Surgery Tomorrow.......

Two weeks ago, I started feeling a pain in my left side, it was a very familiar pain and followed an exact cycle that I have experienced quite a few times.... I had an ovarian cyst. The pain was more annoying than anything and was accompanied by a lot of abdominal pressure and swelling.

10 days ago, late in the evening the pain got extremely intense and suddenly it went from being concentrated just on my left side to encompassing my entire abdominal area and the feeling of pressure and swelling became a lot more intense. I went to the hospital for an ultrasound the following morning to have my fears confirmed - The cyst had ruptured. They admitted me to hospital straight away and the plan was to operate as soon as possible. Well, that was the plan until they discovered that the ruptured cyst had caused an abdominal infection. I spent a few days in hospital on IV antibiotics and was then allowed home to take antibiotics and pain killers.

The originally scheduled surgery is going ahead tomorrow morning, my feelings about it are a bit in limbo really. I'm kinda flittering back and forth between freaking out and wanting it over with.

We worked out the other night that this is surgery number 10 for me, and doesn't that seem to be the magic number for me - 10 little angels and 10 operations.

I guess with nine surgeries under my belt I should be fairly used to it by now, but unfortunately experience isn't really working in my favour. I can't help recalling the horrible feeling when you feel yourself losing consciousness, the panickiness when you realise that you have no control over it, once that needle is in your arm, there is no longer anything you can do, anything that happens from that point onwards is completely in the hands of the surgeon and the anaesthetist and the nurses. And knowing that when I wake up after this operation I am going to be in pain, and I will be in a lot of pain for many weeks after this operation.

I'm trying to keep busy this evening, trying not to think too much about how anxious I am or how tomorrow is going to play out. I am sad that I am going to lose my left tube, but I know that has to happen, it just feels that I will be 'incomplete' or something, but I know it is for the best and it will hopefully solve some of the other problems I have been experiencing.

We have to leave the house at 7 in the morning and I am booked into theatre for 8:30, I don't know how long I will be in theatre, but I imagine it will be a few hours anyway with the amount they have to do.

I've gotten some lovely calls and messages today, all wishing me well. I appreciate that so much. Truth is I'm on the verge of properly freaking out and know that I will be a lot worse tomorrow morning

Gotta look to this time tomorrow evening  when it will hopefully be all over and all I will have to worry about then is recovering and getting home and then more recovering......

Upcoming Surgery.....

I went to see Dr. Hayes in Kilkenny yesterday, and it looks like I'm having surgery in two weeks... on the 13th of December..... yep... I'm having surgery on Friday, the 13th... of course I am... lol...!!!
This is a fairly big operation and will encompass four procedures in one. The first is to remove my left fallopian tube, the hydrosalpinx has returned and the damage to the tube is irreversible, so the only options are to clip it or remove it completely. I have spoken to Dr. Hayes and we have decided that removing it is the best option, as while clipping it will stop the infection from seeping into my womb, it won't stop the awful pain that it causes.
The second procedure is a hysteroscopy, which involves examining the exterior of my womb and removing the entire contents of my womb, as the infection has been leaking into it for so long, this has to be contributing to my womb being such an inhospitable environment.
The third procedure is to drill into and burn the entire surface of both of my ovaries, to halt the production of cysts and hopefully stimulate healthy ovulation. I've had this done twice before and the recovery from this is just awful, it is extremely painful for 4-6 weeks after the procedure and again during ovulation for about the first 6 months.
The last procedure is to cut through the many adhesions that are connecting my womb, my tube, my ovary, my bowel and the scar tissues from previous surgeries.

So, all in all.... there is a lot to be done in this one procedure and I am told to expect to be in a considerable amount of pain for a few weeks after the surgery. I am anxious about it, although at this stage... one would imagine that I'd be used to having surgery.... it really doesn't get any easier...!!!

Its a good time for me to have surgery though, it is quiet at work for a few weeks over Christmas, so I will have a few weeks to be able to properly rest and recuperate and not have to be worrying about things.

I suppose I'm a bit sad that I will be laid up for my 30th birthday (on the 19th), but we had a lovely party last weekend and Patrick tells me that we will do something special for it as soon as I have fully recovered. I'll also be laid up for Christmas and the New Year, but I'm kinda feeling ok about that. December is always a really difficult time for me, and Christmas is a constant reminder of the babies that we have lost and the fact that we do not have any children to make a fuss of at Christmas time. Our first baby from our very first pregnancy was due on Christmas eve 2007, so Christmas has been difficult since then.

I wanted to briefly comment on the fact that we have recently passed the 50,000 mark on here. What an amazing achievement that is, it is just amazing. It's hard to believe that my little blog has reached such a huge audience.

So... right now, I'm trying to tie up a few loose ends for Christmas before going in for surgery. I am also trying to put together a plan for recovery after surgery, aided hugely by the fact that Gordon has offered to come and treat me at home in the weeks immediately following the surgery, to help my body to heal and recover from the huge trauma that it is about to undergo. 

I had a session with Gordon today... and I have to admit... I was completely zonked after it, I felt like all I wanted to do was sleep, so I'm hoping this means I will have a great night's sleep tonight......

Hope Is A Four Letter Word

Hope...Hope... Hope... Its a word I've had thrown at me so many times over the past 4 years... 'No matter what... you have to hang on to some hope'... Hope... Hope... Hope.

Its a word I used to love, a word that I used to cling on to.... It is now a word that I despise... It actually annoys me when someone tells me that there has to be some hope, there has to be some way... there has to be... there just has to be...

Well... it turns out that there might be. Gordon was talking to Dr. Walsh from Sims Clinic and was able to tell me that there is a clinic in the Czech Republic that has specialised in genetic testing of embryos for the past 13 years, so while it is very very new over here, they have been doing it for quite some time. The concern is the rarity of my condition and how little information is known or about it. There is a Dr. in the US who is researching this exact condition at the current time but will be quite a few years before any information is proven or readily available. 

