Beta is in!

So yesterday (10dp5dt), I had my official bloods and it came back positive with a beta of 344! We caved and tested on 7dp5dt and got a faint line. It wasn’t a squinter but it was faint. We didn’t get our hopes up too much because of our experience with my chemical in March, so we remained guarded until the following morning. On 8dp5dt I tested again and we crossed fingers we would get a darker line. With my chemical I had faint positive tests but they never got darker as the days went on so we knew it wasn’t going to be great news. Well it was so much more darker! We tested again on day 9 and the morning of day 10 and each time the test was darker. I also started to feel nauseous on day 8 so I was quietly optimistic that we had a sticky one but continued to remain guarded until we heard those numbers.

So now we wait. Again. I have to go back in a week for another blood test to make sure my numbers are doing what they should. Even though we’re really excited, there’s still a tiny part of me that’s scared to get too attached to this pregnancy because anything can happen. If/when we make it to about 12 weeks, I think I’ll be able to enjoy it a bit more. What a rollercoaster ride of emotions!

This pregnancy, even though I’m only 4.5 weeks so far, is already so different to what my pregnancy was with our son, J. I think I was about 6-7 weeks along before I experienced nausea and I didn’t have any other symptons. This time I felt sick before we had bloods done and have had back pain and fatigue. These symptoms are kind of comforting, in a not so comforting way lol, because it reminds me that I am actually pregnant.
The whole 3 of us have been struck down with a horrible head cold so we’re home all week. It’s nice to have nowhere to be for a few days. Time to sit back and relax a little. We’re suppose to be heading away with friends for a camping trip this weekend but I think we’ll play it by ear and see how we’re all feeling by friday. I’m looking forward to it so I hope we don’t all still feel like death!

Now the countdown is on until next Tuesday..

All the feels

The date and time are in. Transfer of a frozen embryo will happen at 10:30am on Saturday morning, May 14th. Coincidentally, May 14th 4yrs ago was the date we transferred our first (and only) little fresh embryo that resulted in our now 3yr old son. A good coincidence, perhaps?

I think I’ve gone through every feeling and emotion in the past week. I go from feeling excited one minute to feeling anxious and nervous the next. Most of the time, I also find myself feeling kind of nothing at all. Almost like this whole process is a “non thing”. Nothing to feel anything about. That probably doesn’t make sense but I can’t describe the feeling, or lack thereof, in words. I want to get excited like I did the first time (with my son) but after the chemical pregnancy in March, I just can’t be. With all the things that can happen between now and the end of the first trimester if I fall pregnant, I feel like I’m not allowing myself to feel any excitement in case of things not working out. Maybe I’m unconsciously protecting myself from falling too hard? In saying that, I’m also not feeling scared or negative about it, either. I’m an optimistic person and I don’t think there’s any indication that this fet shouldn’t work; I guess I’m just being cautiously optimistic. Like I said….really no feelings at all.

If it doesn’t work this time, I think I will be quite upset. And scared. We will still have two frosties left, but it will start to drain our savings and I’m guessing I’ll probably feel like it’s never going to happen. Like, when do you call it quits? When all frosties have been used? Would you give a fresh cycle one last chance to work? Hopefully these are questions I’ll never have to answer after these next two weeks.

So I started my progesterone pessaries this morning. The not so pleasant waxy ones. I do prefer these over the vaginal tablets (or as my lovely nurse calls them….vag tabs!), and I think that’s because when I used them with my son’s cycle, I had symptoms from them like heavy sore boobs. It could have been because my son’s embryo stuck, but because I experienced the symptoms before my pregnancy test, I’m putting it down to the progesterone as it would have been too early to have pregnancy symptoms. Having the symptoms from the progesterone made me feel like it was actually doing what it needed to in my body. The vag tabs didn’t give me any symptoms at all so it felt like they weren’t working. Sounds silly, I know.

