3 more sleeps!

Finally it feels like I'm getting close to the end of this wait!It has dragged in slow motion the past few days.

And I have had a couple of downer days where I had convinced myself it didn't work, I started getting cramps last Wednesday-which I know can be a good sign-only days before I had been telling a friend in her 2ww that they weren't always a bad sign, but when I started feeling them too I could understand how alarming they are! They are just like AF cramps but not quite as strong, and they have been on and off. At this point I really have no idea if it's worked or not, we are still feeling very hopeful and talking to our little embie, G even gives an extra kiss to my stomach when he leaves for work! But we know it could go either way, who knows what's happening in there!

Planning something to do every day has definitely helped keep me relatively calm though-well as calm as one can possible be-which is more like just a state in which I'm actually breathing, and managing to refrain from rocking in the corner clucking like a chook.
I have done everything in my little schedule, I even made my first batch of Hot Cross Buns which were delicious! And I have watched my way through a stack of DVD's and discovered my new favourite movie of all time....Fantastic Mr Fox. If you haven't seen it I would highly recommend it-especially if you're in your 2ww!Just the right amount of funny-ness, some 'tude, and serious cuteness, loved it.

So now I just need to make it through the next 3 days, cool calm and collected, or maybe I'll just sedate myself with an overdose of chocolate and awaken on Tuesday morning ready for my Blood test.
Happy Easter everyone!

Embryos love Easter Eggs.

Well my first experience of the 2ww has been....interesting.And I still have one week to go!
I had imagined it would start off all fairies and butterflies and then progressively get worse until I am awake at 3am a wide eyed crazy-haired key tapping fiend on google, but it has been the opposite so far.

The first 2 days were the worst, with crying, heart palpitating, breathless obsessing and yes googling already. You might wonder what one has to google about in the first 2 days when there aren't likely to be any sort of symptoms to obsess about....well so far I have managed to freak myself out about eating too much pineapple(I may or may not have gone a teeny bit OTT on the first day...),and find out that the tofu stirfry I had for dinner was a terrible choice, I have looked at the stats on 8 cell embies compared to blasts and may or may not have cried, and looked up some stuff on stress affecting the outcome....which I carefully doctored to only include good results by searching 'stress has no impact on IVF outcome'. So yesterday I put a self imposed ban on google-to be broken only when searching for online shopping related things.

But alas today I have been back and also googled 'no sore breasts in medicated FET'. I don't know why this has been freaking me out, I think because I have read about a few of the other people doing FETs talking about their sore boobs from the pessaries and seeing as mine are rather small and very un-hard(I guess I could just say soft)and very not-sore(happy boobs?) I have been stressing that this isn't a good sign.
So after Dr Google was most unhelpful at reassuring me and telling me EXACTLY what I wanted to hear, I consulted Dr Haidee instead this morning and have been reassured that you don't HAVE to have sore boobs to be successful, and as she is living proof of this I'm satisfied. (Thanks hon!)

But otherwise I have been coping okay, and I've tried to schedule something to do every day to keep me occupied, tonight is pub quiz with Lou who is nearing the end of her own 2ww so hopefully it will keep both of our minds of it. Tomorrow a trip to Hamilton for mum's bone scan except my whole family is going and we're having lunch beforehand- it's like a strange sick family 'fun day'-we're a bit weird like that-at least it will take mums mind off it.
Thursday I have acupuncture and I'm attempting to make my first ever Hot cross Buns, Saturday movies with G...you get the picture.

G and I have been talking to our embryo a lot lately and willing it to stick around.I know this seems a little dangerous to get so attached, but we've talked about the fact it may not work, and who knows?This little one could be out baby next year so why not talk to it now?
In fact our embryo has been very demanding lately, embryo has wanted breakfast in bed and got it, embryo has also made G sit through Coronation Street, and have the biggest glass of smoothie.  And I've also informed him that our embryo would like Easter eggs this Sunday...and what embryo wants...embryo gets.... :)

Embryo a go-go

Well I'm officially playing 'mummy' to one of our lovely little embryos and I'm so happy to have finally reached this stage!

