Injection Day 1

Hello everyone!

Well i have done it... i have plucked up the courage and injected myself. Not many people can say that now can they? Also now that a couple of hours have passed since doing it i can actually feel chuffed with myself.

I feel like a super woman! Like i can do anything! Ha ha!

I'm not going to say it hurts, because in retrospect it doesn't really... this is coming from someone who has loads of blood tests, on many occasions!

As i was putting the syringe and needle together i did start to feel a bit nervous and queasy, but it must of just been from my worrying about the unknown. I guess i was worried about not doing it right, or it hurting a lot, which of course is completely normal!

I thought it would be a good idea to put up some pictures of me doing the injection, maybe one day it will help someone else who comes across this blog? Also it will be nice to show you all what i am going through!

So first of all it is a good idea to get yourself prepared:

Then put together your needle like shown below:

Poke the needle into the Buserelin vial and turn it upside down so that the needle is immersed in the liquid:

Pull back the plastic plunger slowly to fill the syringe to 0.5ml (check that is the correct dose for you), if you get any air bubbles tap the syringe to remove them, or pull the plunger back behind the 0.5ml mark and slowly push it forward to release the air into the vial:

Clean the injection area (just any area below the belly button) with the antiseptic wipe:



Pinch the skin and push the needle in, you will need to be quite brave at this point. If you go too slowly it will most likely hurt, but don't go to quickly either! My information said to use 'a dart like motion', i didn't throw it in though, i just eased it in without being too soft.

Then slowly inject the liquid by pushing on the plunger until it stops:

After you have injected all of the liquid remove the needle carefully and cover it with the safety cap:

Then dispose of the covered needle in the sharps box:

So there you have it! Simple aye?

About 2 minutes after injecting my belly did go a bit strange, it felt quite itchy and i developed a red rash (i look pregnant already!):

This is quite normal apparently and after about an hour my skin returned to normal and i have a small red dot showing the site of the injection.

I am truely excited and happy that i have taken a huge step towards our dream today. I am really proud of myself and am so glad that we are finally making progress...

1 down, loads to go!

Take Care All xxx

Medication

Hello everyone!

Well as you can probably guess from the title my medication arrived today!

This is very exciting, but it also made me start feeling nervous which is strange because i haven't really been nervous about it all yet? Must be because it is finally happening. This is it, no turning back now!

Also this will be the first blog entry with photo's, i thought it would be nice to go through what we have here...

So, it turned up looking like this... how exciting!:

Inside the white box were the Gonal-F pens, the Ovitrelle (which you take 36 hours before your egg collection), and 53 needles! All of which need to be refrigerated, they look quite at home there don't they!:

The brown box had the following bits in it:

What you are looking at there is a small welcome pack, 3 Buserelin vials, 3 Crinone gel boxes (each with 15 doses inside) and a blue bag which contained this lot!:

That is my sharps box, 60 syringes, 60 needles and 60 antiseptic wipes.

Phew!

After putting it all back in the blue bag for safe keeping i read all the leaflets that came with the medications, there are soooo many side effects that i could have, some quite comical really! I don't expect to have them all, i hope i don't have any, but we shall see.

So i am all set for my first injection on Friday night at 6:30pm, wish me luck for then! I don't know if it is the excitement or nervous feeling that has caused this but... i can't seem to remember what i am supposed to be doing with all of it! Woops!

I had better get on to BabyCentre and read up on injecting! Ha ha...

Take Care All! xxx

Butterflies...

Hello everyone!

This is likely to be the longest post ever!

So as you all know we had our meeting with the consultant at Bourn Hall a few days ago on the 25th January. If you recall i told you that as it was at 9am we were going to have to be awake at 5:30am! Urgh...

Luckily for us though my lovely sister Sharon (who amazingly lives just 4 miles away from the clinic) said that we could stay at her house on the Thursday night! Fantastic! This meant we were able to have a good night's sleep in preparation for the meeting!

As we got to the clinic we were so nervous, especially about my BMI, which was at 30.2 the day before. Even though i was only 1lb over the maximum allowance for IVF it will still not be accepted, but we just thought they would hopefully ask us to come back in a month and be weighed again so we can start the process then. In which time i know i would of easily lost that last 1lb, and more!

The moment of truth arrived, i was weighed and measured, as was Phil, but the lady did not give us the results, oh god... i said to Phil that it was probably bad. Still, with high spirits and wearing my lucky 'orange knickers' we sat in the waiting room for our appointment time.

