So much to tell you…..

So much to tell you…...

So much to tell you…..

So the past 3 months have been full of excitement, anxiety and crazy pregnancy symptoms!

So where to start I will update you on all my scans and the symptoms I have been feeling! Lets start with the amazing scans…. So I went for my first scan at 6 weeks it was amazing and extremely emotional it is not until I had the scan that I believed I was actually pregnant! Below is a picture of my tiny little monkey nut (as Nikki liked to call our little baby) as they did look just like a little moneky nut at the first scan…..

As far as pregnancy symptoms go from the first scan till now they have been quite mild I have had morning sickness (well more evening) but it was nowhere near as bad as I though it would be! The worst symptom I have had is the evil thing beginning with ‘T’ which im sure I dont need to spell it out, this caused me to loose a lot of fluid and made me feel very uncomfortable and really under the weather. The nurse thinks this was caused by the cyclogest pessaries I was having to take, but thankfully after 12 week I stopped these and have been feeling a lot better!!

A well known symptom of pregnancy is an increase in discharge (sorry boys if your reading this) but I started to loose a lot of fluid one night, and Nikki decided it was best we go and have it checked at A&E I was 10.5 weeks at the time and it pretty much came on suddenly. They were pretty useless at A&E and kept me there for 4 hours paniccing to just tell me there was nothing they could do! They did book me in for a check up scan though at 11 weeks which showed everything was fine : ) see picture of my 11 week scan below…..

This scan was incredible we could see the arms moving and the baby moving around!

Last Thursday was our dating scan (12 week scan) the baby was really active and Nikki was glued to the screen watching our little girl or boy bouncing around was amazing. We were so lucky to have an amazing nurse doing the scan and she explained everything to us and what she was doing throughout. She measure the nuchal fluid which measure 1.3mm we will hopefully find out the results from this and the blood test in a couple of weeks! Please see below a few pictures of our little wiggler at 12 weeks….

Our due date is bonfire night 05/11/2013 : )

On the 20th March 2013 my sister gave birth to the most gorgeous little girl called Aoife Helen Lawrence she was a very healthy 7lb 2.5oz and I am the proudest auntie in the world!!! I have put a few picture of her below….

My first hold I am smitten!!

I do apologise for not doing a blog in so long I think the worst symptom i’ve had is tiredness I have been zonking out as soon as I get home the tiredness is like nothing I’ve felt before you can’t physically stay awake no matter how hard you try!!

 

 

 

2ww is over …..

Egg..cellent

On Friday we were in London for my egg collection. We had to be at the hospital by 8:30am sharp so decided to stay up there which was so lovely, as not only was it valentines day so made it a bit special, but it also made it a lot less stressful, as it meant we didn’t have to get up at silly hours to get the train to London then rush to the hospital.

The egg collection procedure was fine I met the nurse and doctors that would be doing my procedure all of them were lovely. Then I had to sign lots of paperwork and the anesthetist came and ran through what exactly would happen. After being wheeled into what looked like an operating theatre, the nurse put a cannula in my hand and then the anesthetist gave me a sedative injection which eventually made me fall asleep.

Whilst I was having my eggs retrieved Nikki was whisked away to the special boys room to do the deed (need I say anymore)!

My procedure took about 20 minutes in total and I woke up to a nurse giving me some biscuits and a lovely hot chocolate. The gynecologist then came in to tell me that they had managed to retrieve 21 eggs …. we were absolutely over the moon!!

Yesterday I got a call from the lab to tell me that 18 of the eggs were mature and that 17 embryos had successfully fertilised : ) I could not be happier with the results but I now know that everything relies on the embryo attaching ok which I am getting so nervous about!!

The past few days I have been severely bloated, and since taking the cyclogest I have been very consipated, one of the side effects the nurse did warn me about!

They have provisionally booked me in for my embryo transfer tomorrow at 12pm but I will get a call in the morning as the nurse said its more then likely they will let my embryos go to blastocyst which will mean my transfer will be pushed forward to Wednesday!

I am so nervous now and am still unsure whether we will have one or two embryos transfered! My nurse has strongly recommended one but I just know I will live to regret it if I choose one and it doesn’t work. This honestly is the hardest decision we have ever had to make I would love to know what other peoples experience of this was and what they decided on?

GO GO GO!!

I have lots of news since my last blog…I had my second scan yesterday and it went better than expected my body has reacted really well to all the drugs, and my lining and follicles are exactly how my nurse wanted them so they have brought my egg collection forward from next Monday to this Friday!! I had my trigger injection at 10pm this evening which consisted of 2x 5000 IU Gonasi powders and 1x 1ml water. I had my last injection of Fostimon at 1pm today which was reduced from 225IU to 150IU and my last nasal spray / Synarel at 8pm today.

Tomorrow I am completely drug free and we will be going up to London tomorrow evening to stay in a hotel near the hospital, to ensure we are there on time as my egg collection procedure starts at 8:30am. Time seems to have flown by the past couple of weeks I can’t believe we have done the trigger injection and are ready for egg collection so soon!

I have found the whole process so far weirdly enjoyable. I’m guessing the next couple of stages will be harder and more stressful, but I am going to try and stay as calm as I can about it all.

