Monday, July 30, 2007

Bitter sweet...

Well it seems that most of you are on board, please let me know if there is anyone that I have left off that would like to come over (thanks JJ!!), I hope that this is not too difficult, there were loads of readers to close to home for comfort…statcounter is a wonderful warning tool!! We have shared parts of our journey with some people but there are just some things that I can’t bear for them to read…

I am sorry that I have been MIA for a while but I have been keeping an eye on all of you, Congrats to Baby Blues and Sticky bun!! JJ, we are waiting with baited breath for your results chicken, praying it's good news!! Also while you’re out and about, please send some love to Carrie too.

Life hasn’t been easy lately and so I am taking things one day at a time, I am finally starting to sleep again and am feeling a little better, I am still going for physio and that seems to be helping too. I still have bad days where I feel very tearful but those are also getting to be less frequent. I’m still getting a lot of headaches but I still think that it’s got a lot to do with my screwed up cycle.

Talking about screwed up cycles, I am now on CD39, I have never never never had a cycle this long, the good news is that it does feel like AF might be on her way but in saying that I have felt that a few times and still have nothing to show for it!! The sad thing is the warped part of my brain has been wondering if maybe, just maybe they got my beta wrong, now how sad it that!! Of-course I do know that that is highly unlikely and it does amaze me to think that my brain can still go there…not all is lost.

Frank and I have been fine, like I said before, things have been difficult and I do know that it has all been me, I am so over-emotional and irrational, difficult as all hell. It has taken me some time to see that it is all me and that the poor guy is trying to make sense of what has replaced his once calm and loving wife, I am still in here but I’ve been battling to get out a bit. I never thought of myself as a stressed person who over-reacts at the drop of a hat, I have always been quite calm and happy go lucky, IF has changed that, no actually it was gradual, IVF seems to be what pushed me over the edge and destroyed my balancing act!!

It’s taken some real soul searching to realize that it is time to start making a change, I don’t know how I let myself become this person, I don’t particularly like who I have become now days (as I am sure neither do most of you) and I am on a mission to get the old Tam back, I have found some yoga classes which I am going to join (just one) and have decided to start looking after my body again because I have been punishing it something terrible lately and once my cycles come back to normal I am going to start acupuncture.

Frank and I still haven’t discussed the FET, we are leaving that conversation for when I am more myself and a lot less stressed and emotional, it’s the last thing I can think about right now, right now I need some work. It has also occurred to me that maybe the stress is just too much for my body to cope with and maybe that’s part of the reason I can’t fall pregnant, maybe my body just wont allow me to go there until my mind is right, I need to learn to….yes, I am going to say that word us IF’s hate….R.E.L.A.X!!

Time is passing quite quickly now, it’s been 10 weeks since I started my stim cycle for IVF, so if it had worked then I would be almost 10 weeks pregnant by now and my life would be very different, it’s been almost 6 weeks since I got my BFN and it is slowly starting to feel better. It really gets me that we have to deal with screwed up cycles on top of all this, damn IF!!

And here comes the bitter sweet part, a very dear friend of mine had her little baby boy this morning, today marks a very bitter sweet part of my journey, this friend also had problems conceiving, we both went to Vitalab in October last year, the only difference is that she fell pregnant on her first cycle there and as a result finally has her little bundle of joy…I am of-course very happy for her and will be seeing them and their new arrival tonight, I love her dearly and wish only the best for them but this is still a hard day….

Monday, July 23, 2007

Please come and join me....

This is a shout out to all of you precious ladies that have travelled this road with me, I am about to make my blog private which means that you will only be able to read it through invitation from me...so please, please, please send me your e-mail adresses so I can send you an invite...

You can either send your adresses to me @ tammydotgardiner@spardotcodotza or you can leave me a comment with it in it...hope to see you on "the other side"

Lots of love to you all...

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Hoping for a Miracle...