Our consultant is a lovely man, you can't help but feel comfortable and confident around him, which is brilliant. He went through the whole process, explained certain aspects of it all, IVF, ICSI (for those who don't know, ICSI is where they take a single sperm and inject it directly into an egg, it is used for those with a low sperm count/ low morphology etc, which is the problem Phil and i have).

Basically the process involves me injecting Buserelin for a few weeks to dampen down my own hormones (called Down Regulation), then injecting Gonal-F for about 2 weeks to make more than 1 follicle grow in my ovaries (he hopes for anything between 8-10 follicles, but it could be anything up to at least 25!). Then after regular scans to check how those follicles are growing there will come a time where they will ask me to inject a hCG 'trigger shot'. This will make the eggs mature and they will need to be collected within 36 hours.

This is when Phil and i will go into the clinic and have my egg collection. It is also when Phil will need to give his sperm sample. Depending on the quality of the sperm we will either have IVF or ICSI (i expect it will be ICSI) and then the embryo's will 'hopefully' grow for up to 5 days and become 'blastocysts'. Then we will go back to the clinic and have 1 of these little miracles put back into my womb and pray that it sticks! The other embryo's will be frozen for future use.

Lots of relaxing will follow, and after 2 weeks i will be asked to do a pregnancy test, if the test is positive then i will be asked to repeat the test a week or so later, if that is also positive they will book us in for a 6/7 week scan!

So there you have it, how to make a baby in however many steps... easy isn't it? Ha ha!

Whilst he was telling us all of the above in the back of my mind i was thinking 'this is all well and good but what is my BMI!'. I was just waiting for the bad news to come when casually the consultant said 'oh yes, and your BMI Sarah is 29.2 so you will need to try and keep that down as it is quite close to 30'. To say Phil and i were in shock is an understatement! They must have rounded my height up to 5'2 as i am about 5'1 and just over a half. What a relief!

We went back into the waiting room and were just looking at each other, completely gobsmacked...

Then we went in to see a nurse who would take us through starting dates etc, as i hadn't started my period yet nothing could be booked, but she said once it had arrived i was to call the clinic.

They also arranged for us to have our 'drug teach', which is where we learnt how to do the injections. Then we had a lovely drive home, laughing and chatting about it all. It was lovely!

I hadn't expected my period to start until the 31st January so when it started that evening after the appointment i said to Phil 'it must be because i am wearing the lucky 'orange knickers!'. Typically though it was too late to call the clinic so i had to wait until today (Monday) to call them.

The call went really well, she confirmed that because my period had started in the evening after 7pm that Saturday the 26th will be my Cycle Day 1. She said my medication will be delivered to me in about 2 weeks so i can start my Buserelin injections on Cycle Day 21. Then i will have a bleed about a week later (normal period, maybe a bit heavier) and then i am to call the clinic again so they can confirm when i am to start the Gonal-F injections.

She said that with those dates they would be looking to have the egg collection on the 18th March, with the embryo being returned to the womb 5 days later, and the testing 2 weeks after.

Now... i know what you may think, you may say to Phil and i to not get too excited, but we just can't help it! I have had loads of happy butterflies in my tummy all day long! I just can not believe it is finally happening! For 3 years we have been waiting and finally we have a great shot at getting pregnant.

So it's all happening...

I can only hope every day that it works for us, first time! We deserve this little bit of luck!

Come on Baby Cole, i know you are ready to come meet us!

Take Care All xxx

What a busy few days!

Hello everyone!

What a busy busy busy week it has been! This will be a long post! Ha ha x

Firstly my friend Robyn gave birth to her beautiful baby girl, Erica on Saturday. I was fortunate to have been her birthing partner alongside her hubby and it was amazing! She had been in hospital for a few days before as she was induced on Wednesday morning but that wasn't working, so by Friday night the hospital had decided that it was time to kick it all up a notch so confirmed that Robyn would have a drip (not sure what it was exactly) to speed things up a bit.

Blimey, did it do just that! Loz and i left the hospital at around 10:30pm on the Friday night and by our return at about 11am on Saturday Robyn was already 3cm's! Fantastic! We were thinking at that rate the baby should be with us by maybe 7pm?

The next step was for Robyn to have an epidural. That was awful. I don't know what was going on but something wasn't going right and Robyn was in a lot of pain. So much so that unfortunately both Loz and i came over all faint and i had to lie on the floor! Oh it was funny, i think even Robyn cracked a smile! She was then measured at 5cm's so it was just a case of waiting... or so we thought!