Anyway, I’m not rostered on to work this week, which is nice to kick back and have some alone time while J is at preschool, but sucks that I won’t earn money this week. I so hope I’m rostered on next week, not only for the finances, but to keep me busy during the tww! I’ve started reading the Harry Potter books as I’ve only seen the movies and everyone swears the books are better. It’s been lovely sitting here in the sun with a cup of tea and book in hand.. it’s been a long time.

Long Weekend

So just a short post today as I’m getting really frustrated with the WordPress app. Does anyone else find it difficult? I wrote a huge post 2 days ago on it and couldn’t find how to publish it…thought I had to go “back” a page and ended up deleting/losing my entire unpublished post. Grrr. Couldn’t be assed writing that post again so it’s gone. Forever. I tried to upload a photo for this post just now and it won’t give me the option to upload from my phone’s pictures….even though I’m on my phone. It’s driving me nuts!

Anyway, rant over. Moving on… So I got my period today. Yay! It’s two days late but I can’t complain. At least it’s here! Called the clinic this morning and they’ve got me coming in on May 2nd for a blood test to see where I’m at hormone wise. They’ll then monitor me so we can pinpoint ovulation and put a 5 day embryo back when the timing is right. It will be the first FET I’ve done so it feels quite “new”. Looking forward to it all the same and not going into this cycle as nervous. I feel good about this one.

We’re down in the gorgeous Victorian town of Bright for the long weekend. The changing colours of the trees are absolutely stunning! Lots of yellows, oranges and reds. J is loving seeing his Grandma and Grandpa and kicking leaves around. He’s especially enjoying having a go of Grandpa’s leaf blower. Who needs toys when you have power tools!?

I’m looking forward to taking some gorgeous pictures this weekend and getting some lovely fresh air before we make the trip back to Sydney on Monday. Such a quick trip but we’ll be back for a bit longer in August!

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IVF March 2016

I started my second IVF cycle for baby number two at the end of February. We were excited about getting back on board the baby train, and due to my first cycle being pretty easy, I thought this one would be the same.

This time I stimmed for 12 days and can honestly say I felt like shit the entire time. In my head, I still thought this would be an easy cycle and we would end up with a BFP at the end of it. My body had other ideas. I felt exhausted…so so tired…and quite nauseous and moody throughout the 12 days. I was bloated and sore which I never felt the first time around and I was struggling big time, mentally and physically. Looking back, I never felt confident from day dot with this cycle.

After I had egg collection, I actually felt pretty good. They retrieved 11 eggs and we were happy with that number. I was told I was at high risk of OHSS and I guess that played on my mind a bit, too, but thankfully that didn’t happen. Besides the sore feeling for a few days after retrieval, I actually felt fine. There was one time on about the 3rd or 4th day where I had horrible pain to the point of crying and not being able to walk or sit properly. That incident actually frightened me. I called my nurse and she reassured me it’s normal and to take some Panadol and call her back later in the day. Well, the Panadol kicked in, the pain went and never returned. All was good for egg transfer 5 days after retrieval.

I had one fresh 5 day embryo transferred and we had 3 frozen. That in itself was a good thing as we never had any frosties after our first cycle. Throughout the TWW, I felt great! The best I had felt since starting the cycle. The fact I felt so good was actually worrying me. No implantation bleeding, no sore boobs (even from the progesterone I was on), no twinges or anything. Nothing! I Googled like nobodies business….which in hindsight probably made the tww all the more horrible in my head. All the reading of other people’s symptoms and stories. I felt from the beginning we’d be out this round. Intuition maybe? I don’t know but I just didn’t feel confident at all.

I POAS (peed on a stick) at 8dp5dt and it was a faint positive. Even with this, I didn’t feel confident. I thought it needed to be darker. The following day, 9dp5dt and the day of our official blood test, I POAS again and got another faint positive. It was no darker than the day before. In the past 4yrs since doing our first cycle, I’m a lot more clued in to what betas should be, what chemical pregnancies are and what they start out like on tests and with beta levels, etc. Even though we had our positive, I knew it wasn’t going to be great news from the nurse after my blood test.