I finally decided to go to my GP, Frank has been bugging me to go and see her because I just can’t shake these headaches, I’ve been getting headaches daily since before my BFN. I thought it was just hormones so I phoned Vita.lab and spoke to one of the nurses, she says that no, the hormones would have worked themselves out in a week or so…

Anyway, I went to her thinking that she’d say that it’s just sinus and maybe a bit of flu coming on since I have been sore all over and generally feeling a bit out of sorts. It turns out that it’s all stress related – funny that! The headaches are tension headaches (they can tell you this by where they are), my neck is stiff and sore which I have been complaining about but thought I’d just to get to a message sometime but she’s sending me for physio…

So the diagnosis, stress and fatigue…with a bit of sinus. She also wants to check my thyroid and iron levels because apparently I look a bit anemic….or maybe it’s just lack of sun :)

I sat and spoke to her for a while about IF, she is planning IVF in the next 6 weeks as well so knows how hard this can be, it was refreshing to speak to someone different. You see, her life has been much harder than mine…A few years ago, she was in a car accident and was in a coma for 6 months, she was in the top 3 of her class and in the middle of med school when this happened. When she came around, she had to learn how to walk and talk and do all the things you and I take for granted, she eventually went back to med school and failed. She tried again and finished in the top 20, the reason she needs IVF is because she was so messed up from the accident that she is unable to fall pregnant without IVF. A sad story but also one of those that gives you hope and makes you realize that maybe, just maybe your life isn’t that bad.

She is wonderful, so full of life and positivity. I really take my hat off to her. Anyway, she asked why I can’t fall pregnant and I told her it was because of Endo, hostile mu,cus/acidity and a prog deficiency, she said that many people fall pregnant with all of these naturally and she is right, we just got sick of the DIY stuff and stopped trying naturally…she also said that she thinks that I haven’t dealt with this enough, haven’t quite moved on and she is right.

After my appointment with her, I spoke to Frank and we have decided to give it some more time, we will start trying naturally as soon as my body is back to normal, I will do the bicarb thing for my acidity and get prog.esterone from her to use in the 2ww. We are thinking about putting the FET off until next year, for now this is the plan, “the plan” might change of-course and I might not be able to wait as long for the FET but for now I feel good. I need to put this all behind me for a bit, it’s been a hard year. It’s not an easy decision to make but one that I feel I needed to. Who knows, miracles do happen every once in a while…

Prayers for Bumble...

I know that most of you have been over at Bumbles to wish her, Mr Bumble and little sprog well, but if you haven’t please go over and give them some support, they are going through a really rough time right now.

Bumble, my heart is breaking for you my dear friend, I wish that I was there to give you a hug and to cry with you, just to hold your hand. Like I said to you yesterday, I am here for you anytime – night or day – just a phone call away. There isn’t anything that I can say that will make you feel better and all I can say is that I am so sorry.

You, Mr B and little sprog are in my prayers, I am praying that they have made a mistake and just want to double check. It makes me so angry that you even have to go through this, you don’t deserve this.

I’m sending you big hugs, praying for the strength for you to get through this, I love you my dear friend…

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Sharing some of our history....

Desperate for changing
Starving for truth
Closer to where I started
Chasing after you…

I’m falling even more in love with you
Letting go of all I’ve held on to
I’m standing here until you make me move
I’m hanging by a moment here with you…

Forgetting all I’m lacking
Completely incomplete
I’ll take your invitation
If you take all of me...

Now I’m falling even more in love with you
Letting go of all I’ve held on to
I’m standing here until you make me move
I’m hanging by a moment here with you…

I’m living for the only thing I know
I’m running and I’m not sure where to go
I don’t know what I’m diving into
Just hanging by a moment here with you…

There’s nothing else to loose
There’s nothing else to find
There’s nothing in the world that can change my mind
There is nothing else
There is nothing else
There is nothing else…

This song means so much to Frank and I. It was our wedding song and we have a history with it…I’m going to share some it with you…

Frank and I met at work, it was 10, almost 11 years ago. At the time, we were both single but eventually we both involved with other people. I always felt like there was something more there, this strange attraction. Neither of us acted on it, we were just friends and over the years our friendship turned into something beautiful. Frank knew me inside out and I like to think that I knew him that well too, we used to speak about our relationships and everything else that we call life.

Eventually I got engaged and so did he, I thought I was happy but I was kidding myself, I was miserable. My fiancé drank way too much and was very possessive, he had also been married before and had a little boy, that was the easy party, I loved T to bits, he was only about 6 months old when we started dating and was almost 5 when I finally left his Dad, that was hard. I had to put up with a horrible ex-wife who couldn’t be bothered about her child and only used him to get to us and his parents who thought that they should have stayed together for the child so they never gave me the time of day. It was a very long 4 and a half years of my life, bearing in mind that I was only 18, almost 19 when we started dating so I was nothing like I am now. I was way too young and naïve.

Eventually I came to my senses and left him, it was all too much and I really just couldn’t do it, he never left me alone and eventually I went back to him and got engaged and started planning our wedding all over again. During this time Frank and I had become even closer, he was going through a rough time as well. No-one could understand why I was doing this and everyone was too scared to say anything, it was ridiculous.