Loz and i went to have something to eat at 1pm and when we got back the midwife was trying to pop a catheter in but Robyn started to have some huge contractions so the midwife had to stop. Robyn was checked and was found to be ready to push! We could not believe it! Robyn was such a dude, she pushed Erica out and i was amazed by how well she did. I was so impressed with her. Lots of tidying up and cuddles followed and little Erica and her mummy are now both safe and resting at home.

It was bloody brilliant!

Oddly now that i have witnessed birth first hand im not afraid of it. I had not really thought of it actually, but whilst i was there, and in the aftermath i thought that i would be able to do it, i will just have to follow Robyn's example and i know that i will be ok.

Onto something different now... Phil and i went to our seminar at Bourn Hall last week and it went really well. There was lots of waiting around though and we had to get there for before 2pm even though we didn't go into the room until 3pm... bit strange? I also thought it would be a bit more involved but it only lasted about 40 minutes.

It went through everything and Phil said at the end 'you knew all of that anyway didn't you?' which i did so in one sense it was a bit of a waste of time. However, it was nice to go and see the clinic and meet a few people, take in the location etc.

We left with a pack which included photocopies of the presentation and loads of forms to fill in and sign (which i love doing!).

Lastly, not long now to go until our consultation on the 25th, that is at 9am so it means that we will have to be up at 5:30! My sister lives 4 miles from the clinic so we may well be taking up her offer and staying with her!

We are really looking forward to the consultation, although my weight is being so irritating at the moment so i doubt we will be having the IVF with my February cycle. Hopefully it will be a good enough BMI for Friday though.

We can only hope...

Take Care All xxx

Almost there!

Hello everyone!

So here we are, standing on the edge of it all. 1 day to go until the seminar and we are feeling very excited about it all! We are not so excited about the fact that we have got to make a 1 and half hour journey and be there for 9am though! Ha ha, needs must i guess...

I assume that at the seminar we will be going over every option of IVF, ICSI etc. Learning all about it and being shown around the clinic. Meeting various staff members and just having a general 'welcome' day.

Then we will have just over a week to wait until our consultant appointment!

It is all happening now!

I am doing quite well with my weight loss and am currently at 11st7lb, which gives me a BMI of 30.6. Still not the best but i have a couple of weeks to go and i am so determined. We are going on our nightly walks still and have found that we can now do 4 miles in one go, which is fantastic! I will lose this weight!

Whilst on our walks it gives us the perfect opportunity to discuss everything and you may find it strange but we have been speaking about how much having a child will change our life, and how maybe we will find that difficult.

The trouble with us is that we are, well i am almost 28 (urgh... don't talk to me about it...ha ha) and as we have been trying for so long now (3 years almost seriously trying, about 5 years not preventing) we foolishly expected to be pregnant with at least our second child by now. Our problem is that we are now too set in our ways. If we had had our child when we were say 24 then we would not know any different. It would be natural to be tired, selfless, think of someone else all the time. We are now feeling like, urgh... we won't be able to just do what we want all the time, how annoying! Ha ha!

I am sure that once we are confirmed as pregnant we will be over the moon and totally forget about all of those thoughts, but it is something to ponder isn't it?

Nightmare...

Taking everything into account though we are truly excited and ready to become a proper family and can only hope and wish that the IVF works first time for us.

Please keep your fingers crossed!

Take Care All xxx

Edging Closer

Hello Everyone,

It has been too long again since my last post, but what with christmas and family stuff to do its quite hard to find a decent amount of time to write a post.

I hope everyone has had a lovely christmas and new year. Our new year was made even more special with the safe arrival of my little sister Lauren's baby boy on the 31st December. We are going over to see him later on this evening and i am very excited to meet him!

I can't believe how quickly January is already going, its mad!

It needs to slow down a bit as unfortunately due to lots of naughty buffet style meals during the christmas holidays i managed to put on 7lb! That is disgusting! However i am now back on track, eating breakfast, salad for lunch and exercising as much as i can. I am happy to say that with that lot happening i weighed in this morning at 11st 9lb, which is fantastic! Definitely need to keep this up...

So we received our letter from Bourn Hall and to my surprise not only did it confirm our seminar appointment for the 16th January it also told us that we have been booked in for an additional appointment. This is for the 25th January and it is our consultation meeting with the consultant. I am assuming this is when we will discuss everything arrange the IVF to start. It could mean that in less than a month we will know when we will be starting the huge journey... nervous?