So anyway... even though my reproductive chromosomes are low on both sides, there is a slight possibility that not all of my eggs will be affected. Basically it will involve going to the Czech Republic, stimulating and going through a whole other cycle of ICSI or IMSI, and then having all of the resulting embryos genetically tested to see which, if any of them, are genetically viable. It could turn out that 100% of them are defective and if that is the case... we are in the same position that we are currently in. ..... But maybe... just maybe it might not be 100% and we just need one genetically viable embryo to give this a proper go.

Gordon finished telling me this by saying 'I know it might not be much, but at least it is a tiny bit of hope'. There it is again..... that four letter word. Lol - I think it might be the first time I have used another four-letter-word when talking to Gordon...!!!

He's right though... I don't know if it is hope... but it is one more step that we can take before we have no option but to give up completely... and then we can truly say that we have exhausted all possibilities.

We went to Amsterdam for 5 days last week as it was Mid-term at work... and it really couldn't have come at a better time. As soon as the plane left Cork Airport, I could feel my stress levels reducing... it was amazing - just being away, away from the pain and hurt and grief and the results that we had gotten... just away. Unfortunately it was the opposite when we were coming back knowing what we were returning to.

We did have a good time in Amsterdam, even though there was an awful storm there. It's funny though how the mind can alter according to the situation that you find yourself in. I saw things that I never saw before.... I never saw parents struggling with children before, I never thought about how much trouble it is to take children away on holidays... to the point where my thinking almost became ' gosh, if we had kids... we wouldn't be able to do this'. I've never found myself thinking like that before and I guess it has struck me as quite interesting how my thinking has adapted to my current situation.... sure... its probably a means of protecting myself from how difficult it actually is to imagine us not having kids and unfortunately I am only too aware that sure protection mechanisms are very very temporary and only work for so long.

I did have an interesting experience in the Amsterdam Dungeon. It was scary and dark and creepy and things kept jumping out at us in the dark... my idea of an absolute nightmare. There were about eight rooms... each one more fear inducing than the last and I was proper freaking out. I don't like anything like that... I'm afraid of the dark at the best of times...!!! But anyway... In about the third room, I noticed that I could hear a child crying. At first I thought it was part of the 'show' but then I realised that someone had actually brought a child (can't have been more than 8 yrs old) in to the Dungeon. The majority of the show was in English and this child didn't speak English so not only was it ridiculously scary for him... he couldn't even understand what was being said. Immediately, I felt my own fear disappearing and all of my concern was now for this child who was absolutely petrified and was clinging onto who I can only imagine was his mother. I wasn't scared anymore... I found myself putting every ounce of energy I had into somehow willing for it to not be such a frightening experience for this little child. It just reminded me of the strength of my 'Maternal' instinct.

So... We do have a long road ahead of us... but I am refusing to even take on board how much is going to be involved in the next year or so. So, I have decided to concentrate only on the next step.... and the next step is Surgery... just surgery and once I am home after the surgery... the next step is recovering from surgery... and that is as far as I am going to allow myself to look ahead on this journey. I know that if I start to think about how much I will have to undertake, that I will get overwhelmed and it will seem impossible, but taking it one step about a time might make it seem actually do-able.

Hope is a four letter word, not my favourite four letter word at the minute.... but where would I be without it...???

'I Don't Know How...'

Six and a half years....... it is exactly six and a half years since this journey began for us, six and a half years since I first miscarried, six and a half years since I felt my heart breaking for the very first time. I became very familiar with that feeling over the past six and a half years as I came up against the same situation again and again... it never got easier. I don't know if it got more difficult each time, but I do know that every time that the realisation struck that it was happening again... I told myself that there was no way that I could go through it again, there was no way I would be able to find the strength to cope with another loss, there was no way I would be able to recover from it... and yet I did... again... and again... and again. 

Somehow over the past six and a half years, even with everything I have gone through.... I had managed to hang on to some amount of hope. It never crossed my mind at any point that it would never happen for us... 

I always 'knew' that it would, I just didn't know how much more I would have to go through before it did happen... and that didn't matter, because I would keep going until it did, I didn't care what I had to put myself through... I would do it if it meant that some day I would get to hold my own baby, someday I would hand Patrick our baby and our world would be complete... not just complete, but completely complete.

That has been ripped from me and I am finding that so hard to comprehend, Some days I find myself actually laughing about it because it all seems just so ridiculous, like how could that be true... it just doesn't make any sense. Some days I find myself talking about it as if I was discussing the results of the football match at the weekend... all facts and figures, very clinical.... and then there are the days.... the days where I find myself panicking, struggling to breathe because it hits me so hard that this is real, very real. On one of those days..... I sat in front of Gordon... watching him fight back tears... while he struggled to find something to say to me... as I pitifully pleaded with him to find some way to change the results, some way to fix it, some way to make it not be true... as he tells me 'Anne-Marie, you know I would if I could, but I don't know how'. How could he not know how? He has to know..... Gordon has always known what to do... each time we've come up against an obstacle... he has known what to do, he's been able to point me in the right direction, he's been able to tell me who to talk to, he's been able to tell me the steps that I need to take next. How could the guy who can make a migraine disappear by giving me instructions over the phone, who can make an irregular cycle into a 28 day cycle in less than 30 minutes, the guy who can transform me from a person who walks into his clinic a worked up ball of stress into someone who is chilled out and floats out of the clinic in as much time..... No matter what the problem is... Gordon knows what to do... how can he not know what to do to fix this...???

I guess the answer is simple... you cannot fix genetics... there is no way to fix this, and despite my suspicions that he must have some super-natural powers.... I am reminded that he is, in fact... just a human being... a mere mortal who I know would do anything to change this for me... if it could be changed.... but it can't be.

He has though, promised me that he will talk to Dr. Walsh from SIMS as soon as he can, to try to find some way of at least helping me to understand this.