It was almost 6 years ago now when it was nearing my birthday, I had decided that I was going to leave my fiancé again, nothing had gotten better, it was worse and I just couldn’t see myself spending the rest of my life with him and his family. They had planned to go away on the weekend of my birthday and I said I wasn’t going, he begged me to go and try and sort things out, I went but by this time my feelings for Frank had already developed into something more.

The day before I left for the weekend I told Frank that I thought about him every time I heard this song (hanging by a moment), he said he’d never heard it. I went away that weekend and it was terrible, the worst birthday I have ever had, we fought all day, I cried all day. I just wanted to go home, to make matters worse, Frank had sent me a birthday message, we fought about that and I was accused of having an affair, what was happening was wrong, I did have feelings for Frank but nothing had happened between us.

We got home on the Sunday and I moved out straight away, back with my parents. I got back to work on the Monday and switched on my computer and as I signed on, Hanging by a momemt started playing (Frank used to be the network admin here so he could do cool things like this). It was then that I knew that this was definitely what I wanted. By this time Frank’s relationship had also ended and we started dating straight away, this was in the August, we went through a few months of hard times, we should have waited and eventually we broke up, I was devastated but Frank needed time to figure out what it was that he wanted out of life, we kept getting back together and eventually broke up for good in November.

I had just moved out of my parents place into my own flat, things were difficult, I became very depressed and started seeing a psychologist, he put me on anti-depressants and sleeping tablets, I started losing weight, it was all terrible, I spent days crying in my office, trying to dodge Frank in the passages which was hard because at the time we worked in the same dapartment, it wasn’t only Frank, he had just been the last straw, I had a lot to deal with that hadn’t been dealt with – Childhood issues.

Eventually things got better, I was feeling better and was dealing with everything one day at a time, I started dating someone I had met through a friend in February. I was still trying to get over Frank but had decided that it was time to move on, I was not what he wanted anymore (or so I thought). I went away at the beginning of March and during this time Frank tried to phone and sms me, I ignored it all. Eventually I came back and came into work a day early to do some stuff. I saw Frank and he asked if we could have dinner together, I said that it was okay as I expected him to cancel anyway because that’s what things were like way back when. We went for dinner and the rest is history. Next year March marks 5 years together.

Hanging by a moment holds so many memories for me, it was the song we used for our first dance at our wedding. The words are just so touching for me and they still mean so much during our journey now, somehow we are still hanging by a moment.

My apologies for the long post, just wanted to share some history with you all, it’s a very important part of our journey!

Today is CD20 and I have the first sign of what may be ovulation (8 days later than normal), EWCM!! If Frank wasn’t still so sick, I might consider that DIY thing!!

Monday, July 9, 2007

Choices....

I’ve had one of those weekends, I’ve been fine really and feeling much better…and all of a sudden it happens again, I end up in a puddle of tears.

My sister came to stay by us on Friday night and on Saturday we coloured her hair and went shopping, the things we girls like to do. I was feeling fine but I could feel that dark cloud coming, I’ve been worried about a few things…I’m getting headaches daily, most mornings I wake up with them so that has been worrying me, I’m putting it all down to hormones and my body trying to re-adjust, I also have no idea what’s happening with my body, I am normally so in tune with it, I know exactly which day I ovulate on etc, this month I have felt nothing and I am already on CD17…very strange for me, of-course they did tell me this might happen but I am normally like clockwork. It’s okay of-course because we aren’t doing the DIY thing, we taking a real break for a change but I just like to know what’s going on and right now I am clueless…but I digress….

So on Saturday night I got home from shopping and a friend of Frank’s was there, he’s a very close friend and I love him dearly but sometimes he just DOES.NOT.GET.IT, we were chatting about things and out of the blue he says, “and so, what’s happening with you?” and I say, “What do you mean?” to which he replies, “are you pregnant yet” and I say “no, we still trying, it’s been hard”….and at this point I know, I know what I am getting myself into, we’ve been down this road before and it never ends well. I should stop here, but I don’t….we carry on chatting about it and he says that he knows that it must be hard but this is a choice we’ve made, we have made the choice to go for treatments and not to stop and just accept it, so we could stop it all right now, it's a choice.

The conversation carried on a bit and I didn’t really get too upset, my answer was, well what choice to we have really, it’s this or not having children but I do get what he is trying to say, at the end of the day it all comes down to that.

