiday to Italy, a week in Tuscany and a week in Lake Garda, just what we needed to re-charge the batteries.

Our house sale continued but 2 months later because of land dispute, we pulled out of the one we were buying.  We would be homeless.  Just what we needed, more stress.  Treatment was on hold.  We found another house a week before our sale was going through so we went to live with the in-laws.  That summer we also lost 2 people that we were both very close to and we both took it hard, but we had to try to keep going.  We planned to go to Greece for treatment in September, work said they couldn’t give me the time off.  I was fuming but I had no choice, so we decided on October.   We decided against Harley Street, it just wasn’t for us and we liked the Greek consultant.

We both tried to keep going but both floored by the constant set backs and grief.  A week before I was due to start the injections and I couldn’t do it.  I broke down and said to hubby that I couldn’t do it, I wasn’t strong enough, I couldn’t cope.  I was on edge and I felt dreadful.  He agreed that we should wait for a few months & move house.  We booked the dream holiday to the Maldives & Dubai for January, it wasn’t been cancelled again.

We moved house.  It was November and work was getting too much.  I started to suffer migraines at the weekend, something I’d never had before, I didn’t realise it at the time but I was clearly very unwell.  The first week in December came, I left work on the Friday in a complete state due to stress and pressure.  I called my boss and said that I was struggling, we talked about it and I said I would see her Monday.  I didn’t.

That weekend I had a breakdown.  I was done, it had got me.  The last 5 years was here, facing me, raw, it had ruined me and I was completely destroyed.  Infertility had ruined my life, I was out of control, I was stressed and depressed.  I was anxious.  I suffered a panic attack as we were about to go out on the annual family hunt for a Christmas tree.  I was a dithering wreck.  Sunday evening and the tears flowed.  I needed to quit my job, that would make it all better.  My sister in law had a long talk with me and said it was clear I needed time out, that I needed some space and that quitting wouldn’t be the answer.  She was right.  I emailed my boss and said I wouldn’t be in.

2 days later I sat in the GP waiting room, tears in my eyes, shaking.  I saw the GP and he said I would get better with 2 weeks off from the stress of work and he said he could add me to the waiting list for counselling.  It was up to 6 months wait.  I said I would leave it.  He gave me some leaflets for on-line help, they went straight in the bin on the way out.  I would go home and it would all be ok.  I sat at home like a zombie.  I was ill, so ill.

I needed help, I needed help quickly and from someone who would understand me.  I searched google for a fertility specialist counsellor and came across the BICA website.  I put in my search criteria and 3 people came up.  I read the profiles, Googled their names and tried to pick one.  One looked pretty frightening as I found her photo on another website so she was a no-no, one didn’t have much of a profile so that was a no also.  I read the profile of another one and it struck a chord with me.  Her name didn’t bring up anything sinister when I Googled it so that was a relief.  She seemed just right for me.  I sent the email having re-written it several times so as not to seem completely desperate and hoped for a reply.  I had refused every offer of counselling but I knew it was the only way that I was going to crawl my way out of the black hole that I was in.  I was at the bottom of a pit, I was broken and I couldn’t find the energy to crawl out of it.  This counsellor was my only hope, she had to reply, what if she didn’t, I would be screwed.  That afternoon I received a reply.  Phew.  I felt relieved, I had reached out and someone on the other end of an email had put a hand out for me to grab hold of.  I didn’t really want to go. after all wasn’t that admitting I was a failure?  Deep down I knew if I didn’t then I would never get out of the darkness and my life would remain in the depths of depression.  It had to stop, I needed it to stop.  I had reached rock bottom and I had no-where else to turn.

I will leave it there for now.  Its hard to admit that infertility lead me to such depths of depression, to the point where I couldn’t function & I no longer wanted to be alive.  No-one ever tells you before you start treatment that this is what it can lead to.  For me it did.  I was ashamed and afraid to admit where I found myself.  I had cut myself off and I didn’t ask for help until I was in a complete crisis.  If you are struggling, please ask for help or please speak to someone.  I may have avoided a complete breakdown had I asked for help or accepted it when it was offered.

 

Moving Embryo’s & a change of approach

After 2 fresh cycles both resulting in OHSS with no transfer and 4 frozen embryo transfers all resulting in Big Fat Negatives I was done with the clinic.  We had made the decision after the 4th failure that it was time for a new approach.  It was the summer of 2013 when we made a self referral to a new clinic.  I’d read lots of good things about them and they did extra tests to see if there were immune issues causing the implantation failures.  The on-line forums were seemingly full of stories of people who had multiple failures but had pursued extra tests and had found the golden answer to the question that no-one seemed to be able to answer for us, why wasn’t this working?  So, that was the new plan.  It didn’t come cheap but we had decided that it would be worth it.

