Yaaayyyyy Still Pregnant...!!!

So... being pregnant definitely kicks not-being-pregnant's ass...!!!

Even if I do feel like my uterus is about to burst and I am routinely dreaming that I am chopping people up and feeding them to my dogs...!!!

I rang the Clinic today so my scan is scheduled for Friday week at 12pm, during which we will find out how many little miracles are in my womb.

I am having morning sickness in the afternoons, seem to be spending half my time peeing, my boobs are ginormous and I am still having some spotting.

All horrid, but all good pregnancy signs, although with the pressure and stretching pains that I am feeling...I reckon there must be about seven of them in there...!!!

I Am Soooooooooooooo

Pregnant...!!!

Turns out the bleeding was just caused by the Cyclogest pessaries irritating my cervix.

So we will find out next week how many babies are in there.

Sooooo exciting...xx.

Here We Go Again.......

I have had some bleeding tonight, a small amount but enough to be worrying.

A call to the hospital was completely useless as I was just told that unfortunately we will not be able to tell anything until Wednesday.

I know that a small amount of bleeding at this stage can be implantation bleeding, but implantation bleeding is usually dark red or brownish in colour, and the bleeding I am having is very bright red in colour.

...and so the waiting begins to see what hand Fate has dealt us this time.......

The State of P.U.P.O

I am currently in the increasingly familiar state of being Pregnant Until Proven Otherwise.

I am still quite sore today and feel like I have a lot of bruising from the procedure yesterday. I am also developing a lot of horrid bruises on my stomach from the daily Innohep injections that I started yesterday, along with  NuSeal Aspirin, both of which are supposed to thin my blood and prevent clots in the hope of decreasing the chances of miscarriage.

I am also taking six lots of Fematab Hormones in tablet form every day and two lots of Cyclogest Progesterone Pessaries every day, both of which are designed to make my womb lining very thick and hopefully a snug place for the embryos to latch on to.

I've finished the course of Oxytetracycline today, which was four times a day for 5 days and its purpose is to prevent infection before, during and after the Transfer.
I also finished the course of Medrone today, which is also Progestrone based and its purpose is to prevent a build-up of estrogen in the womb.

I have to continue with the full dose of Fematab, Cyclogest, Innohep and NuSeal Aspirin for the next few weeks and possibly up to week 14 of pregnancy (all going well)...!!!

For now though, it is sleepy time for me. I'm still collecting 'Sticky Thoughts' so keep sending them my way for the next 24 hours please.

Nighty Night.xx.

Speculum Wins...So Glad That's Over...!!!

Round three definitely goes to 'The Speculum'

I am crippled after it, it was just pure agony.

So...I definitely will not be moving off of the couch for thenext few days...!!!

On the bright side though...I have 2 beautiful embryos inside me, they thawed with no problem and we had no delays with the transfer.

I was very anxious before and during the procedure, as soon as the nurse asked me how I am...I burst into tears...(and this was before we had even left the waiting room...!!!)

It was all relatively quick and we were back on the road within an hour.

The wait is only 12 days this time and in all honesty, I am not even thinking about that. I really am in too much pain right now. I am curled up on the couch waiting for one of my best friends (and she really is one of the best friends anyone could ever have) to come over for a bit and keep me company as my wonderful Husband has to go to work for a few hours.

I think I will stay on the couch tonight, as trying to make it up the 14 steps to the bedroom simply does not seem like a plausible option right now.

Thank you all so much for all your kind words, messages and prayers today, every time I received one, it made me smile and made me so aware that even though I was in bits with nerves...I knew I wouldnt be alone through this.

Still thinking 'Sticky' please.xx.

Sticky Thoughts Please.xx.

Ok...so I didn't have any nerves last night...but that has been completely rectified this morning...!!!

I woke up at 6am with a knot in my stomach, I actually feel physically sick with nerves and anxiety about today.

I won't be able to have acupuncture before and after the transfer this time. This really helped the last time as I was so relaxed getting to the Clinic, I didnt feel anything. Gordon is leaving for the UK this morning, hence my appointment with him yesterday evening and I will see him again on Monday. (I have, of course, asked him if he wouldn't mind running his plans by me in future, before confirming anything to ensure this type of thing does not happen again ;-) )

I am oozing nerves this morning and I still have 3 hours before I can even call the Clinic to see if our embryos have survived the thawing process or not.

I'm half thinking of going in to work for a few hours, but I fear I may be shot if I do...with my army of 'you take care of yourself and don't lift a finger all weekend, we have everything under control', and I know they do have everything under control, they are just fantastic.......now.......if I could only get these nerves under control...!!!

I think time is actually going backwards this morning, it is passing so slowly...!!!

Not that I am especially looking forward to beginning round three of  Me Vs 'The Speculum', but this waiting is just awful!

I think I may be a little bit delirious with nerves, it is just such an anxious time.....I hate waiting, and what is even worse than the waiting is the fact that I have absolutely no control over the outcome. I will leave the Clinic today with two embryos in my womb and what happens after that is completely in the hands of Fate...

The dice will be rolled.....the coin tossed....Will the embryos stay in place.......or......will they fail to attach,   will they attach for a while and then be hit with a curve ball, causing them to detach, will I once again get to hear my babies' heartbeats and then miscarry shortly after..................... The answer, unfortunately, is not up to me..........It lays in the hands of Fate and lets all just hope and pray that even through the wind and the rain that is lashing down outside, Fate finds a tiny window of opportunity to allow its light to shine on me and my babies for the next few weeks..........It just has to work this time, right?

