¡Vámonos!

It was with utter delight that I woke up this morning laying in a pool of my own blood, soaked through to the mattress. At the same time, I endured with complete passivity, the constant stabbing pains in my abdomen.

Bliss.

And you know what that means, dear readers – tomorrow I start more artificial hormones in the ongoing quest for parenthood.

Bring on the ethnylestradiol and twice daily progesterone pessaries! I am SO ready to go.

This cycle has been a really tough one. I don’t even know what CD I finished on because I stopped bothering to record it in my diary a few weeks ago, but it was 60-something. Those sixty days represent two lost opportunities for embryo transfers. Sixty days closer to the Medicare Safety Net changes and lots and lots more money. Sixty days closer to 34 which is sixty days closer to the dreaded 35 – not a happy place for infertiles.

But excite, is really all I have to say.

Of course.

Just off the phone with the clinic and they have decided to cancel this FET cycle.

It’s CD32 and absolutley nothing is going on. My progesterone is 5.4, estradiol 136 and lining was 6.8mm.

I’m not surprised, and while my non-stimulated cycles this year have been long, this one would be a record. It’s not really unexpected, given the amount of manufactured hormones I have been subjecting my body to.

Dr’s orders were to book in for a diagnostic ultrasound (I may have an ovarian cyst which would be just lovely) then back to see him to discuss. The waiting list for the Women’s (public and free) hospital was over a month, so now I have to cough up $270 for a poke in the private system, but it means I can go on Wednesday.

The course going forward, I suspect, will be a medicated rather than natural FET. Which is kind of annoying. I know I ovulate on my own, it’s just this post stim cycle that is long and drawn out.

Anyway, whatever. I have decided to follow my partner to New Zealand on a business trip in a couple of weeks, so planning that will keep my mind off embryos and hormone levels at least.

Boring. I have never been a particularly patient person. This isn’t fun at all.

Shitbuggerfuck : An Update

Well today’s results (and they won’t mean anything to anyone other than Dr J and ACers) were

LH – 8.5 (down from 10.8 on Thursday??!!!)
P4 – 4.2 (4.3)
E2 – 313 (243)

So the consensus is that no one knows whatthefuck is going on, and I am to continue with LH urine testing until another BT on Friday. And the explanation for the discrepancy in my lining was blamed on the nurse. Human error.

So I’m off for dinner and a veeeeeeeno. There is a divine new Indian place just opened across the road and after spending all day transcribing interviews and chasing recalcitrant idiots who wouldn’t know a positive media opportunity if it came up and flashed it’s girly bits at them (as I have been known to do for a comment), I refuse to cook.

Shitbuggerfuck

I was reading a post from IF blogger Baby Smiling about blog deal breakers, and more than one reader commented that nothing makes them leave a blog quicker than profanity.

“Swearing. Not a fan. I think it reduces the written word to dirt” said Miss Conception on July 2. I beg to differ, Miss. I love swearing. Rather than “reduc[ing] the written word to dirt” I see it as an embellishment. An adornment even.

Fuck buggershit perfectly conveys how I felt this morning during my scan when the nurse told me that it looked as though my ovulation had been missed, meaning that depending on my test results this afternoon, I may not get to go ahead with my FET this cycle after all.

Despite telling the nurses at my clinic repeatedly that I was hardly even getting a control line on my take-home urine test kits (they are meant to indicate when a surge of Lutenising Hormone is present, which means ovulation should occur in the next 24 hours) I have only been having blood tests every 3 or so days.

My last test was on Thursday and while my levels were relatively low, a lot can happen in three days in the world of hormones.

Cunty twunty fuckstick was the obvious thought when she said my endometrial lining was only 5.4mm. That’s 3mm thinner than the scan I had over a week ago. The endo is supposed to get thicker!

I don’t think I am being monitored enough. I am almost on the verge of leaving this clinic TBH. The fact that my specialist takes phone calls on his mobile during appointments, gets up and leaves without saying goodbye (leaving his assistant to ussher us out), he didn’t tell me I had the homozygous MTHFR gene mutation and now this possible missed ovulation means I am ANNOYED.

But let’s just wait until they call back with the results this afternoon before making any hasty and rash decisions, mmkay!

I’m a homozygous MTHFR

You need to sing it to the tune of the Prince song, Sexy MF. I would link to YouTube, but Prince threatened to sue anyone who posted even a parody of one of his songs, so there isn’t even a karaoke rendition to be seen or heard.

Homozygous MTHFR you ask? I’m glad I did, c’est for sure!

Last year I had a bunch of bloodwork done when we switched specialists, and one of the tests came back indicating that I have the Methylene Tetrahydrofolate Reductase gene mutation. Homozygous, meaning I have inherited two copies of the variant (heterozygous is inheriting only a single copy). MTHFR for short (go on, say it aloud!).

The implications of this, are that I have  an increased risk of vascular disease, and possibly miscarriage. The MTHFR mutation is indicated in a lot of women who have had recurrent miscarriage. 5-15% of the population are homozygous for this gene mutation.

My sister, who is a midwife, was looking through my file notes ( I get copies of everything) and noticed the MTHFR result and asked me what my specialist had done about it. Most of her women with it are on high dose folate and baby aspirin at the least, and anti-coagulants such as  clexane at the upper end. My Dr hadn’t even mentioned that I had the mutation!

So I brought it up yesterday at my appointment, which was actually with a different Dr. While giving me the usual non-committal “it’s not 100% proven”  spiel, she made a few phone calls to see what other Drs had to say. The result is that I am now on 5mg of Folic Acid (ten times my previous dose) with further assessment if I do get pregnant. I don’t really have a family history of blood clots, and my homocysteine level was moderate, which is good.

Glad I brought it up!

So the good news, is that I am doing a Frozen Embryo Transfer (FET) THIS CYCLE!!!! I went in just to plan for the next cycle and she signed me up to do a FET right away. I am on CD11 right now, so transfer could be as early as next week. Excite!

I am doing a “natural” cycle which means I am doing daily urine tests to monitor the level of Lutenising Hormone (LH). A surge in LH indicates that ovulation is imminent. The embryo is then thawed and transferred a few days later. And hopefully two weeks after that, I get a positive pregnancy test!

The good thing about FETs is that she said I can do them all back-to-back if the cycles are unsuccessful. And if none of the four frozen embryos work, I should just scrape in another stimulated cycle before the end of the year. Pessimist, aren’t I? I just like to have plans and know what is going on.