I phoned first thing on Tuesday 3rd September to see how things were going.
I had originally been told to expect that quite a few of my 28 eggs would not be mature enough for fertilisation, so i was very shocked when i was advised that the scientists had liked all 28 of my eggs and tried to fertilise the lot of them!
20 of them had successfully fertilised! Wow!! I was told to phone again the next day to check how they were going again and that i would likely lose a few that wouldn't survive until the freezing process.
I phoned first thing on Wednesday 4th September again to see how things were going. All 20 of my fertilised embryo's had survived to day 2 and had been frozen!!
Wow, i have 20 chances to become a mother again.
Something is finally going my way again!!
Thursday, 5 September 2013
Monday, 2 September 2013
EPU procedure
Monday 2nd September rolled around, we were up bright and early as we had to be at the Hospital by 6am.
We were put into a room and went through all of my details and filled out some paperwork.
The time finally came around for my procedure - i was so so nervous. We were taken to a little waiting room to the side of the Theatre where i was measured & weighed and then had to sit and wait!!
When we were finally taken in, it all happened so quickly - i was asked to lay on the bed and had a needle popped into my hand and then given some oxygen and then i can't remember anything until i woke up.
My husband said i snored throughout the procedure lol - i guess it was because i still wasn't completely over my head cold yet!!
I woke up comfortable and happy - they advise me that they got 28 eggs. WHAT..... 28 eggs, how did that happen!! We were only expecting 22 at best and that was only if the really little ones from my scan had decided to do something special!
As i was so happy and comfortable i was wheeled back around to my room to recover. As i had gotten so many eggs, they were worried about OHSS so we would not be doing an embryo transfer over the coming days. I was a little heartbroken, although i knew it was for the best.
I came through the procedure easily with no medications at all (not even pain relief) and was so hungry they bought some breakfast around for me which i gobbled down quickly also. Within not much time i was up and out of bed and dressed and ready to go!! Apparently this is not normal for someone getting 28 eggs!!
I was told to phone the next morning to find out more about how my eggs were going..
We were put into a room and went through all of my details and filled out some paperwork.
The time finally came around for my procedure - i was so so nervous. We were taken to a little waiting room to the side of the Theatre where i was measured & weighed and then had to sit and wait!!
When we were finally taken in, it all happened so quickly - i was asked to lay on the bed and had a needle popped into my hand and then given some oxygen and then i can't remember anything until i woke up.
My husband said i snored throughout the procedure lol - i guess it was because i still wasn't completely over my head cold yet!!
I woke up comfortable and happy - they advise me that they got 28 eggs. WHAT..... 28 eggs, how did that happen!! We were only expecting 22 at best and that was only if the really little ones from my scan had decided to do something special!
As i was so happy and comfortable i was wheeled back around to my room to recover. As i had gotten so many eggs, they were worried about OHSS so we would not be doing an embryo transfer over the coming days. I was a little heartbroken, although i knew it was for the best.
I came through the procedure easily with no medications at all (not even pain relief) and was so hungry they bought some breakfast around for me which i gobbled down quickly also. Within not much time i was up and out of bed and dressed and ready to go!! Apparently this is not normal for someone getting 28 eggs!!
I was told to phone the next morning to find out more about how my eggs were going..
Nasal sprays and self injecting
In August 2013 i started my synarel nasal spray - one spray in the morning and one spray at night. I tried to make sure i didn't plan anything so that no one needed to see what i was doing and run the risk of having to answer questions!!
I was scheduled for a blood test on 19th August to see if the synarel was doing it's job. I got a call early the next morning to advise that all was great and that i need to start daily injections of Puregon at a dose of 150iu - a small dose as i generally didn't appear to have problems with my eggs and ovulating etc.
I was scheduled for a follow up scan on 29th August to see how things were going.
