One of the hard parts I have found with dealing with infertility is trying to fit in all the appointments.
Most of the time you don't get very much notice of when your appointments, tests, or procedures will be as it all depends on when your cycle starts.
You may expect to go for one scan and end up having to go back for 3 or 4 more that week, or a blood test or other test....there is no set schedule for IVF treatment and that can make it very hard to try to organise your life around.
If we do another cycle we are going to try and do it when I'm not working so I don't have that added stress of having to run between work and appointments, or trying to fit everything in.
I think I might also have to ask for help a bit more with Jakson.
I really don't like asking people to look after him or drop him off/pick him up from kinder but I think I might have to get over that and start asking for help.
It's really not fair on him that I have to wake him up at 6am so he can come into the city with me for an early appointment.
Just last week I had to take him with him for a 8am scan in the city, and it was an internal scan too! All I can say is I am very thankful for my iPhone - it kept him occupied so he didn't see anything or ask any questions ;) lol
What was hard though was having him in the waiting room with me.
He has come to about 3 appointments with us to our IVF clinic and I really don't like taking him because I know there are others there who don't have a child yet and seeing him can be very hurtful for them.
Last weeks appointment was particularly hard because Jakson was in an ultra cute mood saying things like
'I love you mummy' 'you are my number one girl' 'you are the best girl in town'
I know it would have broken my heart to hear a child saying these things while I was sitting there at my IVF clinic trying to get pregnant with my first :(
I didn't want to tell him to stop talking so I just kept trying to distract him and hope that we were called into our appointment soon
IVF and all the appointment that go along with it is a bit like a juggling act, and added into that the acupuncture that I want to do with our next cycle...it's going to take a lot of juggling to keep everything from falling into a heap......I hope I can do it
Friday, September 3, 2010
TCM
What is TCM you ask?
TCM is Traditional Chinese Medicine which is the use of things such as acupuncture, herbs and more natural therapies to treat illness and support the overall health and well being of people.
TCM is also very useful in support couples going through IVF. It has been reported that it can increase IVF success rates to around 70%
It can help with both male factor infertility (poor sperm motility or low sperm count) as well as female infertility.
I feel very fortunate that I have had the advice of Natalie from
The Pagoda Tree. Natalie is a doctor of Chinese medicine and specialises in women's health.
Natalie has been a wealth of knowledge and support for me.
After talking to Natalie during our last IVF cycle it has really cemented in my mind that I really want to, if possible, incorporate TCM into our next IVF cycle.
If we do another IVF cycle we are hoping to be able to do acupuncture with it. My hope is that it will work together with the IVF drugs to help my body produce more eggs and more importantly, better quality eggs.
Something that Natalie told me is 'it's not the number of eggs you get, but the quality of them' - this is something that I am going to keep reminding myself of so I don't focus quantity.
Now we just have to work out how much it will cost to do TCM along with IVF.
Unfortunately it can add a fair bit of cost onto what already is an expensive process.
It's also unfortunate that Medicare does not rebate anything for TCM or acupuncture :(
As well as the cost, we also have to consider the time and how many sessions we would need.
Trying to juggle the normal day to day of life and it's demands along with all the appointments it not an easy task, so to add more appointments to that is something that will take some working out
TCM is Traditional Chinese Medicine which is the use of things such as acupuncture, herbs and more natural therapies to treat illness and support the overall health and well being of people.
TCM is also very useful in support couples going through IVF. It has been reported that it can increase IVF success rates to around 70%
It can help with both male factor infertility (poor sperm motility or low sperm count) as well as female infertility.
I feel very fortunate that I have had the advice of Natalie from
The Pagoda Tree. Natalie is a doctor of Chinese medicine and specialises in women's health.
Natalie has been a wealth of knowledge and support for me.
After talking to Natalie during our last IVF cycle it has really cemented in my mind that I really want to, if possible, incorporate TCM into our next IVF cycle.
If we do another IVF cycle we are hoping to be able to do acupuncture with it. My hope is that it will work together with the IVF drugs to help my body produce more eggs and more importantly, better quality eggs.
Something that Natalie told me is 'it's not the number of eggs you get, but the quality of them' - this is something that I am going to keep reminding myself of so I don't focus quantity.
Now we just have to work out how much it will cost to do TCM along with IVF.
Unfortunately it can add a fair bit of cost onto what already is an expensive process.
It's also unfortunate that Medicare does not rebate anything for TCM or acupuncture :(
As well as the cost, we also have to consider the time and how many sessions we would need.
Trying to juggle the normal day to day of life and it's demands along with all the appointments it not an easy task, so to add more appointments to that is something that will take some working out
Monday, August 30, 2010
Clomid
I have just finished taking Clomid to try and encourage ovulation this cycle.
