My heart is a mosh-pit - 7dp2dt

And not a Spice-Girls mosh-pit full of excitement and crazy glee. No, my heart is a Rage Against the Machine mosh-pit full of familiar characters.


Hope is a small gal in leathers and gothic makeup, and she's squashed in the middle of the pit. Her feet are trampled on by Fear, she's winded by Anxiety and Nightmare is leering at her in a most awful way. She got separated from her BFFs, Courage and Strength, and she's far too close to Despair and Rage instead.

It's a mighty uncomfortable place, my heart. And my head's not helping. I saw the IVF counsellor yesterday and she suggested that I was 'thinking' too much and that all the knowledge in the world wasn't going to help me deal with any of this. Monica's post about plans and her counsellor's suggestion about the "why of her plan-making" was analogous to my counsellor scolding me for excessive research. Monica's plans supposedly help her cope - my 'knowledge' is supposed to help me.


Her counsellor said "You make plans because they seem like something you can control, and they give you something to focus on besides grief and pain."

Mine said "You're researching everything and trying to find out all the information you can so you can focus on something besides your feelings".

So, I feel like a mosh-pit.

What a dork - 5dp2dt

Yes, it's true I am a completely unashamed dork. A drongo, a ning-nong, a eejit.

Because, even though I know I had a Preg.nyl shot on Saturday. (That's 4 days ago.) And even though I know that the lovely second line would be all Preg.nyl's doing - I did a HPT (home pregnancy test) just to see what a positive one looks like.

Gee, it's pretty.

It's incredibly pretty and I really hope I get one of them properly next Tuesday. The TWW is killing me, I am a bit crampy and alternating between hope and despair.

Schrodinger's Zygotes

I started preg.nyl injections today. That there is a crapload of injecting work. I managed to hold both ampoules and one syringe in one hand while attaching the humungasaur draw-up needle to the syringe with the other hand and not dropping the opened ampoules. Cause I am dumb like that, I opened both ampoules before I had the syringe ready. Then I didn't trust their little glass bottoms to stay upright and I had to do the hand jive. Naturally the little plastic cover for the draw-up needle was jammed on so I had to get my teeth involved too. You get the picture?

Anyway, it's all done now and I am progesteroned-up 'til next Wednesday.

The whole "I am a zygote-incubator" thing is a weird feeling. I'm like the box and the zygotes are like Schrodinger's Cat. Simultaneously alive-and-potentially-implanting and dead-and-being-reabsorbed. I want the live cat at the end and the wait is driving me crazy already. I am neurotic so I only got a day's grace of hopefulness and calm before the "what ifs" set in. Can I please have either a crystal ball to see the future or a spiffy microscope to look inside myself and check on those little PundeGuys.

(Do go have a look at the linked wiki page - Schrodinger's description of the cat idea is quite funny.)

Show and Tell - Two on board

It's Show and Tell time over at Stirrup Queens - go see what the others have got! Today I'm show-and-telling about my embryo transfer. The one that almost never happened a lot.

So we caught break number 3 and it went well today, the director of the centre was in control of the speculum and the wonderful doctor who did my retrieval (and was so kind to me while I was crying afterwards) did the transfer. I was delighted to see her and she said she'd rung the lab yesterday to find out what had happened and was so happy to find out that we had fertilised googies. What a beautiful woman she is - a fantastic bedside manner.

I popped my head into the adjoining lab to enquire about cell numbers and fragmentation and we had one A-grade 3-cell 0% fragmentation zygote and one C-grade 2-cell less than 30% fragged zygote. That there is a picture of a three-celled embryo just like ours ... but is not ours because I forgot to tell the Big Guy to be prepared to take a picture and we were both so dumbstruck we neither of us thought to pull out cameras. D'oh.


Both zygotes were transferred upon the recommendation of the director. He said I will most likely not get pregnant, certainly it was incredibly unlikely for it to result in twins but with an overall 20% chance of pregnancy. Beta on 6th August. Can I stand the next two weeks?


I am PUPO (pregnant until proven otherwise) and on the upswing of the hope ride! And praying we catch break number 4 - a BFP in early August.

(picture borrowed from EHD )

Two embryos!!

Image via Wikipedia

Amazing - both eggs fertilised. We may actually make it to transfer!!!

Transfer is at 10am Thursday morning now. I'm praying that both those little zygotes make it through cleavage and that we have two lovely little blastomeres to transfer tomorrow.

I cried when the nurse told me that they had both fertilised. I've spent the most awful night and morning wondering what had happened and simultaneously convincing myself that we would get nothing to transfer and hoping that we'd have two fertilised.

Now I see why everyone says IVF runs you ragged. I am riding on an emotional see-saw.

A pigeon pair

I woke up from the anaesthetic today and started crying and crying. I've held it together so well, but I suspect the drugs relax my emotional walls.

The doctor was so lovely and she thought that my age was in my favour and that I should try to have some hope ... we got 2 eggs. The third follicle was empty so I guess I'm happy that there were eggs in the bigger follies. We find out tomorrow if we have any embies.