We had one of our 8 cell embryos thawed yesterday, the embryologist phoned to say it had thawed nicely intact but that they would need to see if it grew overnight or they wouldn't be able to use it. So after a rather sleepless night we headed off to the city that the clinic is in and while I was having an acupuncture session beforehand, the clinic phoned G and told him our embryo was now 16 cells and ready to go-RELIEF!
The actual transfer went smoothly and I couldn't keep the smile off my face seeing that little white speck on the screen, it's all a little surreal now that it's actually in there. Hopefully doing it's thing and growing some more and getting ready to implant in the next few days.

I feel really positive...but I'm just still sooo jittery and nervous and almost breathless-and then I feel stressed that I'm not 'relaxed' enough and maybe ruining everything, it's a vicious cycle of feelings and nerves!

I think the week that I have had hasn't helped things though. I had a big order of sewing to do last week and was hoping to get it all done by last weekend so that I could have this week free, but there was delays in getting some fabric to me and I ended up having some late nights this week trying to finish it all, I was quite pissed off, and stressed, and a few tears and just so annoyed that my beautifully planned pre-transfer week was ruined. It's almost comical how ridiculously busy I was when I look back on it, considering I work from home and can usually control the flow of work I do this was very badly timed and out of my control.
But anyway I finished everything yesterday, and I'm feeling good now!

I had another acupuncture session after the transfer, and then G and I went and had a nice lunch and headed home. G has been so sweet, holding and stroking my hand lots and 'talking' to our embryo. I'll just be honest-we're been pathetically gooey over the whole thing but I don't care, we've had such a build up to this time, and I feel almost proud of our embryo for being frozen and coming back to life in such a good state!

A weird thing happened when we got home too, I lay on the bed for a while with my feet propped up, and G carried our cat Molly in to say hi to me, he put her down on the bed and she immediately climbed on to my stomach, sniffed around where I would imagine my uterus to be, and then lay down with her head in that spot purring madly...it really was strange as she usually finds her own little spot on the bed and doesn't come and lie on my lap like that. So I'm taking that to be a good sign, she was either introducing herself to the embie, or showing it who's boss and staking her claim on my stomach!

Friday, Friday, gonna get transfer on FRIDAY

Yes I had my Blood test yesterday morning...and apparently it must have been all good because I received a text that afternoon telling me to start the pessaries and be at the clinic Friday 9.20am. WAAHOOOO!

I was with my mum and we were sooo excited, Hot chocolates and apricot fudge slice to celebrate!
I feel deliriously happy today, it might seem a bit strange to get so excited about this part, after all we still need our embryos to thaw, transfer to go well, and of course to actually GET a BFP.

But it's taken almost 5 months after egg collection to get to this stage, I do know there are no guarantees, this is only my first ever transfer, it may work which would be amazing, or it may not and we have to do another FET or 2nd IVF. I talked about it with mum over our hot chocolates, as she said, you can still be realistic-which is that it has a 40% chance of working....but also very hopeful at the same time.

At the moment I'm just so grateful to be moving to the next step so we can get on with whatever is going to happen. Being in limbo has sucked!

The embryologist phoned and I asked him about how good the chances of the 8 cell embryos thawing were...as that's been a big fear of mine...and he sounded very confident and positive that they have a good chance so I feel reassured about that too.

So now I'm racing to get all of my work finished so I can have the Friday free and take it easy over the weekend, my porridge is jam-packed with blueberries and walnuts, and I feel bloody GREAT.

back on track...I think

I feel back on track today, I'm heading off to the gym shortly,  the sun is shining,  I have a snuggly grey kitty curled up on my bed,  and I'm taking my mum to a few shops this afternoon.
Mums had a CT scan which came back clear yesterday which is a HUGE relief, it means that so far it hasn't spread any further.She still has a bone scan next week but feels like that will be okay.

I talk to my mum a lot about people's responses and 'helpful suggestions' to her cancer and I can't believe how similar they are to the responses we get to IF!

They're 2 quite different things, but for the first time I feel like mum actually understands how frustrating it is to have people offer advice and comments on things they know nothing about.