I need you all to send 'sticky' thoughts my way for the next few days.....and if this doesn't work...I may be having a tube of superglue put in with them next time...!!!

All Systems Go

Just home from my last accupuncture session before the Transfer tomorrow.

I guess I'm feeling ok about it, not feeling nervous (yet...!!!), but that most likely will change in the morning.

I'm heading off to bed now...its been a very busy week and I need to be well rested for tomorrow's procedure, then its bedrest until Monday morning.

Will update tomorrow evening...fingers crossed everything goes well.xx.

Transfer Number Three

Just back from Cork and all is looking fine.

We will be transferring two more blastocysts on Friday morning.

How am I feeling about this...???...I honestly do not know.

Still experiencing a sense of numbness regarding the whole thing, I feel like I'm in a constant state of being lost in thought yet unable to think.

I do feel that it is the right thing to do to go ahead and have two more transferred straight away, so hopefully it is the right decision and all will go well this time.

Strength is . . .

Gordon said to me today 'You are one of the strongest people I know, but today you are weak'.

This completely threw my whole perception. You see....I thought I was being strong, or at least I was trying to be. Going to work, putting on a front, pretending that I am fine, refusing to deal with what is actually going on.

I arrived at Gordon's clinic today, after coming from the Fertility Clinic. I was stressed beyond belief, I was exhausted, irritable and just completely pissed off. I was at the point where I just was not even able to talk. Gordon commented that he has never seen me so tense.

After two and a half hours of mimicking a pin cushion, being made to talk and externalise what was going on inside of me, having my buttons pushed, questionning and eventually breaking down and crying..........I finally was stronger, because I had been taking the easy way out by not dealing with what was going on, and that made me weak.

I left Gordon's clinic today, and I was a different person to the person who walked in two and a half hours earlier. In that short period of time I had been made to deal with what might have taken me months to deal with had I kept going the way I was going.

I am feeling completely different now. I feel like I will finally get some decent sleep tonight, so yeah...definitely a good change.

I have to go back to the Fertility Clinic on Sunday for another scan and all going well, I think we will have 2 more embryos implanted towards the end of next week. I know this might sound like we are rushing back into this...but there is a method to my madness.......I am on medication which contain high levels of hormones from the previous transfer, and the come-down off of those hormones is just horrid, not to mention the uncertainty of waiting for my cycle to return and stabilise, so I made the decision this time that I will not go through that. I decided that I would stay on the hormones after the miscarriage and would have another implantation done as soon as possible.

We have four embryos left in cyropreservation in Cork, we had eight, we implanted one during the first transfer, one died during the thawing process of the second transfer, during which we transferred two embryos, so this time we will also have two transferred.

I know it is going to be a rough road emotionally, both dealing with what I have just gone through and dealing with the fears and uncertainties of a new transfer and all of the risks that it poses.

For now though, I need an early night and I need some decent sleep. Today turned out to be a very good day emotionally for me, I let go of a lot of the pain I was hanging on to. I know there will be some tough days in the next few weeks, some days where I will return to old habits of suppressing how I am feeling and not externalising, there will be lots of days when I will be weak again....but today.....Today, I am Strong.

Untitled...!!!

Isn't it funny how we try to fool ourselves...???

After coming from Cork on Tuesday I went straight to work and stayed there all day.......I worked all day Wednesday, I went to Cork for a scan yesterday and yes, you guessed it...I went straight back to work and stayed there all day and today again, a 10 hour day...just to keep my mind occupied.

I spent all week trying to convince everyone (and myself) that I'm actually fine, I'm doing ok. I'm much stronger this time and I am able to cope with this.

Except..............unfortunately...there comes a time when there is no more paperwork to redo just for the sake of it, there are no more reports to review for a third time...just in case I might have missed something the first two times. There comes a time when you have to come home from work, knowing you are going home to an empty house, knowing that at some point you are going to run out of distractions.

The fear of not having these pseudo-distractions, dominated only by the sheer panic of knowing that this is going to hit me, I am going to have to deal with this and it is not going to be easy.

I've done it so many times before, I was certain that I could just go through the motions this time and get on with things and just not let it affect me.

900 channels and nothing on, nobody on Facebook to chat to, that familiar knot begins to form in my stomach and it takes me a few minutes to realise what is causing it. I flick through the channels again...there must be something I can watch...anything..............but no...you see...there isn't anything that can stop this from happening. There isn't anything that can prevent me from once again having my heart ripped out and have it broken in half right before my eyes, knowing that eventually it will be replaced back into my chest...the problem being though...that once something has been broken, it never truly fits properly ever again.

I've laughed off the knowing looks of my friends all week....my real friends...the people who see past my facade and know that its all going to come crashing down, no matter how hard I try to avoid it.

Well, my dear friends..........you were right!

That knot in my stomach escalates to an unignorable level and I notice a warm tear rolling down my cheek.

I panic...I cannot go through this again! This stupid television...why can't there just be something on...???

The truth though, is that it wouldn't matter what was on the television tonight. My two little angels need me to deal with this and to let them go.

As I lay here, fighting to see the screen through my tears, knowing that as each of my real friends read this, they will want to know why I didnt just pick up the phone and call them, because every single one of them will feel this pain for me...............but tonight...this pain is all mine, it belongs to me and over the next few days as my body expels what could have been our beautiful twins and the physical pain escalates to the point where I honestly believe that it cant get any worse (and it will!), I will be comforted, if only slightly, by the fact that the physical pain is the easy part!

I hate to admit it, but I am beginning to lose hope. How many more times do I have to go through this before I can hold my own baby in my arms?...Will I ever hold my own baby in my arms...???