Mostly i really need to shift some of this weight so i can be at the correct BMI for the treatment, and by the sounds of things i need to shift it soon! That is my worry above everything else at the moment.

Wish me luck everyone!

Take Care All xxx

So it begins...

Hello Everyone,

It has been quite a while since i last posted but i realised that if i don't have anything to say then there is not much point in making a post. I want to keep this blog interesting and i think that following that 'rule' is probably best.

Anyway, my period came and went and i was kindly treated to an almost pain free week. I have concluded that the Clomid was what was making it hurt so much. The pain really was excruciating. Possibly the worst period pains i had ever had so i am really thankful that i don't have to endure those again.

Life has just been carrying on, work, christmas shopping, putting the tree up etc but in the back of our minds (probably in the front really) we were still thinking about when our letter from Bourn Hall would arrive. I decided that if the letter had not arrived by today then i was going to call the clinic to check whether they had recieved our details yet. However i didn't even have a chance to do that! They called me!

I was just sitting watching a bit of TV when they rung, a really lovely woman (for the life of me i can not remember her name) said that they had received our details, all was ok (i didn't realise there was a chance that it wouldn't be ok?) and they would like us to come to a welcome seminar at the clinic on the 16th January 2013. She said that at the seminar we would learn all about IVF and what they offer, it would be with about 28 other couples and then after that we would be looking to start the IVF process with my February cycle.

OH MY GOD...

Firstly, typical... blooming typical. Phil and I rarely go on holiday and it is just so typical that we are going to Centre Parcs in late February. I have worked it out with Robyn and if my cycle stays the same (beginning at the start of the month) then we should be ok to have everything sorted and organised before the holiday. It might even be a good idea that we are going away as i will be less stressed. However, this is Centre Parcs, you usually do lots of walking, activities etc. Looks like it will be lots of time in front of the fire relaxing instead! Or we may decide to see if the clinic will start the process after the holiday with my March cycle.

Also, if we are lucky (please let us be lucky) and we fall pregnant with this first IVF attempt we will most likely have a December baby. Which is not ideal, but again beggars can't be choosers.

We will be over the moon either way!

She left it by telling me i will receive all the details in a letter soon and that she hoped we have a lovely Christmas. I think we will!

So now we have our dates, something i have wanted for a long time... and what do i think?

I'M NOT READY!!!

Ha ha, seriously though, my first thought was 'oh my god, i might have a baby next year... im not ready! I'm too young, i won't know what to do!'

How mad is that! I think the reality of the situation hit me. Obviously there is a high chance that we won't fall pregnant on the first attempt so please don't think me naive. However i am going to stay positive and hope for the best. That is all we can do.

So, here we go, not long until we can say a huge goodbye to 2012 and a massive hello to 2013, i have said to Phil 2013 will be our year.

After all, it is about blooming time!

Take Care All xxx

Blissfully Waiting?

Hello Everyone,

It has now been 2 weeks since we were given the go ahead for IVF and we still haven't received our letter. I have asked the IVF group on BabyCentre how long they had to wait for their letters and to be honest it was a bit of a mixed bag. Most were waiting about a month though so that has made me relax a bit more, but i think i will follow the advice of one of the ladies and call the clinic late next week to see if it is all running smoothly. Hopefully they won't think i'm annoying!

Phil and I have had a lovely break this month from everything baby-making related, i just felt that we needed to stop making it all about having a baby and start it off nice and fresh, with only 'having a good' time the reason why. It has made me more relaxed, im not testing ovulation, shoving thermometers where they are not welcome, putting my legs up in the air instead of having a cuddle! I am now only a few days away from AF (Aunt Flo) and quite frankly, i welcome her!

As for my BMI, its not going too well, i have been sick with a pretty bad cold this last week and as such haven't been able to do all of my night-time walks. We really need to kick that up a gear so i can lose as much weight as possible before our appointment at the clinic. There are no excuses fatty!

In light of trying to lose weight we have also started trying new, healthy foods, lentils are disgusting... yes there is a chance im cooking them wrong, but they honestly taste like dry skin. Goji berries are apparently good for weight loss and male fertility, so that is 2 birds, 1 stone. However, they do not taste all that great either. We have (grudgingly) been putting them with our cereal in the morning. We are soldiering on!

Why is it that most things that are healthy for us taste awful?