I hate this rollercoaster.

The doctor did say that next time we'd avoid down-regulation and do a flare cycle, she recommends leaving a cycle between stims but if I insist they'll let me go ahead. Like I said, she also said I should try to be hopeful and think positive. I feel like crap emotionally. And my left ovary hurts. Hooray for oxycodone (cause panadol is completely ineffective on me). Thanks so much for the comments and the stalking - I appreciate the thoughts.

Can't touch this

For some unknown reason every time I think of triggering I think of the song U can't touch this and MC Hammer's famed lyric "it's hammer time" except in my head I'm singing "it's trigger time".

And I was when I did.

The nurse called me today to give me my trigger time. She also gave me some hope, so I'm back on the crazy hope roller-coaster, riding up the hill. I bet you know exactly how much I want the up to go on forever and never start going down.

Officially shot up the Ovidrel at 10pm. Pickup will be at 11am AEST on Tuesday 21st of July. Thanks to Mel's injecting tips I didn't even notice the Ovidrel going in (and I'd heard it was a painful shot).

Show and Tell

It's Show and Tell time over at Stirrup Queens - go see what the others have got!

I'm showing you a card I bought for myself years ago. It says the most sensible words I have ever read and you've most likely read them before too.

I am trying my very, very, very best to do as Buddha says. Yesterday is over and the only way is forward.

And I'm also showing my wedding dress in case Brandy from Conception Deception visits - her Show and Tell was about her wedding and our dresses are quite similar (which surprised me)!

Poor ovarian response

Scan today revealed 3 follicles. 1 x 16mm, 1 x 15mm, 1 x 11mm.

I'll trigger on Sunday or Monday. EPU on Tuesday/Wednesday. They offered me the choice to cancel the cycle as I will most likely only have 2 good follies. She said that meant the chances of good eggs (or eggs at all) were low and thus a successful pregnancy was a low chance. I decided not to cancel but I'm pretty hopeless. Lining was up to 7mm, so at least that will be thick enough if I make it to transfer.

Apparently I am a poor responder. And I knew I would be, you don't get an Anti-Mullerian hormone level of 6 and then everything is ok (normal fertile range is 10-20 - means good ovarian reserve).

So we have The Big Guy's low normal morphology (8%) and my poor ovarian response with old eggs and that's pretty much why we haven't gotten pregnant.

And I spent from 7:45 til midday in doctor's waiting rooms today. Stupidly, oh god so incredibly stupidly, I read The Road while I waited. Geezus what a bleak and hopeless book. Beautifully written but boy-oh-boy what a dumb choice for a day of bad news. Watch the trailer for The Road if you want to see the bleak inside of my head today.

The vulva doc said to try thrush cream for a month and do some v.aginal physiotherapy with oil. Basically stretching the outer rim with increasingly larger things working my way up to p.enis sized. The whole idea would be hilariously funny if it wasn't so incredibly fucked up.

I cried 4 times today and I want to keep crying. And I'm pretty sure that's not a drug side effect because the drugs have done jack-shit.

I'm going to print out this page of advice for poor responders and take along to my next appointment with the docs and see if they'll give it a go.

Anxiety sucks balls

I took myself in for the look-see and the scan today and the news was good and bad.

First, I had to tell Doctor Patience what he had to do, not sure why he didn't read the notes but anyway I told him. In fact I was probably a little loose lipped about the whole thing because I had doped myself up on Valium before getting there so I could cope with the speculum.

Then I sent him to look for a small-sized speculum because there is no way in hell that anyone is sticking one of those monster speculums in me and then racheting it open a few cms.

No way Jose. My hootchie is a teeny tiny tight one. He dutifully found a child-sized speccy and then I handed him the bottle of vegetable oil and loudly proclaimed that there was no way I was allowing him to use the hideous lube in me either. Ouchy-wa-wa.

Poor ol' Doctor Patience must have thought I was a complete bossy nutter. Oh, that's right, I WAS!

The going in of the speccy wasn't too bad (thankyou Crisco) but the opening! My gosh did I yell. Three times and then I breathed deeply and thought of labour. Oh, the horror of it all. He told me there was no bleeding from my cervix and not to worry about the bloody-streaked mucus at all. Good.

Then I said hello to the d.ildo cam and again bossily instructed Dr Patience to use the oil and not the lube and to aim downwards - thankfully that didn't hurt at all going in. So he looks for follies. And he looks some more. He twists and turns and pokes that d.ildo around and eventually locates my left ovary which has a grand total of two 10mm follies (maybe a 3rd, he wasn't particularly intersted in caring about that one). Then more poking etcetera follows and finally he finds my poor little empty right ovary. Yep - empty. No follies.

So for 5 days of G.onal-F I have 2 follicles. Maybe 3. I was so disappointed.

I asked a gazillion questions, most of which he replied to by saying "it's early days yet". Infuriating much? Finally I asked if we could up my dose of G.onal-F and he agreed saying he didn't think I was at risk of OHSS.

