If you’re here because you read my piece in the Daily Mail today, hello! Thanks for coming to visit. If you’re here because you’ve been following and got notified that there was a new post, welcome back.
I hope you’ve all been having lovely summers. I have. I’ve mostly been living my life as if Continue reading
Former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright once said that “There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.” I’m going to go further than that. There is a special place in hell for fertility clinic admin staff who get their kicks by wielding the small amount of power that they have over women undergoing fertility treatment.
If you follow my (pretty badly neglected) Twitter account, you might have seen Continue reading
Sorry — I sort of wrote two posts at the same time — which means there’s bits of information in both but maybe not the whole picture. So as you might have gathered from the previous post a) I’m not done and b) I have a plan, so here’s a few more details on that…
The minute there was a plan, that made me feel so much better because, as you may recall, that is the sort of person I am. My consultant basically said that I shouldn’t feel Continue reading
Sorry for the silence. I was sort of regrouping and had nothing to say that wasn’t crying and raging at the world that it was really unfair. But thanks to everyone who took the time to message me and comment and be lovely. Knowing complete strangers have your back and are rooting for you is strangely comforting.
(On which note if you like this blog you might also like IVFML which is Continue reading
…and maybe this is why it didn’t feel like last time, maybe this is why I felt disengaged, maybe because on some level, somewhere, I had some inkling that this was going to happen.
Because ‘this’ was the call that I got today, from a stranger that I’d never spoken to before (but more on that in another post, another time) telling me that of the five eggs that had defrosted successfully, Continue reading
For various reasons I’ve not seen my pet consultant in a while — she’s been on holiday, she’s been in theatre, she’s been ill — and so the cycle that was cancelled I didn’t see her at all, and so far this cycle I haven’t seen her either. The clinic doesn’t make any guarantees about this, after all it’s a 7-day-a-week operation, you can’t ever guarantee to see the same person each time. But because I have up until now, it’s been a bit weird for me.
I sort of feel dumped and cut adrift even though I know Continue reading
When you read about people doing IVF (and let’s be honest, you do, don’t you? Because you’re here, and I know I’m awesome and all that but I’m guessing this isn’t the ONLY IVF blog you’re reading) or see women having IVF depicted in the media — in books, films or TV programmes, there are these classic tropes aren’t there?
You know what I mean. The woman who grits her teeth when a friend announces a pregnancy. Or wells with tears when Continue reading
Time and time and time…. simultaneously like a winged chariot and like a Southern Train (topical reference there — basically read “slower than slow”). Honestly, when I was looking for a quote about time passing slowly (something that would have been slightly more erudite than a Southern Trains reference) I found one attributed to Alice Walker that said: Continue reading
So I got the results of the ERA test… and they were normal. Basically my endometrium was receptive on the standard day. I’m not one of the 25 per cent of women who should have their embryo transferred before or after the standard day. And I don’t need to pay £1200 to have another test to narrow down the window of receptivity. Which should make me feel delighted. But weirdly left me feeling rather flat.
I guess I was hoping that this was going to give me The Answer. This was going to tell me Continue reading
After the biopsy, I was talking to the nurse and I asked whether endometrial scratching was similar. (For those that don’t know — and really, why should you? I certainly didn’t until I embarked on this “journey” — said ironically, OBVS. Also said ironically — an endometrial scratch is a procedure that appears to have some validity in improving IVF outcomes. It is, as it sounds, deliberately scratching the endometrium, or womb lining, which seems to cause an inflammatory response that leads the body to produce various chemicals which may make the endometrium more receptive to an embryo.
Although confusingly it doesn’t help everyone, in fact Continue reading
Egged On 