My lovely friend Lauren also gave me some decaf tea to try out as i really need to reduce the amount of caffeine i drink and it wasn't too bad! It might take a few cups to get used to it but im sure i will learn to love it, just like i love green tea.

Speaking of which, time to put the kettle on!

Take Care All xxx

Musings

Hello Everyone,

Well it has been over a week since we were given the go ahead for IVF and i have had periods of not thinking about it and then there have been times when it is all i think about, for hours.

Today is one of those days...

I have been imagining our little babies (for some reason i have the feeling that i will have twins, i have always felt this way, a boy named William and a girl named Emma, yep... i am crazy) running around our home, making a mess, sleeping, laughing. When i have been driving i have been imagining them in their little car seats in the back, and whilst it is absolutely mad i have found myself having a secret smile to myself.

I keep imagining being pregnant, knowing the babies are in there, safe, protected, loved so very much. I imagine us both cosying up on the sofa, hands on belly, smiles on faces...

Even though i am yet to have a child i still feel the enormous sensation to protect them, although they are still only a thought the sensation is so strong that i am half a second away from building a fort! God knows what it will be like when they are actually here, or worse still, when i am pregnant!

The chances of us getting pregnant first time on IVF are slim, but still possible. I am so desperate for us to be finally lucky. We really are due for a bit of luck.

I really can't wait to be pregnant, i know a lot of women complain about being pregnant and i'm not about to say that i won't, as i'm sure there will be testing times, however i know that i will try to cherish every single moment. We have been waiting so long now how could i not?

I am finding it so hard to not look at baby stuff, prams, cots, bed linen etc, i know i have got to try and not get my hopes up, but at the same time why not? Why can't i get excited? I can't wait for the moment i see those 2 little lines that i so crave for, telling me that finally we have been blessed, we deserve it so much. I don't know what i would do next, probably cry... actually, definitely cry! How am i supposed to keep it a secret from my close family and friends for 12 whole weeks? That is near on impossible!

We are still waiting on our letter from Bourn Hall to invite us to an open day. It's crappy timing really as we are going to Centre Parcs in February next year with our friends and sods law is that the time for us to start the process will be February. What will we do then? Put our options in a hat and pick one out? Fingers crossed it will be January or March/April time, although that will then (hopefully) create a December baby, which is not ideal, but then... beggars can't be choosers. Urgh, my head is such a blur of 'what ifs'. Things will be so much better once that letter is here.

Our blood tests went really well, i usually have them at my doctors but this time we had them at the hospital and wow... i barely felt a thing, Phil (unfortunately) felt nothing and i haven't really developed a bruise. I can't believe it!

I guess now all that is left to do is wait... more blooming waiting. I'm a pro now!

Take Care All xxx

A Fresh Start

Hello Everyone,

I first started this blog a few years ago when my husband Phil and I decided we would like to try for a little baby. However almost 3 years have now past and we are still childless, but we have just been given the go ahead for IVF.

Alongside this i am also trying to lose weight, to get myself to a healthy BMI, i am a bit fed up of being a tubster now.

I guess that will be what this blog mostly covers really, as well as some random things i expect!

I wanted to write this blog as a record of my thoughts and feelings during this testing time, and for those of you who have not found it easy to pro-create will know that it can be turbulent. Phil and I have been through all the necessary tests, and while i appear to be fine unfortunately Phil's soldiers are not performing as they should. He has a low morphology rate of 2% and some of those that are ok don't wish to find the elusive egg.

Lazy little buggers...

So here we go, first things first we have our blood tests this coming Wednesday, those are for Hep B + C and HIV, plus i also need a Full Blood Count. It is safe to say that i hate blood tests, absolutely detest them. I often faint and they always leave me with a huge bruise on my arm. So i was devilishly pleased when our consultant at the hospital said that Phil will also have to have the tests. Finally! Some pain for him throughout all of this. I have had to have all sorts of tests and procedures so its about time he felt some too!!! Ha ha ha!

Meanwhile we are waiting for our consultation appointment to discuss everything at the fertility clinic we have chosen. It is called Bourn Hall, and it is in Cambridge. I have had a little snoop around on the clinic's website and was delighted to find out that it was the very first IVF clinic in the world! Louise Brown the first test-tube baby was conceived there! How fantastic is that? I am full of the confidence that i have really lacked these past few years and i truely hope that we will get our baby(s) first time...

Fingers crossed...

I suppose i shall end now by saying that i hope to update this blog on a regular basis, we shall see how it goes!

Take Care All xxx