So, where was I?
Ah yes, the phone rang. It was the
clinic (a very lovely lady, by the name of Julia, who remembers absolutely
everyone who comes through her doors). “Its good news” she said. “I can’t tell
you why but can you come and see us?” We spent all weekend trying desperately not
to get our hopes up but also thinking what else could it be? We already knew
our appeal had failed. But could we be given another go on the NHS? How is that
possible?
And so went to meet our consultant shaking. It turned out that the pharmacy had made a mistake
with our drug order. The Fostimon (which are the evening injections to help egg
growth) were in the wrong size bottle, therefore I was taking double the amount
than I should have. Eagerly we asked if that was why we had zero fertilisation
but the answer was no. That would have happened regardless. It didn’t actually
affect anything at all but the mistake meant the NHS granted us another go.
And so we left dancing down the road and feeling so
lucky! “We get another go” we kept saying to each other! Lucky. I’ve thought a
lot about that word. I’ve realised that luck is relative. Yes we were lucky to
have another go. But do you know what? Nothing about this is fucking lucky. I don’t
feel lucky. Far from it. Feeling lucky doesn’t
feature in my emotions or thought processes. But, at that point in our lives,
we were lucky to get another go.
We wanted to start straight away. And so after a 45 day
cycle (seriously, I was ready to kill someone) we began again. The day before treatment
started I cried and cried. I just didn’t want to do it. And my amazing fella
told me “Hey! Whatever happens, this is going to end well for us. Either it works
and we have a baby or it doesn’t and we adopt. Either way something good will
come of this. We will get our family”. Ah, love him.
This time was much harder for me. I guess after the
previous cycle being so devastating I was more anxious, I knew what could go
wrong. In all honestly, I don’t think I gave myself time to recover,
mentally, physically and emotionally. 2 lots of IVF in 5 months is pretty
tough, bearing in mind it takes 6 weeks for your ovaries to return to normal. But
I got on with it. Did the injections at 6 every morning. Started the evening
injections (very carefully checking the dosage) and attended the dildo cam sessions
and blood tests. And I did it all without moaning. (Ha! I hear my fiancée cry).
Things seemed to be text book. Until the week before my
egg collection date. I’m pretty used the internal scans now and I know what to
look for on the computer screens, how many eggs there should be and what size. And
I could see that they hadn’t grown over the weekend. The nurse ummed and ahhed.
“It’s not looking good is it?” I asked. “Umm, ahhh….” she said. “They haven’t really
grown. You maybe will have 5 or 6 by Friday, if you’re lucky”. That damn word
again. Bearing in mind that not every follicle will contain an egg and they don’t
know that until they are doing the operation. I went back on the Wednesday fully
expecting my cycle to be cancelled which they will do if you have less than
three eggs, generally. In the meantime I had researched and researched how to
make your eggs grow. Protein! The best way to get protein is by drinking
milk. So, I drank pints and pints of milk and at loads of eggs and cheese. They
still hadn’t grown.
At this point I’m going to have a short interlude to
break this all up. Too many words. Who wants to see infertility depicted in cat
photos? Course you do. Click below.
I felt devastated again. To go through all this and
have such bad luck again. I couldn’t understand why I had so few eggs when I
responded so well last time? But, of course, we were on the wrong dosage
previously. But egg collection went ahead and they managed to get 5 eggs. We
were pretty pleased as by this stage we were expecting less.
So began then the agonising wait to find out if they had
fertilised. I demanded we watch Harry Potter as we waited for the phone to
ring, once more. My comfort blanket films. Luckily (!) one egg had fertilised
and 2 showed signs. We were going to get to embryo transfer! We couldn’t believe
it. This was a step closer than we had ever gotten before. So excited! We were
in with a shot! Albeit a 33% shot. Still pretty crappy odds, but we had chance.
And felt hopeful.
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