I hadn't had too many side effects from the medications, apart from some nasty headaches early on - i found that drinking lots of water helped with these and they soon eased though. Didn't help that i had been sick with a nasty head cold for the past 4 weeks also!!!
When my FS did the scan he was extremely happy - looked like i had 12 follicles that were getting close to required size, plus another 10 very small ones (not likely to come to much).
I was scheduled for my EPU procedure for Monday 2nd September!
I took the last of my puregon on Friday night and nasal spray on Saturday morning and then had to have a shot of Ovidrel on Saturday night.
By Sunday night i was feeling very bloated and uncomfortable & extremely nervous for my procedure the next day..
I was scheduled for a blood test on 19th August to see if the synarel was doing it's job. I got a call early the next morning to advise that all was great and that i need to start daily injections of Puregon at a dose of 150iu - a small dose as i generally didn't appear to have problems with my eggs and ovulating etc.
I was scheduled for a follow up scan on 29th August to see how things were going.
I hadn't had too many side effects from the medications, apart from some nasty headaches early on - i found that drinking lots of water helped with these and they soon eased though. Didn't help that i had been sick with a nasty head cold for the past 4 weeks also!!!
When my FS did the scan he was extremely happy - looked like i had 12 follicles that were getting close to required size, plus another 10 very small ones (not likely to come to much).
I was scheduled for my EPU procedure for Monday 2nd September!
I took the last of my puregon on Friday night and nasal spray on Saturday morning and then had to have a shot of Ovidrel on Saturday night.
By Sunday night i was feeling very bloated and uncomfortable & extremely nervous for my procedure the next day..
Wednesday, 10 July 2013
Talking IVF
We were scheduled to visit the FS in March 2013 to discuss IVF, although i postponed until May as i had managed to secure full time work for the majority of March & April (as compared to my regular 2 days per week work) and figured that we really needed the work to be able to save up for IVF.
So i worked my butt off and paid off the credit card and really got us into a position to be able to slightly afford it.
We had taken private hospital cover out in January, so had a 12 month waiting period on fertility treatment - not that the private cover saves you much in Australia anyhow.
So all was going to plan and we had our appointment with the FS and also one of the nurses at the end of May. We decided that we were going to be going ahead with treatment and that the nurses would contact me in early July (my FS was going to be on holiday in Paris in June - lucky man!!) and arrange for my medications to be sent to me. During the second week of July when i hadn't heard from them, i decided to phone. I knew that i was supposed to start my medication when my period started and it was only a few days away.
They were a little confused when i rang and said they would talk to my FS and phone me back.
Well, apparently the nurse that i had seen had completely mucked up the process that they were going to use on me!! I thought it was going to be a Flare Cycle although now i was being told it was going to be a Down Regulation Cycle.
Before that phone call I had my hopes up that things were finally going to be happening and we were much closer to having another baby, although this change made me feel like things were being taken out of our reach again!! I was told that my FS preferred this process and that he had far better results from it, so i took that as some comfort.
Then the process began...
So i worked my butt off and paid off the credit card and really got us into a position to be able to slightly afford it.
We had taken private hospital cover out in January, so had a 12 month waiting period on fertility treatment - not that the private cover saves you much in Australia anyhow.
So all was going to plan and we had our appointment with the FS and also one of the nurses at the end of May. We decided that we were going to be going ahead with treatment and that the nurses would contact me in early July (my FS was going to be on holiday in Paris in June - lucky man!!) and arrange for my medications to be sent to me. During the second week of July when i hadn't heard from them, i decided to phone. I knew that i was supposed to start my medication when my period started and it was only a few days away.
They were a little confused when i rang and said they would talk to my FS and phone me back.
Well, apparently the nurse that i had seen had completely mucked up the process that they were going to use on me!! I thought it was going to be a Flare Cycle although now i was being told it was going to be a Down Regulation Cycle.
Before that phone call I had my hopes up that things were finally going to be happening and we were much closer to having another baby, although this change made me feel like things were being taken out of our reach again!! I was told that my FS preferred this process and that he had far better results from it, so i took that as some comfort.