OHSS??? OHSS???? I am at risk of under-bloody-stimulation thanks very much.

Upshot of the appointment is 300units of G.onal-F from tonight onwards, another scan on Thursday morning (before I hotfoot it down the road to the vulva clinic) and then "probably triggering on the weekend for a Monday or Tuesday EPU".

And I'd drugged myself up so thoroughly on Valium that I was very dopey in the car on the way home and then went to bed for the rest of the day to sleep it off. Now I'm just pissed off with my body.

Blood and thrush dramas

I think I have a candida infection in my vestibular area. And I can't take any of the -azole type medication to bomb it like I would usually due to the IVF. Bad. Very bad.

I have been spotting but the G.onal-F should not allow this and when I spoke to another of the FNs yesterday she rearranged my scan for Monday morning. At that point I will have had 5 stim shots so we'll get an idea if the G.onal-F is doing its job. At the same time they'll do a spread-n-see to locate the source of the bleeding. The FN says they're hoping the blood is either coming from high in the vaginal wall or that it's associated with the thrush. Both options sound bad, but endometrial bleeding would be far far worse. I'll take 'associated with the thrush' and a speedy cure thank you very much.

I spoke to yet another nurse at the Vulva clinic (MSHC) and she backdoored me into seeing one of the docs on Thursday (rather than waiting til September/October) so I'm strangely looking forward to that appointment to get some answers about the vestibulitis. Which I think is thrush-related. So it's all tied up together.

Shots have been going well, not causing any problems, no sore spots just 1 bruise from the first shot where I hit a capillary. The G.onal-F was burning as it went in on shot 2 and shot 3 but shot 4 was fine. So who knows what that was all about.

God I hope we nail this the first time.

I can has drugs - w00t!

And I do.

Not only do I have some injectable drugs, I am akshully going for all-injectables for this cycle. S.ynarel hurt my nose and as of this morning I am done with it. Hello L.ucrin shots. I am, of course, going to shoot up G.onal-F (oooh it sounds edgy like that "shoot 'em up") and I have added progesterone shots to my must-have injectable list.

I went for the first ultrasound today; the one where they check to make sure my ovaries aren't self-stimulating (heehee) - they're not, and that my 'lining' is non-existent (it is). So all was good there except that the stoopid skinny d.ildo-cam hurt me on the way in. I got a flare-up of vulvar vestibulitis a couple of months ago which hasn't gone away and it makes entry into my lady-garden a non-viable and quite hurty procedure. So the Sweet Nursey gelled up the 'wand' and tried to insert it, whereupon I yelped and said "not that angle, try pointing it down more" so she did and it worked but the gel stung and it got me thinking about the Crinone. I realised that I most certainly did not want some god-knows-what-base-used-and-preservative-filled gel squishing out of me for a fortnight aggravating my poor vestibule and glands. At present vegetable oil and Moo Goo are my only down there friends. So I requested shots instead. Sweet Nursey spoke to Unknown-doctor and Lo and Behold I have more injectables coming my way in 8 days.

In total I will jab myself about 24 times over 3 weeks and now I am a little worried about my poor tummy. But I'd rather sore tummy skin than sorer girlie bits or sorer nose.

The things (other) women do

I came across the vaj-jvisor (thanks Gemini Girl) and wondered do people really want products like this? Be careful checking it out, it will burn your eyes (if you download the instructions page like I did just to see exactly WTF was going on).

I am a hairy chick. That is apparently horrifying. But what I find horrifying is non-hairy chicks. Not that I've ever seen one IRL, but I've been told about them and I have watched prn *gasp*. But I just don't get it and I can't conceive of the pain one must go through in order to make one's girlie bits be hair-free.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the only non-hairy-in-the-groin chicks supposed to be the pre-pubescent ones? And yes, for the record I do remove armpit hair, but I'm a stinky human-monkey and my pits are close to people's noses (closer than my groin anyway). Except for the Big Guy's nose and he says "it might be interesting for you to be hairless, but I don't care". And I told him that I would go hairless if he did (for the interesting factor) and he immediately replied "I'm not doing that!" And now he's sighing.

Sniffing vs shooting

Apparently shooting wins.

My past and I know that I don't mind injections (10 year old Punde is horrified by that statement). And my nose and I are in complete agreement, snorting things up said nose is hurty and sometimes ineffective. I have always had a stuffy nose and now that I am supposed to be absorbing an essential drug through my mucus membranes I have realised exactly how much of the interior of my nose is mucus and how much is membrane. The ratio is low people. So upon the advice of one of the lovely IVF nurses I shall be swapping over to Lucrin when I begin the Gonal-F. Two injections a day and hopefully my poor sore crusty nose will recover from the Synarel trauma.

Next week brings me to the end of data collection for my project thankfully. It has been a long 10 weeks and I am exhausted from it all. Bring on the beginning of stimming and the end of collecting data. Huzzah!