Our last failure was in the March and by July we were under the guidance of a new clinic.  It was hardly enough time to have recovered but we needed just to get on with this.  Time was slipping away and it was getting harder and harder to live with not having a family.  We had 4 embryos frozen so we still had a chance.  At the same time as the IVF stuff we also started the second phase of our house renovation.  We had completed phase one during our first embryo transfer and now here we were a number of years later about to start that again too.  We received our 1st appointment at the new clinic for September 2013.  At least it meant no treatment during the next part of the renovation.  By the time we went to the new clinic we were living in a building site, the house we were turning into a family home.  We just didn’t have the family yet.

We went to the appointment, did the usual basic tests so blood test of me, scan for me and hubby had to give a sample.  Here we go again.  We talked through our history with the consultant.  At last it seemed that someone was listening.  We talked about the immune tests that the clinic provided and whether it would be worth us looking into at this point.  The consultant agreed but they came with a warning, to tread with caution and a definite these may not be the answer.  We were given lots of information to read, both for and against the tests.  Immune testing in IVF is very controversial but I had read lots about it and was convinced that there would lie some answers in it for us.  We walked away £400 lighter and booked in for the blood tests that we had discussed with the consultant.  It was November when we had the tests, a couple for hubby and a lot more for me.  We came away from that appointment £2,700 lighter.  Some of the samples were sent away so it would be a few weeks before we had the full set of results.  So that was just over £3,000 in 2 months just to try and get some answers.

It was November by this point, the house was nearly finished.  Proud of our efforts on the house and with a renewed hope that 2014 would finally be the year where IVF worked for us, we headed towards Christmas with the usual sense of dread.  We worked hard over the next few weeks finishing the house.  Two weeks before Christmas we were done, it was finished.  I uttered the words, I’m never moving again.  We had transformed a complete wreck into a gorgeous home.

 

That night we went out to, we came home and the house was plunged into darkness.  A power cut?  No, the houses in the distance had power.  I said to hubby, we haven’t been burgled have we, half panicked, half joking.  That is exactly what had happened.  Some fucking piece of scum had smashed their way into the house, left mud all over my new carpets and robbed us of lots of valuables.  My world was rocked.  How much shit could we go through?  They never caught the person that did it.  I couldn’t settle in the house, I didn’t want to be in it but I didn’t want to leave.  I was a nervous wreck.  Christmas came and went, I don’t remember anything about it.  January came, the house went up for sale.  I couldn’t stay there.

So, the New Year came and we continued with treatment.  A few issues were detected which meant that next time we had a transfer I would take a lot more drugs.  All in the hope that we could defeat this thing called infertility that was now plaguing our lives.  Supposedly we had a DQ Alpha match which could mean that there was an incompatibility between us in terms of the embryos that we created.  I had negative LAD & hubby had C4/M2 mutation.  The consultant went through the results and explained what each meant.  He did a fab job in his explanation (or so we thought at the time) and we came away with a new approach and new information.  Of course, no promises were made that it would make any difference but we were willing to go with it.

We arranged for the embryos to be moved to the new clinic.  It really was that straightforward, we got a company that specialises in moving embryos to move them for us.  No problems there, lots of paperwork but no issues.  It was April 2014 and we were ready to go again.  I had intralipids, so a nurse came to the house to administer them and I sat patiently for an hour of so whilst the mix of egg and soya entered my system.  It was a less medicated frozen transfer so I had no switching off of my system, it was a breeze compared to the other frozen cycles.  I was taking aspirin, steroids and an oestrogen tablet that was upped over the first 2 weeks of my cycle.  I also had to take calcium tablets because of some of the other drugs.  Progesterone was added in the form of waxy pessaries.

The day of transfer came, I got the phone call.  They had thawed 2 embryos, one was ok the other had arrested, it was gone.  What did we want to do?  Luckily hubby and I had already had the discussion.  We wouldn’t be able to leave one frozen so we asked them to thaw the remaining 2 and put back the best 2 of the remaining 3.  It would mean one embryo wouldn’t be used & would have to be discarded.  I felt a strange sense of loss at that point.  I was supposed to be happy that we were going for embryo replacement number 5 and I just felt sad.  We got to the clinic, there was no one else waiting so we went straight in.  One more of the embryos had perished, so we were left with two.  We had made the right choice about defrosting them.  One was looking very good, the other looked OK.  Waiting for the transfer and the fire alarm went off, just a practice apparently.  Not great timing given I was half undressed and laying legs apart for the world to see.

