First IVF fail.

So there it is.  My first try with IVF was a no go.  

Progesterone is a cruel bitch. Impossibly sore breasts, cramps and fatigue.  I told myself the whole time it was just the progesterone but I had this little bit of hope behind it which was dashed 6 days post transfer when I awoke with no symptoms.  I just knew then it had failed.  

Not being a tester I found myself unable to wait it out and bought an FRER.  Obviously negative.  If I'd have waited for the nurse to call the next day with the Beta results I'd have been on my way to work.   I needed time to digest on my own.

I slept for 3 days and worked in the gaps where I was awake.  By the 4th day I had a friend in town and made plans to cheer myself up.  I did not cry. 

An IVF fail was so much worse for me than an IUI fail.  Not least because I've sunk so much financially into it but more because it feels like the end of the line.  

I have taken comfort in the fact that so many people go on to have success with FETs (and I have 3 embryo's in the freezer!)  At $3250 a try that's no joke either.  Once these 3 are used up that may be all I can do and that terrifies me.  

I had my follow up appointment with my RE (is that what you call the IVF Dr?)  and he said that he sees no reason why this wouldn't work for me.  I respond well to everything and my endometrial lining is good.  He said that he believes one of those frozen embies has a very good chance of becoming a baby.  

It's just getting hard to become hopeful you know?

I considered taking a break for a month so I could enjoy the Summer but my Mother convinced me... "You're in it now so you may as well keep going".  So here I am.  I've told everyone I'm taking a break to get the meds out of my system.  EVERYONE!  Except my Mother and a real life SMC friend.  And anyone reading this blog.  It'll be nice to do it without friends asking me about it.  I've not felt like this before now, however lately I've felt people's sympathy more than their hope that it'll work next time.  Like me, they all thought IVF would be my magical solution.  

So onwards I go to a private attempt at FET!  Estrace started and a patch is on my belly complete with a piece of cat hair I just found stuck to it.  Lovely!  

Will enjoy some wine this weekend as the nurse told me I can't do any harm and my transfer isn't til 2nd week of August.  The waiting game has begun.        

Transfer complete!

The transfer has happened... I am now carrying a tiny little embryo and hoping beyond hope that it finds a good place to rest and makes a Mother out of me. 

I've done all I can do and now I wait for 9 long days to see if this little blob becomes a baby!

It's totally mind blowing that this could be the first picture of a human that comes to being... and even if it doesn't, this is the way my child will come to me.  I'll have a picture just like this of it.  

I never knew that I could think a blob could be so perfect looking...  

Now time to distract myself. 

 

Retrieval...

I had my retrieval yesterday.  I was a bag of nerves.  I'm such a wuss mentally about general anesthetic but then when I saw how quickly the lady in front of me was 'processed' I started to relax a bit.

I was very impressed with the customer service... I got to meet the anesthesiologist, the surgeon, the assisting nurses and the lab technician who was fertilizing the eggs.  The nurse found my vein pretty quickly (miracle!) and generally they all put me at ease... 

Before I knew it I was out of surgery and dreaming that I was at work.  They retrieved 8 eggs and I found out today that 7 of them successfully fertilized.  I'm very happy with those odds!  

They're hoping that my little embryo's will make it to blast so that would mean that my transfer will be on Tuesday.  I'm tentatively scheduled for Sunday just in case 3 day is my option.  My fingers, toes and yes, legs are firmly crossed that I have some left to freeze so that I hopefully don't have to go through this again.  

IVF is such a miracle to me.  I remember being a child and hearing about test tube babies and thinking it sounded so peculiar and amazing.  Little did I know that all these years later I would be benefiting from this very technology.  

So here's to my little embryo's... sending all of my positive energy to make them strong enough to come and hang out in my uterus for 9 months!