I realise that since I attended Gordon's clinic for the very first time back in June 2011, I have depended on him quite a lot for guidance on this journey... and he has never steered me wrong. And even though we have been hit with the last thing that we ever expected, and I know that I will never be able to accept it... I do realise that had we not started attending SIMS clinic and had the genetic testing done there, I would have continued with cycle after cycle of IVF treatment for the next 10-15 years. I would have kept getting pregnant and miscarrying time and time again... I would have kept going til it killed me, I don't think I ever would have made the decision myself to stop, it would have been made for me... one way or another, but I do know I never would have given up on my dream to have my own baby. It was Gordon who steered us to SIMS Clinic, It was Gordon who introduced me to the whole world of Auto-immune issues and practically plagued me with the 'Is your body baby friendly' book until I finally agreed to take his copy and read it. It was Gordon who pointed me in the direction of Auto-immune and genetic testing, he kept talking to me about Natural Killer cells and I kept brushing it off and letting it go over my head.... I did not want to even go there. I know it sounds like I'm blaming Gordon for a whole pile of stuff here... but I have to respect that it is because of Gordon that we finally got answers...not the answers we wanted.... but definitive answers none-the-less.

I truly do not know how I am going to get through this... I don't know how I am going to get to a point of being able to even believe that this is true, never mind a point of understanding it or coming to terms with it, but an email from Gordon that simply said 'spare parachute packed and ready' ( You might remember me being in a state before my last transfer and comparing it to jumping out of a plane again and again and my parachute failing every time, and me being afraid to jump again in case the same thing happens again... and Gordon telling me that it was ok because this time he was jumping with me and he was carrying the spare parachute) tells me that no matter how long it takes or how bad it gets.... I won't be going through it alone.

To be honest, I've been a bit surprised by people's reactions to this news. I've been met by friends, colleagues, family... who cannot speak, but simply hug me and burst into tears. This is affecting everyone very deeply and it makes me realise that there are a lot of people who have been on this journey with me, people who have no experience of IVF themselves but have followed my journey from the start and have hoped and prayed that it would work for us. From my friends who tell me that they know how lucky they are to have their babies and that it just isn't fair that this is happening to me.... to the amazing woman who continually offers me use of her womb should I ever consider going down the surrogacy route.... To Gordon who was fighting back tears so hard that he couldn't speak (sorry to ruin your macho image ;-) )..... to my friends who are planning coffee dates, shopping trips, pamper days, venting sessions..... anything to make me feel better and get me through this... to my colleagues at work who have been simply been amazing..... to Patrick's sister in-law who made me toast because I had forgotten to eat.... to my friends in Northern Ireland, the UK and America who sent me the most beautiful pendant - the design entitled The Circle of Life, which has so much relevance and meaning and is very very special to me. I have been overwhelmed by the reaction, and even though I know that I am nowhere near the point of even beginning to realise the severity and actuality of this... I will get there and I will not be alone.

Circle of Life Pendant.

That Time Of The Year Again...

15th of October ...7PM Wave of Light... One candle for each of our beautiful Angels.xx.

Abnormal Genes and Disintegrated Dreams...

Where do I start...???

I had kinda forgotten that Dr. Walsh from SIMS was to ring me today with test results - and how I so wish he never made that call. I wish I could turn back the clock and not take that call today, I wish I had never heard the news I heard today, I wish I never got those results, I wish I never did those damn tests... coz then I could continue living in semi-ignorant bliss where I had hope, where I could picture myself carrying my baby both inside and out, where I think about what school my child will go to, what hobbies they will have, how people will say to me that he/she looks just how I did at that age.... that all disintegrated in about the first 90 seconds of that phone call.

I have a genetic abnormality called Low Low FMR-1 Homozygote. This directly affects follicle development and egg quality. It means that I am genetically predisposed to miscarriage, and while the success rates with fertility treatment are very low in the best of circumstances, this automatically reduces our chances of success by at least half.  Basically when we are conceived, we get half of our genes from our Mother and half from our Father. A certain amount of the genes from each side are 'fertility' genes and decide things like quality of the eggs and how your follicles will develop. I have found out today that my fertility genes from both sides are inadequate. They are low on both my X and Y chromosomes. This is not good news. This is an inherited condition and is very rare. I am only the second person that Dr. Walsh has come across that has this condition. The chances of both parents having deficiencies in those specific genes are very very low, but that is what has happened.

I was also informed that I have some immune abnormalities and I have an elevated level of Natural Killer cells. This means that my body is attacking the embryos when they are put into my womb, killing them.

What this means for us..... Well basically... Patrick's sperm has 100% anti-sperm antibodies which basically eats away at the sperm, my eggs are crap and my womb is pretty much an inhospitable environment and will attack anything that enters.

So... where do we go from here...??? Well, digesting all of this and finding some way to get over the shock of yet another devastating blow will be a good start. Then Dr. Walsh wants me to have my testosterone levels and liver function tested. I then need to have surgery to address some ongoing issues in my lower left abdomen. Dr. Walsh then suggests we do what he calls a 'closure cycle'... basically a cycle of IMSI, using EEVA while suppressing my immune system with steroids and Intra-lipids to keep my Natural Killer cells at bay and stop them from attacking the embryos. If this cycle fails and I miscarry, then the only option for further treatment will be donor eggs/donor sperm.

I swear, this has to be a bloody joke...!!!

I could feel myself getting overwhelmed as Dr. Walsh was speaking to me on the phone, I could feel myself starting to tear up and my mind was drifting a bit. I had to remind myself to pull it together and focus on what he was saying to me. Then I had to tell Patrick. 

I then found myself doing something that I guess would be quite unusual to do after hearing such devastating news... I swallowed what I was feeling and I walked out of my office. I didn't tell anyone at work... I simply carried on. I went into every classroom and chatted with all of the children... like I always do. I sat at the desk in reception and greeted every child and parent as they passed... like I always do. I just carried on. I guess I didn't do too good a job at hiding it completely, as one of the senior staff members noticed something and asked if I was ok, I simply told her that I was.