Then the process began...
Thursday, 20 December 2012
Off to the Fertility Specialist
As we had now been trying to get pregnant for quite some time, we finally got our referral to the Fertility Specialist.
At our first visit and going through all of our medical history, he fully believed that the only thing stopping us from getting pregnant was due to the operation on my cervix and the lack of cervical mucous to help transport the semen, aswell as the amount of scarring.
He thought that IUI would be the best option for us. He was a little worried about getting the catheter through my cervix, so at one of my scans before we started he tried it out and got through with no issues. So it was full steam ahead.
We had numerous scans, as my regular clockwork cycle decided to do something different (they said it is quite common when starting any sort of fertility treatment) and then we were scheduled for our first real try at IUI in October 2012.
My FS had a little trouble getting the catheter through, but nothing major and we left feeling hopeful that in a few weeks time i would be pregnant.
It was not to be..
The next month we were set to try again, although my body decided that it didn't even want to ovulate that month, so we got a month off.
In December 2012 we were all set to try again and all was going perfectly until my FS really struggled to get the catheter through my cervix - it took quite some work, but he finally got there. He suggested that if it didn't work this time, then we really needed to be thinking about IVF!
Wow, that really hurt! I never really believed that we would need IVF, and everyone that talked about it also talked about how expensive it was, like thousands and thousands of dollars. How would we ever afford it!
I crossed my fingers and hoped that this round of IUI did the trick and we didn't need the IVF, but things just weren't meant to be..
At our first visit and going through all of our medical history, he fully believed that the only thing stopping us from getting pregnant was due to the operation on my cervix and the lack of cervical mucous to help transport the semen, aswell as the amount of scarring.
He thought that IUI would be the best option for us. He was a little worried about getting the catheter through my cervix, so at one of my scans before we started he tried it out and got through with no issues. So it was full steam ahead.
We had numerous scans, as my regular clockwork cycle decided to do something different (they said it is quite common when starting any sort of fertility treatment) and then we were scheduled for our first real try at IUI in October 2012.
My FS had a little trouble getting the catheter through, but nothing major and we left feeling hopeful that in a few weeks time i would be pregnant.
It was not to be..
The next month we were set to try again, although my body decided that it didn't even want to ovulate that month, so we got a month off.
In December 2012 we were all set to try again and all was going perfectly until my FS really struggled to get the catheter through my cervix - it took quite some work, but he finally got there. He suggested that if it didn't work this time, then we really needed to be thinking about IVF!
Wow, that really hurt! I never really believed that we would need IVF, and everyone that talked about it also talked about how expensive it was, like thousands and thousands of dollars. How would we ever afford it!
I crossed my fingers and hoped that this round of IUI did the trick and we didn't need the IVF, but things just weren't meant to be..
Thursday, 19 July 2012
TTC & more hospitals
After all the ordeals i had been through my specialist gave me the ok to start trying for a baby. With all of my surgeries she thought we may have some trouble, although still highly believed that it could happen without help.
After a couple of months trying i was due for another check up with my Gynae/Onc specialist - she was having trouble getting a good sample of the endo cervical cells from my smear so she scheduled a curette, so back to Hospital again!!
After the curette i was given a request form to get a scan done to check on "abnormal uterus" - WTF, i asked the nurses and they knew nothing about anything. I finally got to speak to my specialist about 5 hours later and she was fuming!! One of the other docs was supposed to have come and spoken to me about it hours before, and they had totally mucked up what was on the request! My specialist was a bit worried that my cyst was back on my ovary and wanted me to have another scan to check it out!
I went for a scan and it confirmed that my cyst was back! It was no where near the size of before, but it was certainly there! It was actually larger than the size where they would normally make the decision to operate (i didn't find this out until much later on!!), but my specialist wanted to leave it as the more times she opened me up and operated on my ovary, the less chance i was going to have at getting pregnant, so we just monitored the cyst over the next 6 months.