And people also seem to fob it off so easily- 'oh you'll be fine, it's just a glitch'.....um it's actually a little more than a glitch, have YOU had a new boob made out of your tummy lately? Are YOU now living with the fear of cancer spreading? No? you're not? Well then keep your damn glitches in your britches.

I've come to the conclusion that most people actually don't want to hear bad news. They don't like to hear that you're Infertile, or you have cancer, they'd much prefer to fob it off and move on to happier things.

And I get that in a way, after all my annoying motto lately has been all things positive, but I will never fob off someone else's pain, or not listen to them, just to keep the butterflies flying around my head.

I think with both Infertility and Cancer, sufferers just want to be LISTENED to. They don't want to be told "pffft you'll be FINE' with a wave of the hand, or to eat some adzuki beans because they fight cancer/infertility, or that your brothers wife's kitty-cat had cancer and she's okay now so you will be too, or her cat adopted a kitten so you should do that too.
 When people brush you off like that it's like they're saying your feelings and fears aren't justified, that you shouldn't be sad, angry, or whatever because here's the thing, they have a crystal ball and they KNOW that you'll be okay....and plus your spoiling their candied view of the world and also not focusing your attention on them, so shut up about your problems and lets talk about them for a while.

So it's been really interesting to talk about people's reactions with my mum and I feel like I know exactly where she's coming from.

I'm feeling good today but also a little worried about my BT on Monday, I keep thinking if this is what I'm like just with this blood test- what am I going to be like in the 2WW? I think because this is the blood test that actually determines whether I even get a chance to finally have my 2ww or not.....I'm just so freakin nervous about that phone call Monday afternoon!

I've scheduled in lots to do this weekend to make it go fast, including movies tonight with G, first time we've been in aaaages, and I'll have to break the healthy FET eating because I simply cannot go to the movies without gorging myself on popcorn, and then I may need something to wash it down with....that's okay though,corn is a vegetable after all so I'm just getting my 5+ a day.

Anyway I don't quite know where this post is going or what it's about, but I do want to say thank you for your supportive comments on the last post, a certain special barbie called Chon said she hoped I was getting support from my friends in real life...and the truth is no I'm not really, I have a couple of friends who have been amazing, but I think it's you guys who have been the most understanding, as you all know that IF is a huge enough thing to try and deal with, without adding other things to the mix, some day's I've felt like my head might explode with all that's running around in there. So I really appreciate having the support on here!

Feeling the fear.

 "Feel the fear-and do it anyway" I believe that's the title of a book my dad once gave me, I never read it but the title has been running through my head lately.

After writing recently about how I felt that fear had held me back from doing things over the years, it made me think a lot, and I decided to take those thoughts on board and start doing some things that scare me.
The first has been to get over my fear of 'medical' stuff. I'm usually one of those people who has to look away during any medical and surgical scenes on TV, even talking about surgical things would make me feel faint-and the fear of needles kind of goes with the territory.

Obviously if I want to become a Veterinary nurse I'm going to have to get over this fear, and also with everything that mum is going through I need to get over it for that reason too. On Friday last week mum had her last remaining drain removed from her breast-it drains all the extra fluid etc out of there. But she had a bit of trouble with leakage from that area once it was removed. I was the only one home with her, and it was on her side so she couldn't dress it properly herself- so I did it, I removed the soaked dressing,actually LOOKED at the little hole where the drain had been removed, and re-dressed it for her-and I was fine. Felt the fear and did it anyway.
Since then I've also sat in and watched as she had her dressings changed by a nurse and for the first time actually looked properly at her bruising and scars. And I think it's important for me to have done that-it made me really appreciate what she has been through in the past few weeks.

The second fear I conquered was this weekend. I left G at home and drove up to Auckland with mum and dad to see family and friends, we all went out on a boat on the Sunday with my my Uncle ,cousins, and grandma(mum's mother) and my 2 sisters drove up for the day too.
The boat was anchored off an island, and a few hundred metres from shore, it was beautiful!
 First fear- swimming in deep water, SHARKS. But I did it, that one wasn't too difficult, it was hot and there were lots of other boats around so I felt safe.Second fear-jumping from a height, my cousins started jumping off the very top of the boat and it's quite high, then my dad and my sister joined in, and after thinking about it for half an hour- I thought about my post the other week, and I thought about how my fear was stopping me from doing something exciting and fun. So I climbed up there, looked down, and definitely felt the fear! Everyone below 'helpfully' called out things to me like "just imagine there's a vet emergency-look there's a sick puppy in the water'  um yeah....not helping guys! Anyway I took a big breath and did it, and it was awesome, and I felt like I had done something quite amazing for myself.