I don't really know what to do now... it all feels so dismal and yet I don't fully believe it. I feel like we're 
re-enacting the episode of FRIENDS where Monica and Chandler find out much the same thing. I'm feeling pretty lost right now.

Well F**k Everything Else, That's All That Matters

Isn't life strange? Sometimes we focus on things that we think are really really important, but it turns out that they are not at all important in the general scheme of things, and then we realise that we have missed out on lots of things because we were focusing on that one pseudo-important thing.... and then sometimes you end up regretting it so badly because you lose someone close to you and suddenly you realise that all that time you wasted concentrating on that non-important thing robbed you of spending time with that important person, and now you can never change that because they are no longer here.

I've had this experience recently. On Tuesday, the 3rd of September we got word that my Uncle Ritchie had died suddenly, my Mum's oldest brother. Among the shock, sadness and grief was this huge sense of regret. I was very close to my Uncle Ritchie, he always called me his 'little girl', which I always found rather funny coz he has three daughters of his own... but every time he would ring my Mum he would ask about his little girl and want to know when I was coming to visit him again. And therein lies the source of my regret.

Before I started IVF, we would visit quite regularly and Uncle Ritchie would always make a huge fuss of me. He always gave me these big hugs, which pretty much involved him hugging me and squeezing me and never wanting to let go. He always told me how beautiful I was and much to my embarrassment, he would say to anyone who came to the house while I was visiting 'This is my niece, isn't she beautiful?'

The thing is though.... while I was going through IVF and with everything that went wrong and all the surgeries and hormones and steroids..... I put on weight, I put on a lot of weight... and I didn't feel beautiful anymore.... and when Uncle Ritchie would ring and ask my Mum 'when is your beautiful daughter coming to see me?' or 'when is my little girl coming to visit?'..... All I could think of was 'beautiful.... little.... yeah right...!!!!' As far as I was concerned I was no longer beautiful or little and I was embarrassed about that and I hated it, and I couldn't let my Uncle Ritchie see me like that. So I ran from it, I made excuses, My self confidence was so low I just couldn't bring myself to face it. I kept telling myself that as soon as I lose some weight... I will go and visit. I did lose some weight but I never felt 'beautiful'. We spoke regularly on the phone and I had registered to do the Riverdance World Record Attempt in Dublin at the end of July this year, so we stayed with my Mum's sister in Kildare and went to visit Uncle Ritchie. Well gosh, I felt like a proper idiot...!!! As soon as he saw he.... he hugged me and squeezed me and was never going to let go, it didn't matter to him in the slightest..... to him I would always be his little girl and I would always be beautiful. 
I spent a lot of time with Uncle Ritchie that weekend, we talked a lot and I realised that no matter what age I was or what size I was... our special bond would never change. I was special to him and he was special to me and that is all that would ever matter. I left there that day with a different, more confident view of myself.

So... to hear 5 weeks later that he had died... all I could do was regret the time that I had wasted, the times I didn't visit, all of the 'big hugs' that I missed out on....

We went straight to my Uncle Ritche's house after our appointment at Sims on the Thursday, It was strange seeing him laid out, but he looked so peaceful, so beautiful. I met his oldest daughter and she simply said 'No big hugs for you today Anne' (she always calls me Anne... much to my Mother's annoyance) and that was it..... no big hugs that day or ever again.

It's hard to accept and I know that it is a regret that I have to live with, but if nothing else..... It has taught me a very valuable lesson. So often in life, we let things become important... things that really don't even matter. Little things that become all consuming take the place of the things that are really important. I am losing the IVF weight and I will feel beautiful again.... but I will never hug my Uncle Ritchie again... Clarity is obvious when there is no option, unfortunately realisations sometimes come too late and all we can do is learn from the experience and try to have a more perceptive view of 'importance' in the future.

Uncle Ritchie, you taught me a lot of things (not least some words beginning with 'F' in my earlier years :-) ), but the most important thing that you taught me... you managed to do it without even knowing...!!!

You finished every conversation with 'Do you still love me?'... My response was always 'Of course I do'.

You would then say 'Well f**k everything else, that's all that matters' .....

And... Indeed it is.....

.xx.

A Genius And A Gentleman

We had an appointment with Dr. Walsh at Sims Clinic on Thursday, the 5th of September. I haven't gotten around to writing about it yet because my uncle died suddenly and was buried the day after the appointment at Sims, so... with all that entailed, I guess I didn't really get a chance to process what had taken place during that appointment.... I suppose I'm hoping that by writing about it, it will help me in some way to process it.

So... we arrived at the Clinic, had to fill out some forms and were shown to a private waiting room. We didn't have long to wait... for the first time ever... a consultant was early for an appointment...!!! Anyway... even though I was feeling very calm and comfortable about the appointment, I wasn't feeling anxious or anything.... I just could not sit still for the few minutes that we were waiting. I was walking around the room, looking out the window, checking my phone... I guess I was subconsciously anxious or something.

After a few minutes, Dr. Walsh (he is the owner of the Sims Clinic) came and introduced himself... Yep... the consultant himself came to see us in the waiting room and he brought us to his office. This alone was unheard of in our experience elsewhere. What appears to be the 'norm' is to be left waiting in a large waiting room with between five and ten other couples and have your names called out by a nurse, who then brings you to see the consultant in his big important office. This was different, very different.

Our appointment with Dr. Walsh lasted almost 2 hours (yep... I did say 2 hours...!!!). The only way I can describe Dr. David Walsh is that he is a 'Genius and a Gentleman'  Nothing was rushed, nor at any point did we feel like we were an imposition or were delaying him. He went through our entire history with a fine tooth comb, explained every minute detail to us, he drew labelled diagrams for us (he has this amazing ability to write things upside down so they appear the right way for us to see as we are sitting across the desk from him. Ok... I know this says nothing about his ability to help us conceive, but it means a lot that he learned how to do this to accommodate and make things easier for the patients, the people sitting across the desk from him, the people depending on him to provide one last shred of hope that maybe, just maybe it will work this time.... It was about us, not about making things easier for him.) 