Now I was on Clomid for four cycles last year and never had this side effect.....the side effect I have had this cycle is a complete and utter feeling of dread.
It's been horrible, I can't even begin to explain how horrible it has been.
To have a constant feeling that something bad is there, or is going to happen.
To have a constant feeling like you have just been given the worse news possible is something I never want to experience again.
It's funny that something that is supposed to help me can make me feel so bad.
Along with the feeling of dread, there is the tiredness, vertigo, headache....sounds like funny, doesn't it?! lol
and this is just one of the drugs I'm on, the other drug...well I've posted about the evil Metformin before, it's a nasty drug that one!
Now I was on Clomid for four cycles last year and never had this side effect.....the side effect I have had this cycle is a complete and utter feeling of dread.
It's been horrible, I can't even begin to explain how horrible it has been.
To have a constant feeling that something bad is there, or is going to happen.
To have a constant feeling like you have just been given the worse news possible is something I never want to experience again.
It's funny that something that is supposed to help me can make me feel so bad.
Along with the feeling of dread, there is the tiredness, vertigo, headache....sounds like funny, doesn't it?! lol
and this is just one of the drugs I'm on, the other drug...well I've posted about the evil Metformin before, it's a nasty drug that one!
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Being caught off guard
I think sometimes its the little things that really get to me, things that for most people wouldn't mean anything but to me, well they leave me in tears.
On Wednesday August 25th at 3.22pm we welcomed my niece into the world.
She is absolutely precious and adorable and I couldn't be prouder :)
I thought the feeling of joy and pride would be enough to get me through my first visit with her without crying, but what I did not prepare for was the little things.
I prepared myself for the fact that I was going to be seeing pregnant bellies everywhere, prepared myself for seeing
and holding a baby, prepared myself for people talking about the labour and even prepared myself in case someone asked me that dreaded question 'so when are you having more?'
So what are these little things that caught me off guard??
It probably didn't help that the hospital my sister gave birth at was the same hospital that I had my egg pick up and failed embryo transfer at :(
Driving in to the hospital car park my heart sunk, so many emotions came rushing back to me...I hadn't prepared for that
Standing in front of the elevators was when the tears came, all the memories of standing there being excited to go for my egg pick up, the memories of walking out of those lifts in tears when we only had one egg retrieved, the memory of the joy and anxiety (good anxiety) go up in those lifts to go for our embryo transfer, and the crushing memory of walking out of them after it failed knowing that we may have lost our only chance at a second child :(
Who would have thought that standing in front of a lift could be so emotional!
I so didn't want to cry, this was not about me and I didn't want to make it about me.
It was about my sister and her family, and I desperately tried to stop the tears and hold back any more coming....this was not easy but I think I did well
Than I held the baby.....
I had expected that this if anything would have had the tears flowing but no, instead I has such an overwhelming sense of calm and joy
This precious little bundle in my arms...this was the reason I have to keep going, so that the next time I hold a newborn...it's my own :)
On Wednesday August 25th at 3.22pm we welcomed my niece into the world.
She is absolutely precious and adorable and I couldn't be prouder :)
I thought the feeling of joy and pride would be enough to get me through my first visit with her without crying, but what I did not prepare for was the little things.
I prepared myself for the fact that I was going to be seeing pregnant bellies everywhere, prepared myself for seeing
and holding a baby, prepared myself for people talking about the labour and even prepared myself in case someone asked me that dreaded question 'so when are you having more?'
So what are these little things that caught me off guard??
It probably didn't help that the hospital my sister gave birth at was the same hospital that I had my egg pick up and failed embryo transfer at :(
Driving in to the hospital car park my heart sunk, so many emotions came rushing back to me...I hadn't prepared for that
Standing in front of the elevators was when the tears came, all the memories of standing there being excited to go for my egg pick up, the memories of walking out of those lifts in tears when we only had one egg retrieved, the memory of the joy and anxiety (good anxiety) go up in those lifts to go for our embryo transfer, and the crushing memory of walking out of them after it failed knowing that we may have lost our only chance at a second child :(
Who would have thought that standing in front of a lift could be so emotional!
I so didn't want to cry, this was not about me and I didn't want to make it about me.
It was about my sister and her family, and I desperately tried to stop the tears and hold back any more coming....this was not easy but I think I did well
Than I held the baby.....
I had expected that this if anything would have had the tears flowing but no, instead I has such an overwhelming sense of calm and joy
This precious little bundle in my arms...this was the reason I have to keep going, so that the next time I hold a newborn...it's my own :)
Monday, August 23, 2010
Announcements
Pregnancy announcements used to be the thing I dreaded the most.
To hear someone else say the words I so want to be able to say was like a nightmare for me.
