Two week wait once more

It's purgatory this, seriously.  No symptoms at 9 dpo, which I suppose is also 9 dpiui, except headaches and queasiness from the progesterone supplements. Damn. Then shivers on and off and a few other things I've experienced (you don't want to know) around the same time when it's failed before.  Damn again.  Then today, double queasiness and some pokey and stretching feelings in my lower abdomen.  Maybe...

This truly is rubbish and I have to say I don't hold out much hope this time - I don't feel pregnant.  I feel pissed off is what I feel.  3 big, happy follicles and perfectly timed insemination and still no joy.  How can this be when I got pregnant on one follicle and not so great timing a few months ago?  Well, every month counts at my age, so I guess there may have been 3 big follicles, but there were also 3 dud eggs. Or maybe I'm fertilising and there's just too much scarring and irregularity in my endometrium so there's no implanting going on.

Grim, grim, grim.  One basket case signing off till Friday.

Aftermath

Well, it's been 11 days since it all went horribly wrong.  I've had my visit to the Emergency Gynaecology Unit to check what's happened has been 'complete'.  When I arrived the nurse in Reception asked, 'Have you had any bleeding since your last visit?' I looked a little dumbstruck. Of course she wasn't to know that I'd already lost the baby, but it felt absolutely final replying 'Yes, I've had a full bleed, a full miscarriage.  I'm only here to check it's all come out.'  She looked unperturbed, used to dealing with countless women like me, but to give her her due she offered her condolences as she sent me off for a pee sample.  Suddenly inside the loo, grappling with the cap of the sample bottle, I cried.  Don't know where it came from, but I suppose it was just saying it out loud to somebody medical that made it final.

So, one scan later and I'm informed that everything is out.  No D&C necessary, thank God.  After last time (3 and 1/2 hours in surgery and a blood transfusion - they couldn't get around my multiple, large fibroids) I don't think I could have stood that again.  The nurse then explained that I was still showing a positive pregnancy test and would have to wait until it had turned negative before I could count down to my next period and ovulation.  She reckoned this would probably be in the first week of June, given my short cycle of 24 days, if I show a negative test by this week.  I have pregnancy tests to check this.    How ironic that this time I will be willing them to be negative.

I have almost, but not quite, made up my mind to try again straight away, but have this nagging feeling that my body's eggs may just be too past it and the Spanish clinics are right (see my very first post).  However, I've arranged with the new clinic, Copenhagen Fertility Centre, to have the next insemination unmedicated.  Partly because I will have no idea when I ovulate this time and may not get a proper period to aid me in counting the cycle days, so trying to match it all up with taking Clomid days 2-5 of the cycle would be a total nightmare.  And partly because I'm chicken shit and want it to work without drugs!

I asked the nurse at the EGU how everything 'looked'. The nurse who scanned me said my endometrium was a healthy 8 mm just after the miscarriage, so this issue of a thin endometrium seems to be an issue no longer.  In fact it was a good 26 mm when I was scanned before I miscarried, so all the signs say that I was worrying needlessly over this.  The scanner told me there was no hint of an issue. I'll take this opportunity to mention that the lady who scanned me back in October 2010 told my GP that I would be wasting my money because my endometrium was too thin.  Not so love, but thanks for making me worry for 6 months anyhow.  The other good news was that my ovaries still have their follicles and my left ovary appears dominant with a very big follicle to boot.  No idea what this means really, but probably explains the concentration of twinges, pokes, stabs and dull aches on that side when ovulating and when I got pregnant.  Everything, it seems, is looking good, its just down to my eggs and the pot luck of sperm meeting egg during the one shot I get each month.

So there we are.  Some of you tackling donor insemination after 40 might like to take a look at http://flowerpowermom.com/a-child-after-40-online/  It's a new site and she's looking for moderators.  Her story was certainly helpful to me, giving renewed hope after this set back, so take a look if you're flagging.

I faithfully promise to devote the next post to the issue of the donor and the slightly sneaky way I got more info than the clinic offered.  Investigative skills can be useful.  In the mean time, I'm suffering the irritation of being checked out for anaemia and, scarily, insulin deficiency.  I am quite shaky, excessively tired and feel a bit odd.  I hope it's just a reaction to being pregnant and then not being pregnant because I really don't want to see the inside of any more medical facilities unless it's to be inseminated. Once I feel a bit healthier, I will be back to the exercise classes and I'm aiming to drop a few pounds.  There's a whisper of a double chin creeping in and it's going to go if it kills me.

Third time lucky

Looks like I won't be needing a visit to that new clinic I sized up, nor will I have to take the proposed Clomid after all. I almost can't believe I'm able to write this but... I am pregnant.  In terms of the internet's best due date calculator I am 4 weeks pregnant to be precise.  I can't quite get my head around it and am still dashing to the loo every ten minutes expecting to see the red visitor.