He told us about all of our options, he explained about all of the testing that we could do. He told us about the process of IMSI (Intracytoplasmic morphologically selected sperm injection) which is basically a form of ICSI, the difference being that during ICSI, the sperm is magnified 400 times, during an IMSI cycle, it is magnified more than 6000 times so it gives a much better chance of picking the best sperm, the ones that will most likely result in fertilisation and hopefully, pregnancy. You can read more info about it here.
He also introduced us to EEVA (Early Embryo Viability Assessment) which is basically a system where the embryos are not disturbed in the first few days of life, they remain in the incubator and instead of being taken out every few hours to be assessed under a microscope - they are photographed every 15 minutes to give a time-lapse account of exactly how they are developing, which in turn gives a better idea of which embryos have a better chance of resulting in pregnancy and hopefully, a healthy baby. Dr. Walsh talks about EEVA here.

So... where do we go from here...??? Well, Dr. Walsh is of the opinion that a hydrosalpinx is a threat to a healthy pregnancy even after it has been cleaned and drained, so he is anxious for me to have my left tube removed before we go ahead with any further treatment. He would also like to have the inside of my womb inspected to see if there is any damage there or anything else due to the infection that had been leaking into my womb for so long, that may be preventing me from sustaining pregnancy. So... yeah... It looks like either way.... I need to have more surgery before we can even consider going ahead with any further IVF Treatment. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this. I know how badly having surgery knocks  me back and how long it takes me to recover emotionally and mentally from surgery. I'm also not certain how I feel about having my left tube removed... I know it makes sense if it is not working or will be a hindrance to a pregnancy, but gosh.... removing it is so..... final.

We had some blood tests done after the appointment with Dr. Walsh. We are still waiting for  some of the results to come back, but one set of results, the Elastogram - have come back abnormally high, which indicates a high risk of problems with clotting. Yet another blow. It basically means that any future pregnancy, or indeed any surgical procedure - will need to be supported by thromboprophylaxis drugs. I guess... in my head... that is something that is fairly minor, but good to know. When you are going through any kind of an IVF cycle... its just one set of drugs after the next, it can almost become zombie-like. You take what you have to take - so a few more drugs and daily injections and heck, even throwing in a few Intralipid Infusions doesn't really make that much difference. You kind of accept that you are going to feel like crap for about 14 weeks (maybe longer) and just get on with it.

You know what - I've just written that last paragraph and have just stopped to notice the difference in my thinking and how it has changed. When I started the first cycle back in 2010, every injection was a big deal, every tablet that I took was of great significance... It was all so important. Even at the last clinic when they mentioned Intralipid Infusions and high dose steroids and blood thinners... I said 'No way', I was sick of drugs and hormones and steroids and just constant treatment and surgeries, I was fighting everything- I'd had enough. This makes me think that taking such a long break from it all was a really fantastic idea. I guess it has allowed me to stand back and look at the bigger picture. Does it really matter whether I have to inject myself 4 times a day or 10 times a day..... Does it really matter if I have to sit still for a few hours twice a week to have infusions.......... Does it really matter if I have to take 20 drugs a day instead of 10.......... Do any of these things really matter...??? My response right now is 'No', because all of those things are just temporary.... I can go through absolute hell for 3 or 4 months if it means that eventually... I will get to hold my baby. Of course I can.... I've gone through absolute hell for three years and all for nothing..... 4 months should be a dawdle, and even more so with my new-found confidence in a Fertility Clinic. 

All of this is just information right now anyway, I am not planning on going ahead with any of it until next year sometime. Patrick and I were married five years in August so we are going away for a week in October, and also, I am turning 30 in December so am planning the mother of all parties for that :-) I am planning on enjoying the rest of this year as much as I can and being fresh and ready to look at all of this again next year sometime. 

We meet with Dr. Walsh again early in October and hopefully we will have all of the test results back by then............. Now... back to Party Planning :-)

I Am Okay

You really could have cut the tension with a knife on the way up to Dublin this morning, we were both so anxious... we couldn't even speak to each other. Neither of us really wanted to go, and I guess I felt like I was looking for any excuse to turn the car around and go back home.

We arrived at the Clinic with about 30 minutes to spare, it was very easy to find and it appeared that we were the first couple to have arrived. We sat in the car and waited for a bit. Patrick asked if maybe I wanted to take a walk up the street for a bit before we go into the Clinic, but I didn't want to. I scanned every inch of the outside of the building and the grounds... looking for something to put me off, I almost wanted something to be wrong with the place... I wanted an excuse to not go through with it.  The outside of the building didn't give me any excuses though... there is ample parking and the grounds are beautiful and very well kept.

Eventually a few cars started to arrive and a few couples went into the Clinic. I still wasn't ready though.... but I told myself that it is bound to have that 'Clinic-smell' and that will turn me right off as soon as I walk in the door............ but it didn't, it had a very welcoming smell and didn't actually arouse any negative thoughts or memories from within me. We checked in at reception, the receptionist was very friendly and very professional. She gave us an information pack and directed us to the room where the presentations would be held. We went to the room and took a seat near the front. Patrick was looking through the information that we had been given, but I didn't really pay much notice to it.

The presentations were to start at 9:45, but as the clock ticked past 9:45 and on towards 10am, I started to think 'well, if they can't even start the presentations on time...', that was almost a good enough excuse for me to get up and leave... and if that wasn't enough.... one of the ladies who was to give a presentation later in the morning... well, she was wearing brown shoes with a black suit... seriously... what could they possibly know about IVF and reproduction if she can't even wear the right shoes with her outfit...!!! (yep, I really was scraping the barrel for excuses for this Clinic to not meet my requirements at all, I wanted them to fail in my expectations....) On some level, I think I wanted it to be yet another disappointing experience at yet another Fertility Clinic.