I will blog again after my egg collection and let you know exactly what it is like.

I hope you all have a lovely valentines day!

5 Days Down

So I am now 5 days into my injections and my dosage has reduced from 300 IUI / ml to 225 IUI / ml. The injections have been fine I still do not feel comfortable enough to do them myself but Nikki has been doing them so well and I have barely felt any of them. My left hand side is definitely my better side, I cannot feel it at all on my left! I have suffered from severe lethargy since starting my injections and from about 3pm onwards I feel like I am just going to dose off. Time seems to have flown this week and it won’t be long till I go for my next scan on Tuesday where I will hopefully get a date for my egg collection!

So for all the couples who are starting IVF treatment I thought I would show you the step by step process of preparing the injections in pictures (pretty naff pictures) but hopefully it will help –

Step 1 –

This shows everything that you need to do the injection:
1x Syringe, 1x Long needle for mixing drugs (NOT for injection!!), 2x Fostimon Vials, 1x Water, 1x Small Needle (for Injection), 1x Plastic Cap (for breaking glass water bottle)

Step 2 – Break off the glass water bottle using plastic cap. Remove water using syringe with the long needle attached.

Step 3 – Syringe water into Fostimon vial no. 1.

Step 4 – Tip vial up and remove all liquid and powder using syringe.

Step 5 – Then syringe this fluid into vial no. 2 and remove all liquid once again so as you have mixed all powder with the water.

Step 6 – Now place on the small needle and you are ready to inject.

I did not want to include a picture of me injecting as I know some people can be very squeamish when it comes to injections. But I will be happy to do a blog post on this if anyone requests one and would find this useful. The picture of the small needle isn’t very clear but this needle is absolutely minute I cannot feel it going in or out at all!

I hope this blog post has been useful and sorry for not posting a blog for a couple of days, I have been falling asleep the minute I walk in the door from work it must be the Fostimon causing this!

1st Scan and 1st Injection

So I have had a manic couple of days, I appologise for not writing a blog post for a couple of days but we had a few issues to attend to over the weekend.

So today I had my scan, I was weirdly not nervous and I haven’t thought about what the results would be. Usually I am a panicky mess when I am going to get results but I was very calm. So the results couldn’t have been better my lining is 2.3mm which is perfect it has to be under 5mm. I have 11 follicles in each ovary which my nurse said was the perfect amount and they are all the right size none are too big or too small. I did have some fluid in my P.O.D (Pouch of Douglas) but the specialist said that this was nothing to worry about.

I have literally just had my first injection this is the part of the treatment that I have been dreading as I have a fear of needles. Nikki kindly said he would do all my injections for me. I could tell Nikki was nervous about doing the injection and he said he hesitated before doing it because he was scared of hurting me. It was fine though I barely felt it and I’m sure the more and more we do them the easier it will get.

So below is an image of what drugs we had to mix and inject tonight –

We are starting on 300 IU/ml of Fostimon a day which I have to inject between 6pm and 9pm everyday for 4 days. After the 4 days my dosage reduces down to 225 IU/ml. Your dosage will depend on your BMI and the specialist will adjust the dose to suit you so don’t worry if mine is different to yours.

My sniffing (Synarel – Narafelin) has now reduced down from 2 sniffs am and 2 sniffs pm to just one in the morning and one in the evening. My next scan is booked in for next Tuesday to check that the Fostimon is doing its job but I will try and keep you updated on side effects and how my injections are going everyday.

Thank you for reading : )

Feeling under the weather

I’m sorry that I have not done a proper blog post in the last couple of days but I have been really under the weather!

I have had cold like symptoms but with ear ache which has made me feel awful. I’m not sure whether it is the nasal spray that is causing me to feel ill or whether I have just caught a bug! Annoyingly I can’t take anything apart from paracetamol due to the Synarel.

I have got my scan on Tuesday so I am hoping this will go by then!

Has anybody else had weird side effects from the Synarel?

I promise I will do another proper blog post once I am feeling 100%

Helpful Words

IVF Drugs

So as a few people have asked about the different drugs I am going to be taking. I thought I would blog about this today.

This is what I recieved –

Fostimon – which is what I will have to start injecting into my lower stomach once they feel I am ready to start creating eggs. http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/pregnancy/medicines/fostimon.html

Synarel – Is the nasal spray that I have been taking and will be taking for the duration of my fertility treatment. http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/pregnancy/medicines/synarel.html

Gonasi – This is the HCG trigger and I will inject this 35 hours before I go for my embryo transfer.

Cyclogest – This is a pessary and I will start using these once I have been for my embryo transfer. http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/womens-health/medicines/cyclogest.html

Then I have my hazardous waste bin, syringes, needles and instructions. It can be very daunting when you receive the drugs it freaked me out a lot!

All the drugs are natural hormones and are nothing to be scared of, the nurse explains everything from side effects to how to take each drug. You are assigned a nurse at the start of treatment and she will be on call for you 24 hours a day just incase you forget the dose you need to take or if you have any accidents or weird side effects.

If anyone would like me to blog about anything that they are unsure of before choosing to go down the IVF path please feel free to contact me.