While I am (and always will be) happy for those around me that I love dearly to announce they are pregnant, each announcement was like a knife in the heart for me (that may sound dramatic but the pain that comes with infertility is very intense).
However someone announcing they are pregnant is not the thing I fear most now, it's birth announcements that are now the hardest.
Because you see, for each birth announcement there is, I know that is another 9 months that has past without us falling pregnant.
I can remember each persons announcement and thinking to myself, I'll definitely be pregnant before they give birth....how wrong I have been :(
To hear someone else say the words I so want to be able to say was like a nightmare for me.
While I am (and always will be) happy for those around me that I love dearly to announce they are pregnant, each announcement was like a knife in the heart for me (that may sound dramatic but the pain that comes with infertility is very intense).
However someone announcing they are pregnant is not the thing I fear most now, it's birth announcements that are now the hardest.
Because you see, for each birth announcement there is, I know that is another 9 months that has past without us falling pregnant.
I can remember each persons announcement and thinking to myself, I'll definitely be pregnant before they give birth....how wrong I have been :(
An update
I haven't posted here in a while and I think the main reason is that I have/am mentally exhausted by all of this.
Our unsuccessful IVF attempt was back in early July and we are now at the end of August and it was only today that I was ready to go back and see our fertility specialist.
After much hesitation we finally made the appointment and went today to see her in a hope of getting some answers as to what went wrong.
Unfortunately there were no answers for us, our specialist said that to have many follicles like I did and to only get one egg from them is very rare and unusual.
There is no reason why, well no reason that can be given as to why it happened.
It may be due to genetics, diet, lifestyle or anything else....there is no test to find out if anything caused this to happen.
So armed with no answers we had to work out what to do next.
We are hoping to do another IVF cycle in November and it will be a different cycle to the one we just did.
It will be the longer cycle, which is about 50-60 days long but it's a different approach to the one we did and hopefully we will have a different outcome.
For now, we are going to try Clomid (a drug that helps to encourage ovulation) this cycle and Puregon (injections that do the same as Clomid) next cycle and pray that we get another miracle bub out of one of these cycles, if not than hopefully it's on to another IVF cycle
Our unsuccessful IVF attempt was back in early July and we are now at the end of August and it was only today that I was ready to go back and see our fertility specialist.
After much hesitation we finally made the appointment and went today to see her in a hope of getting some answers as to what went wrong.
Unfortunately there were no answers for us, our specialist said that to have many follicles like I did and to only get one egg from them is very rare and unusual.
There is no reason why, well no reason that can be given as to why it happened.
It may be due to genetics, diet, lifestyle or anything else....there is no test to find out if anything caused this to happen.
So armed with no answers we had to work out what to do next.
We are hoping to do another IVF cycle in November and it will be a different cycle to the one we just did.
It will be the longer cycle, which is about 50-60 days long but it's a different approach to the one we did and hopefully we will have a different outcome.
For now, we are going to try Clomid (a drug that helps to encourage ovulation) this cycle and Puregon (injections that do the same as Clomid) next cycle and pray that we get another miracle bub out of one of these cycles, if not than hopefully it's on to another IVF cycle
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
To keep it private or not?
Sharing our journey with everyone was my choice, it was something that I wanted to do, something I needed to do to get through all of this.
However by making this choice I feel that I have also robbed us of a special moment, that moment of surprise when you tell people you are pregnant.
I know that no matter how or when we tell people they are going to be happy and excited for us, but I feel that the surprise element has been taken away.
So now I am thinking that if we are lucky enough to do another IVF cycle, should we tell people?
I love and appreciate all the support we have been given, I wouldn't have got through this without it but I really want to be able to surprise people when we tell them we are pregnant.
If we do keep the next IVF cycle private I hope people won't be upset that we have decided to do it this was instead of being open as we have been. I hope people will understand why I need to do it differently.
I guess I have plenty of time to think about it, hopefully we will be able to do another cycle before the end of the year.....I guess I'll make the choice on whether to share or not when the time comes
However by making this choice I feel that I have also robbed us of a special moment, that moment of surprise when you tell people you are pregnant.
I know that no matter how or when we tell people they are going to be happy and excited for us, but I feel that the surprise element has been taken away.
So now I am thinking that if we are lucky enough to do another IVF cycle, should we tell people?
I love and appreciate all the support we have been given, I wouldn't have got through this without it but I really want to be able to surprise people when we tell them we are pregnant.
If we do keep the next IVF cycle private I hope people won't be upset that we have decided to do it this was instead of being open as we have been. I hope people will understand why I need to do it differently.
I guess I have plenty of time to think about it, hopefully we will be able to do another cycle before the end of the year.....I guess I'll make the choice on whether to share or not when the time comes
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