As soon as the first Dr. started his presentation.... I was intrigued, I was hanging on his every word. It was so informative. I imagine that most of the couples who were there were just starting out on their fertility journeys, and even though we have been through this so many times.... the process was never actually explained to us in so much detail before. 
About half way through the first presentation, the Dr. was going through the possible risks of undertaking a cycle of IVF or ICSI. He had gotten about halfway through the list and I just started laughing. He was listing off: Ovarian Hyper Stimulation Syndrome, Infection, Abdominal Fluid, Damage to organs, Egg Retrieval complications, Miscarriage, Ectopic pregnancy, Hydrosalpinx...etc.... and in my head I was going 'Check...Check... Check... Check... Check... Check...' I looked over at Patrick and he was smirking too, He was thinking the exact same thing. We had a break for some tea shortly after this and we spent most of this time just laughing.... not that it was funny, but I think there was some realisation for both of us.. that yes... we have been though all of that... anything that could have gone wrong... did go wrong... and here we are... we survived and we can look back on it now... and we can laugh.

The rest of the morning was just as informative and this was followed by a tour of the Clinic, it is an amazing set up and they seem very in-tune with the emotional needs of the people attending for treatment. We spent about 20 minutes then talking to one of the Embryologists, a very friendly chap who answered all of the questions that we had and was extremely reassuring.

We left that Clinic this afternoon and we were walking on clouds. We both felt this amazing sense of relief, like a huge weight had been lifted off of our shoulders. This had been so different to any of our previous experiences at Fertility Clinics, and for the first time in a long, long time... we were happy and the decision was made right there and then for us... that when we do decide to go back to treatment... we won't be going anywhere except this Clinic. We will go back in about 3 weeks for a consultation and to see what our options are going forward, but we really won't be looking at going ahead with anything in terms of treatment until well into next year sometime. 

I have this amazing feeling of just being happy, I am okay, everything is okay. I feel like I am in control and I finally feel like I have found a Clinic that will work with me and my needs, instead of expecting me to follow their 'protocol'. I feel comfortable with the idea of going back to treatment if it is to be at this Clinic with the Doctors that I met this morning. For the first time in as long as I can remember.... I actually feel like I am okay and I feel confident that I can do this and whether it works or not.... I know that I can be okay and I can get through whatever the process throws at me.

Short of actually losing my life as a result of IVF treatment, I can check the 'Been there, done that' box for every single risk involved in the process.... I have been there and I have done it, but more importantly..... I got through it  and I came out the other side stronger because of it. Maybe I have a clouded version of what the last few years has been like, but looking forward... I feel like I could almost breeze through the next cycle... I am feeling very very confident after today's visit... I can do this and I will do this.

First though, I am currently working on getting myself and my body into the healthiest condition possible, so that we really will be giving the next cycle every possible chance of being successful. 

I do have to say a little 'Thank You' to Gordon though.... because... against what I thought was my 'better judgement', I agreed to register for the SIMS Clinic Open Day on his recommendation. I guess he felt that it would really help me to look forward and focus on what I truly want and to start to be able to put a plan together going forward, by seeing how things are done at this Clinic. I really didn't think that I was ready to set foot inside a Fertility Clinic again just yet or anytime in the near future, but it turns out that it was just what I needed and even though I was terribly anxious before going today.... I no longer feel any anxiety or sense of turmoil at all, I feel calm and secure and confident. I guess there was a method to what I thought was his madness :-) 

Secure Endless Turmoil...

I brought my friend's seven-year-old daughter shopping with me today and we really had a lovely time. After we'd finished shopping, we went to a restaurant to have some lunch. When we had finished eating and I was paying for our meal, the man who was serving us picked up two lollipops. He handed one to my friend's daughter and said 'one for you', he then handed the other lollipop to me and said 'and one for your Mom'.
We just kind of giggled, thanked him and left. 
I really struggled to push what I was really feeling to the back of my mind, so as not to draw any attention to it, but little comments like that can really send your thoughts and emotions into absolute turmoil. You begin to think that you really should be taking your own children off shopping and taking them out for lunch, you should be sharing these giggles with your own son or daughter.... but mostly..... it reminds you very clearly of what exactly you have lost, it makes you oh so aware of what is missing in your life, it makes you wonder if you will ever have the opportunity to take your own children shopping and share these experiences with your own children... it makes you question if you will ever have your own children.....

We are going to Dublin tomorrow.... we are going to an Open Day at the SIMS IVF Clinic. I'm not entirely sure why we are going to it, I know that I am nowhere near ready to even think about going back to IVF or having any further treatment in the near future, but we registered for it and now it is the night before...

I am anxious!!! I am worried that as soon as I set foot inside the Clinic... that 'Clinic-Smell' will send the nightmare that has been the last 3 years, flooding back to me. I am worried that I will be an emotional wreck and won't be able to talk to the Doctors and ask the questions that I want to ask. I am worried that it will be yet another 'Clinical' appointment with some stone-faced consultant who wouldn't recognise empathy if it jumped up and bit him. I am worried that I will be so uncomfortable there that I will just completely emotionally detach from the whole thing. I am worried...

Maybe I am worrying about nothing, it might all be perfectly fine and may be a very productive day as it might help me to decide on a path to take from this point forward. 

I guess I am kinda in a 'Limbo' of sorts with the whole baby-making thing right now. Life is almost okay right now. It has been quite nice not going through treatment, not having to inject myself, no steroids, no looming operations or procedures, no counting cycle days, no tests..... no progress. 
I think I have become almost comfortable and secure in this 'Limbo' that I have created for myself, but at some point.... the realisation must strike that while I am in this 'Limbo'... I am not moving forward and therefore not moving towards the ultimate goal of having my own children. 
It is almost ironic, I have become quite comfortable with what I can describe as an 'endlessness', I am not looking towards an end to this 'Limbo', this 'Limbo' is a very secure place for me.... but on the other hand... this 'endlessness' is what I fear most. To remain stagnant in this place, is to remain childless... remaining childless is not and never has been an acceptable outcome for me, but to consciously remove myself from this comfortable place means accepting the turmoil that comes with that. I have to accept the process, the risks and the ultimate knowledge that nothing is guaranteed. 