Around 8 days after the insemination, I knew.  There were only two tell tale signs that were markedly different, given that all cramps, bloating and twangs could be either pms or pregnancy.  The first was this... Normally, 7 days before my period I have extremely intense irritation and snap at the slightest thing.  I describe it as a kind of tummy flip.  I don't appear to have any control over it and when I think back to all my terrible arguments with my last boyfriend, each one was right before my period.  Including our ultimate one.  So when I was 5 days away from my period and felt serenely calm I knew something was definitely going on.  The second thing was a total lack of sore boobs.  Again, these normally kick in around 7 days before my period.  I must have looked like a crazy woman, constantly tapping and touching them for signs of soreness, oblivious to the public.  There are names for people who do that.  3 days before my period I could feel them just beginning to ache, but in a different place. I cried for a whole day as I'd been so convinced that I was pregnant, I couldn't believe it had just been a delayed period.  Just out of sheer bloody mindedness and spite I took a test the next day and I was completely floored by the very faint line that popped up next to the control line.

I took another the next day and another the next, both faint positives.  I was convinced that I had an ectopic or non-viable pregnancy as the lines were so faint.  Why in God's name are my HCG levels not rising?  So I waited another three days, driving my self and my friend, D, truly mental by reading forum after forum.

Finally I tested on Monday, 3 days after my period was due and there it was - a dark line, not quite as dark as the test line, but clear and bold, appearing in 10 seconds.

You'd think that I would be ecstatic immediately, wouldn't you?  And let me tell you I really, really am. But.  And here's the truth. I am now overly aware of (read completely obsessed by) every little cramp, pain and twang and am STILL driving myself loopy. Is it ectopic? It's bound to be. How could it attach to my thin endometrium? What if it has attached to the scars where my fibroids were removed?  It won't make it. I'm 43; the miscarriage rate is 50%. It's inevitable. Aaaaahhhhhh!

Fortunately, for everyone concerned,  I have calmed down a bit and have booked myself an appointment with my GP to get myself in the system.  Finally some professional care that doesn't cost me a mortgage payment.  He can check out my ectopic fear in a couple of weeks and monitor any weird pains, which I seem to have a lot of.

Now, lots of women want to know what you did differently when you are finally successful and I did a few things that may have made a difference.  I will tell all in my next post.  For now, I'm still reeling, hoping that I maintain this much wanted mini-baby and terrified about, well everything really. 

So my parting words for this post?  If a 43 year old woman with a recent late miscarriage, followed by a full on open abdominal myomectomy,  leaving a thin, irregular and scarred endometrium can get pregnant by donor insemination and without ANY fertility drugs, then so can you.  It really is not over till that fat lady sings.

The blight of PMS

Well, at 7 days past the IUI I started getting sore and swollen boobs and the blighters have got worse and worse.  I'm already a big chested girl; now Jordan looks like an A cup next to me.  I've had cramps and a sort of heaviness in my abdomen, kind of like constipation, but different.   Not very scientific in explanation, I know.  I am not really sure why my unmedicated IUIs are bringing on such extreme PMS symptoms, and so soon.  I normally get mood swings about 7 days before I'm due my period, but sore and swollen breasts and cramps usually only 3-4 days before.  Now it seems that I am suffering for a whole 9-10 days!  Grim.  Still, I suppose it cuts down the two week wait to just one week.  I am feeling so irritable and down that I've taken half a day's leave this afternoon and come home. I must have seemed like a moody witch to my colleagues, who know nothing about what I'm doing.

So,  I'm snuggled on the sofa watching a truly rubbish DVD (The Boat That Rocked - utter trash), I feel swollen in every area and about as pregnant as an old man.  Ah well. Although I have been calmer this time and less obsessive, I took an early pregnancy test 10 days after the IUI to see if the weirdy cramps were a symptom of pregnancy.  I knew damn well they weren't, but I was ever hopeful.  It was, of course, negative.  I now wait for the dreaded flow which is another 4 long days away.  I feel disappointed and hugely irritated that I am swollen, whale like and sore with no reward to be gained at the end of it.

I'm sure everyone going through this experiences something similar.  You can drive yourself crazy.  I have read countless forums and experiences of other women and I don't know if it helps.  Sadly for me, a British woman doing this on my own finances (over 40 and single), I have no support from a gynaecologist or fertility expert to tell me if I'm wasting my cash.  All I have to go on is the tests my GP did for me.  I have an FSH of 7.5, 10 antral follicles, good clear ovaries and an endometrium that's as thin as it's allowed to get before it's pointless.  I am grumpy and feeling very sorry for myself today, wishing I'd not wasted my time in a long relationship that failed so late on in my biological clock, leaving me in this position past 40.

Oh well, spilt milk and all that stiff upper lip stuff.  Time to down another vat of Earl Grey tea.  I'm having March off to replenish my finances and do some acupuncture.  I think I need a month off so that I don't become absolutely deranged!   Here's hoping a few needles, Eastern thinking and some new clothes will make a difference for April.

