OMG - We got TEN eggs!!!!!

Yep it's true - we actually got ten eggs collected today - the most we have ever had!!! (we had 5, 5 then 2 before). So as you would expect we are thrilled!!!

We now have to wait until tomorrow to speak to the hospital to see how many have fertilised, then we should in be for embryo transfer on Thursday.

It's been one of those days in the hospital today - we left the house at 6.30am as we have to be there for 7am - we only just arrived in time as the traffic on the M3 this morning was a nightmare - I had no idea that so many people would be heading for London at that time!

I went for my usual scan at 7.45am to make sure that the follicles were still there, and all was well - I didn't get the numbers this time as I forgot to ask for the bit of paper, but from memory we had at least three that were measuring 28 and one at 29! so they had been on a growth spurt over the last few days.

I was due to go down to the operating theatre at 9am, but at 8.10am the porter came in and started to get me ready - when I asked him why I was so early (as they are usually a few minutes late), he said that I'd been bumped up from 5th in the queue to 2nd! and that he had been instructed to get me down as fast as he could! I guess they were worried that I was close to ovulation, so they didn't take any chances on losing the eggs.

Once we were done I was wheeled back up to the room while they did the usual checks, lots of blood pressure monitoring etc which was all fine, then they brought us the standard issue sandwich, which once again they managed to screw up!

I didn't mention this last month, but as it's happened twice now, I'm going to moan about it on here anyway! - basically the last time we were in, the lady who deals with the food came in and asked us what we wanted to order (you get soup and a choice of five different sarnies) - She said "I'll fill in the form for you" so we trusted that she'd do it with no problems - after all there are only 2 boxes to tick - what filling you want and if you want white or brown bread. Not exactly rocket science.

So when the food arrived last time, I was annoyed to find that the white bread I'd asked for was actually brown! Seems filling in the form was a tad difficult for her.

So this time when she came in and asked what we wanted I piped up with "Egg mayo on WHITE bread please, and soup" - now I actually stressed the WHITE part so she'd get it. Guess what we got! Yup - egg mayo on BROWN bread. Really - it's not too much to ask to get what you ordered is it? So I sent it back...

Anyway - it's getting late, I'm extremely tired and still very sore, so I'll finish up here and post some more tomorrow - I'll update the blog when I know the results of the fertilisation.

First Progress scan

I had the first progress scan at 1.30pm today - good news!

My lining is at 7mm - which is thinner than it has been at this time on all previous cycles but we have more follicles and they are bigger! It seems that the extra 2 doses of menopur are working, which I'm very pleased to report.

Left Side: 7 follicles: 9, 10, 11, 12, 12, 12, 12 mm
Right side: 4 follicles: 9, 12, 13, 13 mm
My lining is 7mm

It seems that my left ovary seems to perform better than the right one this year! I've just looked back over the previous cycles that we have done and it's a bit random, last year it was the right one that did well, this year it is the left! So to compare - here is what we have had before on the last 3 cycles at the first progress scan:

3rd cycle - Wednesday 11th July 2007:
Left Side: 4 follicles: 13, 10, 8, 8mm
Right side: 3 follicles: 11, 10, 8
My lining was 8.3mm

2nd cycle - Friday September 1st 2006:
Left Side: 3 follicles: 8, 9 and 9 mm
Right Side: 6 follicles 9, 10, 11, 11, 12 and 13mm
My lining was 7.8mm

1st cycle - Wednesday 28th June 2006:
Left Side: 5 growing; 2 are 12mm, 2 are 13mm and 1 is 14mm
Right side: 7 growing; 3 are 8mm, 1 is 9mm, 1 is 11mm, 1 is 12mm and one is a whopping 15mm!
My lining was 8.5mm

We had a lot more follicles on the first cycle as we were on different protocol - we had to downreg (switch off my system) for 2 weeks before we stimmed, but we ovulated too soon and lost all the eggs.

Anyway, I have another scan on Wednesday - so keep your fingers crossed everything continues to grow!

OOOOO it makes me so mad....

A letter was sent to the Metro newspaper the other day, it makes me furious to read things like this as he is clearly ignorant to the problem that infertile couples face: this is what it read

"FERTILITY TREATMENT SHOULD NOT BE AVAILABLE ON THE NHS
I write about your article "infertile couples 'failed by the NHS' (Metro Thu). Why is fertility treatment even on the NHS? the article says that the NHS 'postcode lottery' has had a bigger impact on lower-income couples. The cost of a private IVF cycle is a mere fraction of the amount a couple whould have to pay for the next 18 years of bringing up a child. In a perfect world, childrent are brought up in a financially stable environment. although I'm well aware that this isn't always possible, even with the best of intentions, giving low-income couples free treatment is hardly conducive to giving any future children the best start in life. People seem to think they have a God-Given right. Well, it clearly is not. How many other treatments have a success rate of 25 per cent? Think about fostering or adoption- do some good

Philip Hatch, Kent"


I was SO mad, that I have responded to the Metro and to Mr Hatch with this:

Dear Mr Hatch

I don't know if you are married, or if you have children, at this point judging by your comments I can only assume that you do not. I'd like to know how would you feel if your wife had lost both of her fallopian tubes after having ectopic pregnancies and could no longer conceive, or how would you feel if you had testicular cancer and lost your ability to become a father? would you still have the same opinion?

It's not always about low income families - I'm not on a low income and I pay my taxes into the system so that everybody else's children can have an education, and so you can have cancer treatment on the NHS. So far I have spent £16,000 of my own money so far and lost 4 babies. All I'm asking for is the opportunity to be treated fairly by the NHS and have the treatment that our government promised me.

It is very naive of you to post such comments, when you clearly have never been affected by infertility. I will one day consider adopting a child, but the love between myself and my husband is so strong that I want a child with him. so I will strive on to pursue my dream of one day becoming a mother to my own flesh and blood.

I know I am not alone when I say that people who make comments like yours, should try to think about the impact of your words, and how it makes someone like me feel. I cannot conceive naturally, this was taken away from me when I lost my babies, so why shouldn't the NHS help me it is a medical problem that I face. If I was an alcoholic, a smoker or a drug addict I would get treatment and help - so what gives you the right to judge if I can have IVF treatment?

I don't think this has worked :(

We did a test this morning. It came back as a negative :(

We have both been so hopeful that this IVF would work for us, and that we would be pregnant again, but sadly I don't think that it has. Usually if you test 2 days early you will get a result that will tell you what is going on - last time I tested 2 days early it came up positive (also a lot of my FF friends test early and they get their results too).

A friend of mine who lost twins last year had her embryos transferred on the same day as me also tested today and she got a positive (congrats to her!) so for us I'm sure this is over.

I feel gutted. I don't even know how to describe the empty feeling and the despair. Chris is too. We were so hoping that this would be our time.

Once again we are back at square one, facing another £4000 gamble and more heartbreak.

I pray that something will change in the next 2 days and we will get a late positive, but I'm not hopeful now.

Almost there

There isn't really much to report except for a few more cramps, a few more mixed emotions and another 24 hours have passed!

I'm looking forward to tomorrow as we will do our cheeky early test - it can't come quick enough for me.

Do I sound impatient yet! lol, these 2 weeks are the longest weeks that anyone should have to go through. Can't wait for it to be done.