I am in a very indecisive place surrounding all of this right now, I have always been a risk taker, I've always done whatever it takes to make things happen. The problem is though... I've been through this and I've experienced the worst outcomes again and again and I know what that did to me...... I don't know for certain that I can go through all that again.... 

Maybe there will be somebody waving a magic wand tomorrow...... maybe, just maybe...

This Makes Me MAD...!!!

I recently wrote a piece as a guest 'author' for Aculife. You can read this piece here . It is about how empathy and emotional awareness are pretty-much non existent in a lot of fertility clinics, and the importance of creating your own emotional outlet while going through this process. 

Over the past number of years, I have joined a few support groups, mostly online... for people who are on a similar journey to ours. A lot of the people who post on there mostly write about their losses and when their babies would have been due and how long they have been trying... etc, but recently... the majority of the posts are about their experiences at fertility clinics and how they feel like they are being 'told off' for getting emotional.

I defy any person in this world to go through just one miscarriage... get your positive pregnancy test.... see your baby on the screen... hear your baby's heartbeat..... feel that enormous sense of unconditional love... make those promises to your unborn child that you will do anything to protect them and never let anyone hurt them.... think about names for your baby...... then one day, wake up and you are bleeding and you know what that means... you go to the hospital, but you already know... you can feel it... you know that you will never get the chance to show your baby just how much you love them... you will never get to protect them... you will never even get to meet them. Your baby is dying inside of you and there is nothing you can do about it, but wait, all you can do is wait... wait for your baby to die so that your body can expel the 'contents' of your womb. (Don't you hate clinical terminology that makes your baby sound like the fecal residue of last night's Chinese takeaway...!!!) Then it happens... you lose your baby, a little part of you dies right there and then, you lose part of your soul and you know that things will never be ok again. 

Then honestly say that you have no emotional 'baggage' because of it...??? Liar!

It is 'ok' though... if you listen to the fertility 'professionals'.... you've just had a 'spontaneous abortion', sure that's no big deal... right? I hate terminology that makes your journey sound like a list of specifications for an out of date computer. Under 'Children' on my medical files... it reads '0 + 10'. ... Its 'ok' though... only five of those were 'spontaneous abortions', three others were ectopic and of course the two that I had to 'abort' with chemotherapy. It's simple isn't it, its easy to read those words off the screen. They are just words. 

I guess it would be so much easier to look at it in terms of 'specifications', that removes all emotional connection... if there are no emotional connections... well then, you can't get hurt.... you just keep updating the software and eventually you might be lucky enough that someone will have updated the 'This is your month' app with the correct bug fixes that means that this truly is your month. 

Unfotunately... this is what fertility medicine has become. 

What I described above is just one miscarriage... most couples attending fertility clinics have been through a lot more than one miscarriage, but I assure you.... One is more than enough to change your world forever and give you the right to cry whenever you need to or do what ever you need to do to make yourself be able to get through each day. Nobody would tell a parent who has lost a toddler that crying or being emotional about it is not 'normal'......... Who the hell is anyone, especially a medical professional to tell a person who has lost their unborn child that they shouldn't be having such emotional reactions...???

I know I mentioned before that at one appointment... After I got teary-eyed... I was told I was suffering from PMS and was given a prescription for Anti-depressants to help with 'all this weepiness'. Apparently this is quite common. We are made to feel like even less versions of human beings than we already feel we are. Like there really is something wrong with us. 

Take a piece of paper.... tear it once.... you can stick it back together, but it will never really be the same......... tear it twice, three times........... tear it ten times. You can keep sticking the pieces back together, but now it nowhere near resembles the piece of paper that you started with. 
That piece of paper is the heart of every woman who has lost a child, you can never be the same person after going through something like that, and nobody has the right to tell you how to feel or how to react or what is 'normal'. 

Amazing Ability To Forget

I had a lovely appointment with Gordon today, it was very relaxed and we spent quite a bit of time just chatting about where I'm hoping to go from this point on this journey. He asked me how my cycles have been and I told him that they are all over the place and I'm pretty sure I've not been ovulating. I told him that I couldn't understand why my cycles are so messed up for the past few months because they have always been so regular.

Gordon's response: "Anne-Marie, you have this amazing ability to forget".
I had to ask him what he was talking about.... which prompted him to remind me of the major surgery I had been through just 4 months ago... I guess I must have blocked it out to some degree, but I would have to agree with Gordon about the amazing ability that I have to forget past pain or perhaps block it out.
Its quite strange for me when I read back through this blog and read about all the things I have been through on this journey... every procedure, every cycle, everything that went right... and then ultimately... went wrong. Sometimes it feels to me like I am reading somebody else's story, I feel almost parallel to it, like I'm watching it happening to myself as if it were happening to someone else.

Gordon placed needles in my right arm and wrist today and then left me for a bit. When he returned, he placed needles in my forehead and temples and once again left me alone for a short time. While I was laying on the bed with needles in my face and arms, I heard a lady come in to the waiting room. It was clearly this lady's first appointment with Gordon because I overheard her tell Gordon that she had finally found the place. She sounded very bubbly, very confident...... it made me think about my first appointment with Gordon... and I believe 'I finally found the place' were my first words to him too. I remember having trouble finding the clinic, but once I did... I didn't go in straight away. I sat in the car trying to psyche myself up for yet another appointment at yet another clinic. I remember trying to summon up the strength to feign confidence and bubbliness and somehow give the impression that I was ok and I was in control. I had been through so much even up to that point, I was really struggling with it.... but I wasn't going to let him see that.... at that point, he was nothing to me but yet another appointment at yet another clinic. I thought today about the sadness that I tried so hard to hide at that first appointment, the grief that I didn't want him to see and how I had entered Gordon's clinic back in 2011 in pretty much the exact same way that this lady entered his clinic today. It made me wonder if perhaps she had sat in her car for a few minutes trying to 'pull herself together', if maybe she was feigning confidence and bubbliness too, did she stop outside the door and take a deep breath before entering, as I had done, did she have the same feelings of entering into yet another world of uncertainty that I had  over 2 years ago.