Now there's a new fear on the horizon, but not just for me. You see, yesterday my dad phoned, the results from mum's lymph nodes had come back and it's not good. The 3 that they removed all tested positive for cancer. This means she'll be in for more surgery to remove all lymph nodes, and then chemotherapy.
I had kind of lulled myself into a false sense of security once she'd had the surgery, thinking it would be okay now, and that the tests would come back negative, so I was a little shocked. The whole thing is still just so surreal to me and it's hard to get used to. I hate the thought of mum having to go through all of that stuff.
But I do still feel like she will be okay. and in a away I feel like at least the chemo will hopefully zap the cancer properly and stop it spreading any more.

So I'm still feeling the fear, I'm fearful of the next few weeks with my mum, and I'm fearful of trying to cope with that, and my FET-especially if we have bad news. I'm feeling the fear -but I'm going to do it anyway, and whatever happens we'll keep going.
I'm on Day 11 today, and we'll know next Monday after my Blood test whether we can go ahead with the embryo transfer, so send me some good vibes peeps- because I could sure do with some good news next week!

Day 7, Positive Peggy.

 It's Day 7 of my cycle already....which seems to have gone fast but it's also dragging. Because I know there's still another 10 days until I have the Blood Test and anything exciting happens.

We are pretty much doing exactly the same as last cycle, we got the plan in the mail at the start of the week.

The Blood Test was scheduled for day 17(a day later than last time). I freaked and left a message for the clinic wondering if a mistake had been made, so they called back and made the Blood test one day earlier-which makes it the same as last time.
 The nurse explained to me the the specialist had looked at my notes, and that last time I was only just above the levels that they like to see on Day 16, and that they need to have me on the Progunova for a certain amount of days for the whole cycle to work too. She said there's no reason why it shouldn't work for me this time.

I stewed on it for a while. Fretted about how it was going to be cancelled again.  And then I got a grip.

They're the specialists, not me. This is the way they like to do their manufactured cycles, and it's obviously not something that can be mucked around with-ie, getting an earlier blood test is all well and good, but if I haven't taken the Progynova for long enough and my ute lining isn't ready, then the cycle may get cancelled anyway.
If this cycle gets cancelled too, then they have a back up plan for me for the next cycle, something different to try.

So I'm going with it, and I'm feeling good about it. I've already told G that this cycle will work, and we will be having a baby girl.

I know some of you may read that and think I'm getting way ahead of myself and positive thinking is all well and good...until the cycle fails. But it's just the way I work at the moment.
In the back of my mind I am still realistic....a 40 % chance is a 40% chance. And I'm also open to the fact that the cycle may get cancelled again and we have do another. I'll be pissed off and upset, and then we'll try again-after the past few months I've come to realise that so many factors are involved and anything can happen-we can't control it.

But I'm not going to entertain those thoughts for the next 3-4 weeks. I'm telling myself it's going to work, I'm picturing the BFP, the baby we will have at the end of it....and I don't believe it sets me up for failure.
 Hey if it doesn't work I'll be super upset whether I've spent the last month convincing myself it has failed, or convincing myself it has worked.

 I know the whole positivity thing gets on people's nerves sometimes, and I get it. And I also don't believe you can completely overcome obstacles and change outcomes on positive thinking alone... it's not a magical cure that will make outcomes different in most situations. BUT, for me I'm just trying to go glass-half-full at the moment.And if I let myself dwell on things too much I fear that I'll lose myself in a fog of negativity and find it hard to crawl my way out. I have experienced this and I've been through my fair share of depressive episodes and I don't want to go back there.

So at the moment I'm feeling bloody great, and happy, and my posts may be annoyingly chirpy. so you'll all have to put up with all of my 'Positive Peggy' bullshit for a while longer sorry!

“A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.”    Herm Albright