Gradually the cyst shrank! Finally something was going my way. Although we still hadn't fallen pregnant yet.
After a couple of months trying i was due for another check up with my Gynae/Onc specialist - she was having trouble getting a good sample of the endo cervical cells from my smear so she scheduled a curette, so back to Hospital again!!
After the curette i was given a request form to get a scan done to check on "abnormal uterus" - WTF, i asked the nurses and they knew nothing about anything. I finally got to speak to my specialist about 5 hours later and she was fuming!! One of the other docs was supposed to have come and spoken to me about it hours before, and they had totally mucked up what was on the request! My specialist was a bit worried that my cyst was back on my ovary and wanted me to have another scan to check it out!
I went for a scan and it confirmed that my cyst was back! It was no where near the size of before, but it was certainly there! It was actually larger than the size where they would normally make the decision to operate (i didn't find this out until much later on!!), but my specialist wanted to leave it as the more times she opened me up and operated on my ovary, the less chance i was going to have at getting pregnant, so we just monitored the cyst over the next 6 months.
Gradually the cyst shrank! Finally something was going my way. Although we still hadn't fallen pregnant yet.
Saturday, 5 March 2011
Getting sick of hospitals
As if what i had already been through wasn't enough!!
Sitting at home one night i had this incredible pain in my back - my husband was already in bed asleep and i really didn't want to wake him up. I took some panadene forte and hoped that things would improve, but after 45 more minutes and the pain only getting worse, i woke him up and we headed to the ER.
After explaining what i had been through the previous year, i was poked & prodded and given some morphine to ease the pain. I was then sent for a CT.
Once the results came back i had a massive cyst. The doctor on duty that night freaked me out and basically made me think the worst was happening and that my cancer had infact spread. They called my specialist from Hobart and sent through the scans for her to look at - she believed that it was only a lymphocyst, caused from the lymphedectomy and nothing to worry about. It was huge though!! The lymphocyst was so big that it was blocking my kidney function which was causing all of my pain (similar pain to having kidney stones). They called my regular gynae in and he put a large needle through my tummy into the cyst and drained almost 2 litres of fluid!!
I was sent home and advised to go back the next day for another scan. The next scan showed that the lymphocyst had again filled up and was almost as big as it had been the day before!!
I was then sent to my specialist in Hobart for her to deal with it. She sent me for a CT aided drainage - so they used the CT scan to find the exact area of the cyst and then put a drain in. I was kept in hospital for a few days until the fluid stopped flowing through into the drain. The i was sent home, hoping that things were finally going to get better.
But no, i spent many nights in and out of the ER and had loads of morphine & endone to deal with the pain. I was scheduled for a CT scan on Wed 2nd March 2011 - i knew the cyst was there and that it was absolutely huge again as i looked like i was pregnant. I had felt like crap and could hardly eat anything without vomiting. I was sent in for my CT and they made me drink some special medicine to help show things up on the scan - within about 20 seconds i had vomited it up everywhere!! How embarrassing!! After they finished the scan i was asked to wait until the had checked my results. I then found out that they were contacting my gp - i was unsure why. I just wanted to get out of there as it was my daughters first birthday that weekend and i had so much stuff to organise!!
When they finally came out to see me i was told to go straight to the ER with no further explanation. Once there i was seen almost straight away and advised that i would be being sent back to my specialist in Hobart as now both of my kidneys were being affected by the cyst which could cause massive complications.
So off we went to Hobart again - i was not allowed to eat or drink anything as i was supposed to be going into surgery later that afternoon or night. The hours ticked by and i was advised that there had been a massive car accident, so the theatre's were all being used for this, but my specialist was still trying to get another theatre opened for me - at 11pm that night i was told that it wouldn't be happening. I was allowed to have some jelly to eat and was put on an iv drip for fluids, but that didn't last for long as once again i would have to fast from midnight as my surgery would be the next day.
