Tag Archives: oestrogen

Not my first rodeo…

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I don’t really know how to talk about the next bit because, without wishing to sound overly dramatic, I don’t know what the legal implications are of writing about my clinic and what they did or didn’t do, without giving them a chance to respond to what I’m saying. And I know I’m anonymous and I know I haven’t named them but I’m still wary. So I’m going to try to use quite broad brushstrokes.

I’d felt that there had been communication issues between us and the clinic for a while. Questions going unanswered, inexplicable delays and a lack of a sense of urgency, me having to request tests that I thought they should have already organised, information not being passed on. But I’d kind of sucked it up because everything up to this point hadn’t really been about me, it had been about our donor. I didn’t feel as if I could force issues because maybe there were other things at play. Maybe the delays were down to the donor (which I was totally fine with). Maybe the lack of information was a privacy issue. Maybe, maybe, maybe…

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Finally, another cycle…

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So — obviously — I got my period eventually, rather sweetly timed to ensure that if I did a cycle, I’d be finding out just before Christmas how successful it had been. Which of course is exactly the additional frisson of stress/excitement that this time of year needs. (I mean there may be people out there for whom Continue reading →

What’s going on…?

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You’d be WELL within your rights to ask that. Because what are we? October 11th? And there hasn’t been a post since September 2nd. Well not a fat lot really. By which I mean not a fat lot of interest. By which I mean I’m not pregnant nor really any closer to being pregnant.

There’s been some more emotional fuckwittery — which I can’t be arsed to go into, explain, or justify to myself or anyone else right at this moment. Suffice it to say Continue reading →

And then there were none…

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…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 →

A catch up…

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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 →

The little things that trip you up…

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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 →

And… pause…

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So I started my second cycle, a medicated cycle — oestrogen three times daily from day two to suppress ovulation and build my womb lining, then at a certain point progesterone to mimic the effects of ovulation.

The idea is that you have a scan somewhere between day 10 and day 12 and the endometrium looks thick and then you start on the progesterone, and then five days later they do the transfer (assuming all the eggs/sperm defrost OK and you Continue reading →

A quick tot up…

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I started writing about the biopsy that’s part of The Plan but then someone asked recently if I was going to give costs for all this and so I thought I’d do a quick one on that. If I’m honest, this was a post I’d been intending to do, but I think I’d rather put it off, not just because I didn’t want to horrify myself, but also because in my heart of hearts I wanted to do it at a point that seemed to mark a final point, like, I dunno, when I had a baby in my hands (mine rather than just anyone else’s) but it probably makes sense to give you an idea of what I’ve spent so far. Continue reading →

The Plan…

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I rather feel like I’ve bigged up this Plan so I hope you’re not disappointed by it. Basically, The Plan came about when I went to see my consultant to have the post-unsuccessful IVF debrief — or the “what the fuck went wrong chat” as I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it called on other blogs.

Anyway, I sat in front of my consultant and said, “So, we had one grade 1 embryo and it failed to implant. And I understand that there may be many reasons for this, but what can we do minimise the likelihood of these being reasons why the same thing doesn’t happen again?”

And that was when she told me about Continue reading →