I hardly slept on Saturday night, thinking about the choices we have made and whether it was time to stop and the truth is that I can’t stop yet, as hard as this is, it’s harder to think of our lives without a child and I do feel like we’re getting closer but at the same time I feel so lost. I think about whether I am being fair about this, how much heartache this has caused to not only me but my family aswell and I just want it to stop, I don’t want to hurt anymore, I don’t want to have to make these choices and the more I think about it, the more upset I get because this wasn’t a choice I ever wanted to make, this is so unfair, I was never even given a choice in the matter, i didn't ask for infertility!

I cried most of yesterday, it was hard because we had to go to lunch with Frank’s family for his mom’s birthday, I love his family to bits and his mom really get’s me, she understands me so well and I can tell her anything, she is very very close to my heart and it does help to just cry and be held and told that it’s okay. She’s very worried about me and thinks that maybe I need to talk to someone, I have been for councelling for this before and it really doesn’t help me to have someone tell me that what I am feeling is normal, I know that this is all very normal, you cannot go through infertility and not be changed, there are so many ways that it affects you and each of us deal with it differently, it all takes time, we all get better eventually but I can understand how infertility can cause depression, there is a very fine line there.

I am okay, just really sad still, most of the time I am fine tho, I do still think about it a lot, I’m getting anxious, in a way I want to just wait, wait until I feel better and more sure but the other part of me just wants to move on, taking a break isn’t always easy, even when you need to. I don’t have a choice and maybe that’s a blessing in disguise, we have to wait, it forces me to deal with all these emotions before moving on and just burying them as I have done before.

I’m not going to lie, it’s hard seeing all these BFP’s going around in blogland, and like JJ, I wonder if there’ll be enough for me. I don’t need to explain this feeling to any of you, you have all be there and know the feeling well, I am so happy for all of you and wish you all the very best and at the same time I am sad for me. I know that our turn will come, I am just not sure how much more it will take to get there and everyday I pray that the choice to stop trying will never be one I have to make.

Sunday, July 1, 2007

Taking our time and feeling better!!

I have to say that I am feeling much better today, it’s funny that having some sort of clarity on this whole thing helps. I feel like I can start letting go now and start moving forward again. I am not kidding myself by thinking it will just go away, I know that there will still be hard days but for now I feel okay.

We saw the Dr. on Friday and as I expected, they cannot tell you why it never worked, of-course they can’t, this is not an exact science after all. I am happy with the information that they did give us although it is not conclusive until we do another fresh IVF.

Basically he thinks that there might be an egg quality problem, first of all because none of the ISCI eggs survived which is strange and secondly out of the 10 eggs that they left to fertalise normally only 4 made it to transfer which only gives us a 40% fertalisation rate and for someone my age the fert rate should be between 70-80%. Of-course this is skewed a bit by the fact that we did ICSI, some of those eggs might have been okay and therefore our rate would have gone up. Eggs also vary from cycle to cycle so we would have to do another fresh IVF to conclude that there is a egg quality problem which hopefully we wont get to.

I can also stop worrying about running out of time as he says that I have up to 18 months before I need the endo removed again which gives us more time. The pain I was having on the weekend with AF is completely normal as he says that thicker your lining the more pain you will have, so I am not to worry about that.

My hormones are perfect and I responded very well to all the drugs during IVF, so if we were to do another fresh cycle then they would keep me on the same protocol. The only thing they would different is obviously not do ICSI and they would do a 5 day transfer instead of a 3 day transfer to make sure that the embryo’s they put back would be strong enough to take.

I have also been told that I need to wait 60 days or two cycles before doing the FET, this is to give your body a break as he says that your first cycle after IVF may not be normal, not sure why they make you wait another month after that but anyway. It’ll prolly do Frank and I the world of good and give us time to get back to basics. So the plan is to do the FET in September, we have 2 embies left as one never carried on dividing (it compacted) and the two 4 cell embies are now a 7 and 8 cell embryo which is good. They will do a natural cycle which means I wont be on any hormones to help my lining which shouldn’t be a problem anyway as my lining has always gotten thicker than 7mm. Should my lining not be thick enough then the cycle will be cancelled and we’ll do a medicated FET the next month. Obviously the cycle will also be cancelled should the embryo’s not survive the thaw…they will grow them for 2 days after the thaw so basically it will be like a 5 day transfer anyway, they will also do assisted hatching which is standard procedure here with FET.

So basically loads of info to take in. I have decided not to worry about the “questionable egg quality” thing as it’s still early in the game. Here’s two my two frozen little embies making it to babies and to having a two month break. I am stopping all reflexology and tabs for now and just living a little, doing stuff that’s good for the soul!!