End game for this month

Ah well, tested today 14 days past ovulation and it's negative.  I can feel a particularly nasty period coming on.  Dragging sensation in my abdomen that's really very pronounced, hot head and incredibly wiped out - way more than usual.  I suppose it's the stress and anxiety of the last few weeks, waiting for ovulation, dashing over to Denmark and then desperately 'listening' to every change in my body for the last two weeks.  I maintain that I did conceive, but am sure that the embryo just did not attach.  However, I've no way of proving it.  I feel worried now because the last two times I became pregnant it was immediate; the first time I had unprotected sex in each case I fell pregnant.  My negativity is shouting 'if it hasn't happened the first time this time, it ain't going to!'  It's also saying 'yeah, they were right about the thin endometrium - give up now and don't waste your money.'  But I will.  'Waste' money that is.  I will keep going until my 6 tries are up because I know I want this.

So, the next step is to pick myself up and focus on the next ovulation date.  I can do that.  It's just a particularly miserable weekend because I'm feeling physically rubbish and it's two days to pay day.  Going to drag myself out for a long walk and then have coffee and cake.  I was going to treat myself to a glass of wine, but I've done so well staying off the alcohol since New Year that it seems silly.  However, I think I need a pick me up and it's a clear eleven days until ovulation.  It looks like I'll come on tomorrow or Monday so I would expect my ovulation on the 9th or 10th of February (almost always on Day 10).  At least this time I won't have to pay the weekend insemination fee.  Silver linings and all that.

I had no idea of the level of mental energy involved in this. I wish every woman going through this the stamina to keep it up.  For me the days leading up to my next ovulation will consist of pilates, the gym, lots of good foods and a steely resolve.  I will try my hardest not to be so obsessed next time.  No doubt the surge of adrenalin this last month has probably done nothing to help.

The best laid plans...

Between my consultation and my period I was stressing out watching the cost of easyjet flights go up and up.  For the last 6 months my digital ovulation tests had shown that, no matter what, I ovulated on Day 10 of my cycle.  As my cycle was between 24-27 days each month, I thought this would be a piece of cake. However,  watching the pennies meant I couldn't risk buying flights only to ovulate on a later or earlier date or worse, not ovulate at all.  Equally my budget wasn't going to stretch to stupidly priced last minute flights.  What to do?  I gambled.  The night before I was expecting to ovulate, I booked a flight and a night's accommodation ( remarkably good, chic and cheap - Wakeup Copenhagen at £60 a night). I'd already booked the time off work. I figured I'd give myself a two day chance and also a proper chance to find everything and see a bit of Copenhagen.  However, the voice of doom began to whisper at 6am the next day - no ovulation and a flight to catch.  Once I arrived I tried again, with two pee sticks for good measure.  Nothing.  I calculated I still had that night and the next morning before the game was up and I'd wasted my money on flights.  I could feel the usual crampy tugs and knew I was ovulating, but the stick said no.  I wandered round a really rather beautiful city, took in an exhibition at the Museum, ate great food, but went to bed disappointed.  This was not looking good.  The next morning at 6am my body was not cooperating, so I had a good cry and hit the sack for a couple of more hours, trying my best to think of it as a 'learning curve'.  Mmm.  Like I needed more of those.  Two hours later, I half heartedly tried again and there it was, a little smiley face in the window.  Cue sobs of relief.  Appointment booked, off I trotted to sight-see, this time with a smile on my face. 

At 2pm, Danish time, I arrived at the clinic fluttering with nerves.  The clinic is a stone's throw from the city centre metro station Kongens Nytorv, a 35K and 15 minute ride from the airport.  A lovely midwife ushered me into a swish room and we sat and had a chat.  I poured out my tale of stress and she smiled knowingly.  Apparently this is all too common and some women don't ovulate at all until they're back home after wasting flights, especially the first time.  So I was lucky.  The learning curve?  Don't bloody book your flights until the smiley face appears.  You then have 24-36 hours. 

The whole process took 15 minutes, plus a 30 minute chill-out lie down afterwards.  It didn't hurt, was remarkably easy and very well explained.  She also told me everything 'looked good', which was so nice to hear after constant sharp intakes of breathe about my age over here.  All I have to do now is wait 14 days and I can test.  Flying back I felt a bit crampy, but this is perfectly normal.  As I flew I considered what I'd just done.  It has to be the weirdest thing I will ever do, but I don't regret it for a minute.  I'm hopeful, excited and restrained all at the same time.  I have been pregnant before, but now for me the issue is whether or not my endometrium - after a second trimester miscarriage and an abdominal myomectomy to remove large fibroids -  is thick enough to welcome any fortunate fertilised egg.  We will see.

The next time I blog, we'll all know..