My first beta (HCG levels) came back at 6.6. They like it to be above 50, so we were told it wasn’t going to be a viable pregnancy and that I had to go back for a second blood test 2 days later to check that my levels weren’t rising. If my levels continued to rise, then it could mean it’s ectopic. One week I’m peeing on a stick and hoping to see a dark positive line. The next week I’m peeing on a stick hoping to see no line at all in the hopes that my levels had dropped and it wasn’t going to drag on. What a mindfuck. Second beta came back at 3 and the nurse was happy to not have to see me for another test. I had what they call a chemical pregnancy and was to wait for my period to arrive. Thankfully it did right on time.

Due to our faint pregnancy tests and knowing that it wasn’t looking good, none of it was a surprise. It was still sad, but I wasn’t beside myself upset until I actually got my period. Seeing that blood pushed me over the edge and I bawled my eyes out….lots. It’s as if it just sunk in that something that was inside me was now actually coming out. After a few days of random bouts of crying, I picked myself up and focused on moving forward and getting excited about our FET in May.

So that’s where we’re at now. We had our fertility appointment yesterday and signed our FET consent forms and discussed what the process involved. Turns out it’s pretty simple. I’m having an unmedicated FET so I’ll be on progesterone and they’ll track my cycle, pinpoint ovulation and pop a frostie back in my cushy uterus 5 days later. Easy right? Let’s hope so.

Please let this one work!

IVF 4yrs ago

So I thought I’d write a post about our first IVF cycle 4yrs ago that resulted in our 3yr old. For future reference, we’ll call him J from now on.

Oh how ignorance is bliss. Our first IVF cycle, from what I remember, was as pleasant as I suspect an IVF cycle can get. I had no dramas leading up to our cycle, the only issue being we had two vaginas between us and could not conceive our baby naturally. I had zero symptoms from the drugs and “stimmed” (IVF lingo for shot myself up with hormones) for 9 days before I had the trigger shot. All went to plan and the docs retrieved 9 eggs, 6 of which fertilised, 3 which then made it to day 3. On day 3 we had our best looking embryo (makes it sound like he was wearing a suit and tie) implanted into my healthy drama free uterus.

2 days after our transfer we got the call to say our remaining 2 embryos hadn’t made it to freezing. We now had zero frosties (IVF lingo for frozen embryos) and were banking on our “best” one sticking. And stick he did! About 12 days later I had my first beta (blood test) and my hcg number was 47. They like it to be above 50 but they didn’t sound concerned, so neither were we.

The rest of the pregnancy ran pretty much smoothly and we welcomed our gorgeous boy into the world 8 months later.

Besides the zero frosties for backup, our whole IVF experience was great. Peace of cake! We got cycle number two in the bag!

Cue IVF cycle number two last month. No frosties so we started from scratch again. This time was so very different, emotionally and physically.

Ignorance is definitely bliss!

Something About Me

Hi, I’m Kris and I’m one half of a loving same sex relationship. My partner and I have a beautiful 3yr old son who we conceived through IVF and we’re currently heading down that path again in the hopes of welcoming baby number two into our family.

I work in the early childhood industry and have done for 17yrs now. I have a love/hate relationship with it, to be totally honest. I love my job and I’m good at it. It’s also very rewarding, but it’s not my dream job. Does anyone actually have their dream job? Mine would be to write and illustrate children’s books. Maybe one day.

I enjoy tv. Lots of it when time permits (meaning: during the little boy’s nap/sleep times). Grey’s Anatomy is my all time go to tv therapy.

This blog will be about our ttc/IVF journey, parenting and a whole lot of randomness. I’ve tried writing a blog in the past and it lasted for all of 5mins. I think I wrote about 4 posts. Hopefully this one will be different!