I had my surgery around lunch time on the Thursday where my specialist surgically removed the cyst and placed another drain in to make sure that it did not fill back up again.
When my specialist next saw me on the Friday i told her how important it was that i be able to go home for my daughters first birthday which was on the Sunday. She was not overly hopeful that it would happen, but she assured me that if all my obs were stable and all my test results came back good, mainly my kidney function, that she would see what she could do.
On the Saturday morning she rushed through my tests and in the afternoon i was told i could leave - i did still have to have my drain which wasn't great and i was on endone tablets, but i made it home for my daughters birthday.
Sitting at home one night i had this incredible pain in my back - my husband was already in bed asleep and i really didn't want to wake him up. I took some panadene forte and hoped that things would improve, but after 45 more minutes and the pain only getting worse, i woke him up and we headed to the ER.
After explaining what i had been through the previous year, i was poked & prodded and given some morphine to ease the pain. I was then sent for a CT.
Once the results came back i had a massive cyst. The doctor on duty that night freaked me out and basically made me think the worst was happening and that my cancer had infact spread. They called my specialist from Hobart and sent through the scans for her to look at - she believed that it was only a lymphocyst, caused from the lymphedectomy and nothing to worry about. It was huge though!! The lymphocyst was so big that it was blocking my kidney function which was causing all of my pain (similar pain to having kidney stones). They called my regular gynae in and he put a large needle through my tummy into the cyst and drained almost 2 litres of fluid!!
I was sent home and advised to go back the next day for another scan. The next scan showed that the lymphocyst had again filled up and was almost as big as it had been the day before!!
I was then sent to my specialist in Hobart for her to deal with it. She sent me for a CT aided drainage - so they used the CT scan to find the exact area of the cyst and then put a drain in. I was kept in hospital for a few days until the fluid stopped flowing through into the drain. The i was sent home, hoping that things were finally going to get better.
But no, i spent many nights in and out of the ER and had loads of morphine & endone to deal with the pain. I was scheduled for a CT scan on Wed 2nd March 2011 - i knew the cyst was there and that it was absolutely huge again as i looked like i was pregnant. I had felt like crap and could hardly eat anything without vomiting. I was sent in for my CT and they made me drink some special medicine to help show things up on the scan - within about 20 seconds i had vomited it up everywhere!! How embarrassing!! After they finished the scan i was asked to wait until the had checked my results. I then found out that they were contacting my gp - i was unsure why. I just wanted to get out of there as it was my daughters first birthday that weekend and i had so much stuff to organise!!
When they finally came out to see me i was told to go straight to the ER with no further explanation. Once there i was seen almost straight away and advised that i would be being sent back to my specialist in Hobart as now both of my kidneys were being affected by the cyst which could cause massive complications.
So off we went to Hobart again - i was not allowed to eat or drink anything as i was supposed to be going into surgery later that afternoon or night. The hours ticked by and i was advised that there had been a massive car accident, so the theatre's were all being used for this, but my specialist was still trying to get another theatre opened for me - at 11pm that night i was told that it wouldn't be happening. I was allowed to have some jelly to eat and was put on an iv drip for fluids, but that didn't last for long as once again i would have to fast from midnight as my surgery would be the next day.
I had my surgery around lunch time on the Thursday where my specialist surgically removed the cyst and placed another drain in to make sure that it did not fill back up again.
When my specialist next saw me on the Friday i told her how important it was that i be able to go home for my daughters first birthday which was on the Sunday. She was not overly hopeful that it would happen, but she assured me that if all my obs were stable and all my test results came back good, mainly my kidney function, that she would see what she could do.
On the Saturday morning she rushed through my tests and in the afternoon i was told i could leave - i did still have to have my drain which wasn't great and i was on endone tablets, but i made it home for my daughters birthday.
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