Tag Archives: injections

Giving it another go…?

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I wondered whether the miscarriage would make us more or less enthusiastic about trying again. In my case, nothing had really changed, all my reasons for wanting a sibling for my son were still there, and his charmingly demanding presence just hadn’t given me the opportunity to dwell on the miscarriage or wallow as I might have done. And I think B probably felt the same.

The only thing was my cycle was, well, not exactly what you’d call regular. It had fleetingly slipped into some sort of a monthly-ish pattern after I stopped breastfeeding, but given that at points I was on “day 57”, I didn’t really feel I was in a position to hang around and so I convinced the clinic that while they would have liked me to have a “normal period” before embarking on another cycle, they should let me just crack on, assuming everything on the scan looked OK. And yet at the same time as really wanting this to happen, I also didn’t want to put our lives on hold, I didn’t want to miss out on my living, breathing child because I was so preoccupied with one that didn’t yet exist. And so we made plans, and booked holidays.

And — of course, of COURSE — the timing of my period, when it eventually came, suggested that I’d need a scan while I was away. And so I organised this, and learnt how to ask for the images and information that I needed in a foreign language, and took a whole load of medication away with me. And having got the images and the information that I needed and sent them through to my clinic, I tried not to panic when I got a call from them telling me I needed to start taking the medication there and then, and could I please be back for an embryo transfer four days later, slap bang in the middle of our two week holiday.

And so I got on a plane, the day before, and had a little 48 hour mini-break at home, before flying back out to continue my holiday, feeling like I couldn’t NOT have done exactly what I did, but also fully expecting it to have been a waste of time and money. (I mean I say mini break, I will never forget the pain of having a bladder that felt fuller than it had ever been before in my life. Because the last transfer I did had had to be delayed because I hadn’t drunk enough water and I was determined that that wouldn’t happen again, I drank what felt like gallons of the stuff. And then they were running late. And I could barely exchange pleasantries with the consultant who was doing the transfer because I just wanted him to hurry the fuck up so I could go and wee.)

A thing but not a thing

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And so, as you might reasonably have expected, and as I might have slightly given away in my last post, given how contrarily these things go, the fact that I was so convinced it wasn’t going to work meant that when, on the morning we were going away for the weekend, and I did a precautionary First Response test, it showed the faintest of faint – but still very definitely there – lines.

Or, as I put it to B when I walked back into the bedroom “Well I’m not ‘Not Pregnant’.” But I wasn’t going to get too excited. It was early. It could be a chemical pregnancy. It wasn’t a thing until it was a thing.

But then, when I did another test 48 hours later, that line was definitely darker. And 48 hours after that, the blood test confirmed that, that day at least, I was pregnant. Because that was how I thought of it. That’s how I’ve continued to think about it. On those fertility forums I despise, I’ve seen women talk about being “PUPO” – Pregnant Until Proven Otherwise, but after the miscarriage, after everything we’ve been through, I feel quite the opposite. I feel like “that day I know I was definitely pregnant but until the next blood test / scan, I can’t assume I still am.”

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Happening, but not happening…

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But once bitten, twice shy and all that. We said yes to the agency, we signed paperwork, we paid sums of money for treatment, but I felt very detached from it all. I just didn’t really engage with it. It was all taking ages, there were tests for her, tests for me, tests for B – the tests went on and on, the weeks and months went by. The process of getting our donor to the point where she could actually donate, that we’d been told would take three months, dragged on and on — if this were a film or TV programme, this is the point at which you’d see the leaves on the trees changing colour from autumn to winter to spring to denote the passing of time.

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I ran away…

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I ran away in January. To a place that I didn’t associate with trying and not succeeding. Somewhere I drank wine and stopped worrying about whether I was eating enough vegetables. (I wasn’t.) Somewhere I stopped caring if food was packaged in plastic (it was), or whether the tomatoes were organic (they weren’t). Somewhere my life wasn’t measured out in blood tests and supplements and scans and injections. Where I rudely

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Last minute fucking about…

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So I came back from my holiday, went for a scan, and then later in the week there was a whole load of last minute fucking about that made me wonder — yet again —  how on earth anyone who doesn’t work for themselves does this.

The call at about 4pm on a Thursday went something like this:

“So your bloods suggest that you might be near ovulating so can you do an ovulation test and then call us back with the results? If you are, you’ll have to have the egg collection tomorrow and we’ll have to work out what time you do the Ovitrelle tonight, and if you’re not then it will be on Saturday and if it’s on Saturday you’ll have to stay up until quarter to 1 tonight and do the Ovitrelle injection, but you also need to do the Cetrotide injection when you get home tonight, oh and start taking the Indomethacin straight away but don’t take it on an empty stomach. Anyway, just call us back when you’ve done the ovulation test.” Continue reading →

More fodder for the screenplay…

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Part of the reason I started this blog was to record all the blackly comedic moments that this whole process involves. I mean given that I wasn’t telling most people I knew about what I was doing, I rather wanted to share the lolz with someone, even if just with random strangers on the internet. Otherwise all my Easter Egg jokes would’ve been wasted. Perhaps for the best.

Anyway, the emotional rollercoaster rumbles on and Continue reading →

I’ve changed…

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No, really, I have changed. Probably in lots of ways over various periods of time, but for the purposes of this post, the most significant way in which I’ve changed is the way I feel about the egg freezing cycle this time, compared to how I felt about it first time around. Maybe it’s just familiarity breeding, well, not contempt, but certainly a little less respect, or maybe it’s because I’m pretty sure that this is the last time that I’m going to do this, but various things have Continue reading →

A sober wedding

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So I went to the wedding, and I didn’t drink. In fact in one of those beautiful/tragi-comic ironies, I actually drank less than the pregnant women at the wedding. While I watched them treat themselves to a glass or two of champagne, I barely had a token sip during the speeches to avoid looking conspicuous. Looking like you’re drinking when you’re not is hard. Although sparkling water with ice and lemon does a mean imitation of gin and tonic. And it helps if you volunteer to go to the bar – or if one of your friends in the know kindly offers to get you a ‘gin and tonic’ when they go to the bar.

But you know what? Having dated sober, Continue reading →

Imperfect timing

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If I had tried really, really hard to pick a time when I would LEAST like to be not drinking and injecting myself with hormones, it would probably be this week. Which is, of course, why today I’m starting the injections for my third – and final – cycle of egg freezing.

This week I have in my diary: 1 x reunion of old work colleagues, 1 x best friend’s hen do, 1 x best friend’s wedding, 1 x work night out, 1 x boozy Sunday lunch with the girls. I’ve already had to cancel the blow dry I had planned for the morning of the wedding because I have to have my day 5 scan that morning instead.

Why am I doing this? Because there’s never a good time. Because there’s always Continue reading →

Belonephobia

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For those of you not schooled in Greek, that’s fear of needles – belone is ‘needle’ in Greek – who knew? Not me. I looked it up. Anyway. If you happen to suffer from belonephobia, I think you’re probably going to struggle with this egg-freezing lark. I’m very lucky, I don’t. I mean, it’s not like I love being jabbed with a sharp object, that would be lunacy. But of all the many things I’m terrified of (birds, mice, people being sick, dying alone, never falling in love again, falling in love again), needles isn’t one of them.

I’ve been a blood donor since the age of 18, probably because Continue reading →