The consultant asked if we wanted a picture of the embryos, a jolt of pain rushed through me, I said No.  I didn’t even think about it, I couldn’t bare to see them and have a photo if they didn’t implant.  It felt like it would have been torturous.  I didn’t want to become attached to a bunch of cells on a photo, I was attached to them without seeing them, they were our precious bunch of cells, our embryos, our potential future children.  He said he would keep a copy on file in case I changed my mind.

Transfer done, I went home to rest.  I was supposed to work mornings and have afternoons off.  Two days into the two week wait and I couldn’t cope.  I was a wreck at work because of the high pressure in the job.  I was addicted to Dr Google and I was back in a state of limbo, just waiting and hoping, waiting and hoping.  I prayed that the new drugs would make the difference.  I was also injecting Clexane each evening, a blood thinner which stings like hell and leaves the most horrendous bruises.  It would all be worth it, wouldn’t it?

For the first 5 days I felt really good, I was relaxed, not in work and I actually felt good.  Day 6 came and I felt really unwell.  I lay on the settee watching trash on TV and cried, my ovaries felt like they were going to pop and I just felt really sick and groggy.  I knew this was going wrong again.  Day 7 post transfer and I was watching a programme on TV about someone who went to Greece for treatment and had quads, I later took this to be some kind of sign!  An hour later I was bleeding.  Much earlier than ever before.  I felt like crap, I just wanted this to be over.  I wasn’t due to test for another 5 days but I knew it was over.  I drifted through the next few days, carried on with the drugs but I knew it was done.  I was done.  I wanted to cling on to hope, to my precious embryos, but I knew they were gone and there was nothing I could do.  I was broken in every sense of the word.

Test day came, I didn’t test.  I called the clinic, I had to leave a message on an answerphone with my name, phone number and the result.  It felt humiliating.  A few hours later and a nurse called me back.  Was I ok she asked?  No I wasn’t.  Did I want to see a counsellor?  No, I’ve been through this 5 times now and I know I will get through it.  I don’t need a counsellor, they cant change the outcome or make this work.  She listened while I told her how shit it all was.  Did we want a follow up?  No, I didn’t.  I wanted nothing, wanted no-one.  There was no point.  The following morning, I sat on the end of our bed looking out at the amazing view and I cried.  I cried and cried some more.  I told hubby I was never doing it again.  I couldn’t do it again.  It had destroyed me.  We had spent over £5,000 and had nothing but  broken hearts to show for it.  The bruises that the Clexane left took weeks and weeks to go, a constant reminder of what I had done to my body.  The rest of me took even longer to recover, although I don’t think that you do ever fully recover when a piece of you is stripped away over and over again.

This was the cycle that plunged me further into a depression.  I just wanted the world to stop and let me off.  I had no idea what we would do next, no idea when this nightmare would end.  Everyone around us now had or were about to have their families, and there we were with nothing to show for 4 years of treatment.  We were both exhausted and both broken.  No family for us in 2014.  We would have to start again if we could ever find the strength to go again.  I doubted that we would but at this point in our journey, we weren’t enough for me, if there was no baby, no family then there was no point in us.

I didn’t care what was going on around us, I didn’t want to be part of anything, I didn’t want to hear about the families that were growing around us or who was having a baby next.  I couldn’t get excited about anything or get involved with anything.  I had isolated myself so that I could protect myself, its the only thing I knew how to do.  I just wanted to curl up into a ball and most of all I wanted this hell to be over, one way or another.  I had done everything that had been asked of me, taken all of the drugs that I could have to combat these so called immune issues and still I had failed.  I was a nervous, anxious wreck who struggled to get from one day to the next.  Infertility and IVF had destroyed me to my core.  I felt like I was broken and that I was beyond repair.

Feeling like we had no future, we booked a holiday to Spain in September and another one for January, the Maldives and Dubai, a special holiday for our 10th anniversary.  Everyone around us seemingly had an opinion of our love of holidays, for me it was a means to survive the coming months.  It would give us something to look forward to, or so I thought.  But nothing is ever that simple.

I will leave it there for now.  It has reminded me just how low this process sent me.  I seemingly looked ok to everyone around us but with each blow I struggled to get up and move forward.  I do wonder if I will cope any differently as we move forward towards our next cycle.  Even thinking about another cycle fills me with all kinds of emotions but deep down I know I will be ok, I always am.