When Gordon returned to the room I was in, I mentioned to him that I could sense the vibes of sadness from the lady in the waiting room.... (I guess I don't know if I could actually sense them, or perhaps I was just recalling them from my own experiences). Ever the professional... he responded by telling me that there are a few ladies out there :-)

My appointment finished shortly after that and I left the clinic... completely oblivious to the fact that I had brought my mother to Cork with me and dropped her off at the shopping centre on my way to Gordon's clinic...... I was back on the motorway before I even remembered that I had abandoned her in Cork! I returned to the shopping centre and picked her up and then we were on the way home again. The whole way home, I couldn't stop thinking about that lady who had come into the waiting room. I have no idea who she was or what she even looked like, all I knew was that I felt such a strong connection to her. I felt like I was two years down a road that she was just embarking on. I could be completely wrong about all of this and I guess... in all honesty... I will never truly know because it is unlikely that our paths will ever cross again (not that they really even crossed this time), its just interesting how something so simple can raise so many memories and so many questions.

I bet no matter how she was feeling when she entered that clinic.... she was feeling a million times better by the time she left........

Opportunities........

I've been writing this blog for nearly three years now, and during that time I have been contacted by more people than I could ever have imagined, people who are going through IVF or fertility issues, people who are just starting on their journey, people who were IVF babies themselves, people who are supporting friends going through IVF. I've been contacted by public figures, fertility clinics all over the world, alternative medicine practitioners, and of course... the people who think that I shouldn't be putting this kind of stuff on the internet.

Something happened today that initially made my eyes light up and made me remember why I started writing this blog in the first place..... in the hope of making IVF and baby loss less 'taboo' subjects. It was my dream to reach a point where people weren't afraid to talk about what they are going through or how they are feeling, and I felt like I was on the way to making this happen on some level.

This morning I was contacted by RTE (the main television broadcasting agency here in Ireland), they asked me if I would be interested in featuring in a 6-month series that they are making to be aired next year. They had seen my blog and were interested in my story, but more so they were interested in my willingness and openness to talk about what I have been through.
My initial reaction was one of elation, that I would now have a decent platform to help people become more knowledgeable about IVF and baby loss and all things fertility related. It was such an honour to be asked... I couldn't believe that my little blog... that I had started writing mostly as an outlet for myself had gotten me to the point where I was being asked to feature in a TV series. I spoke in detail with the producer on the phone, and it really was seeming quite appealing to me.

I'm not sure what will happen or whether it even makes sense to go further with it. It would be a fantastic platform to tell our story, but  my journey is my journey, and while it has been a nightmare to date, I owe it to my angel babies and my husband and myself, to ensure that our story is only portrayed and told in the way that we want it to be.... the real way.

So...... I don't know if I'm going to be  TV star anytime soon. It is an absolute honour to be asked, and I'm still in disbelief that RTE have read my blog. I've quite quickly been reminded that I have a pretty good platform right here, my story has reached and touched tens of thousands of people, I can't really ask for more than that...... and anyway.... Lulu is afraid that the camera would make her look fat...!!! :-)


Now I want to talk about my acupuncturist and good friend, Gordon, who has recently become affiliated with the SIMS IVF clinic in Dublin and more recently in Cork. SIMS is the leading reproductive medicine clinic in Ireland and with Gordon working on their mind and body programme, it really can only get better. Well Done Gordon, that's really fantastic.
What I really love about this is that he is working on a programme that would be used during the dreaded two-week-wait.... the most horrible part of any IVF cycle, or in fact any cycle where there are fertility issues. That two week period between ovulation/transfer and your testing date... that is the time when you are most likely to get stressed out and be on the verge of going out of your mind... yep... that's why we start testing at day 4...!!! It is a stroke of pure genius to put together a programme to keep the mind and body (but mostly the mind) healthy during this time, and I know that anybody who is on a similar journey to mine will agree 100% with this. My only gripe with this is that it wasn't developed three years ago when I was starting my IVF journey...!!!

I also recently became aware that Gordon had linked my blog-page to his website, I really was honoured to discover this... it is a wonderful feeling when someone that you have so much respect for is willing to link your work to theirs.

The last thing that I wanted to mention about Gordon, is a slight tweak to his website Aculife. Gordon has added an instant chat feature to the site. When you enter the site you will see an orange box to the bottom right of the screen, this will either say Contact Us or Chatting Now. When it says Contact Us,  you can leave a message and contact details and Gordon will get back to you as soon as he can, but.... when it says Chatting Now, you can chat to Gordon in real time and get the answers to your important questions and queries right there and then. I absolutely love this feature. Anyone who is on this journey will confirm that you don't get any answers straight away, every question that you ask is followed by a long drawn out process and most of the time, you never get the answers that you were looking for. I think this is a fantastic opportunity for anybody who is considering acupuncture or is perhaps just starting out on their journey to parenthood, whichever path they take. I know how daunting it is to take that first step... in all honesty... Gordon's number was written on a post-it, stuck to the side of my desk for about 6 months before I summoned up the courage to make that first call... and now I can honestly say that making that call was one of the best things I have ever done in my life.... (Gordon may not agree though... I'm sure after seeing me for over two years, he must be looking into restraining orders or something at this stage...!!!)

One more thing I wanted to write about.... One of my closest friends had a beautiful baby girl last week. She is the most perfect little thing, ten perfect fingers, ten perfect toes, everything about her is perfect. I wanted so badly to go and see her but I was afraid that it would be really difficult for me... as it has been with new babies in the past. I got a text from my friend on Wednesday to say that she was at home and visitor-free if I would like to come and visit. My reaction surprised me...
I was excited... I was anxious about seeing the new baby, but I was so happy to be going to visit my friend. I hadn't really seen her that much towards the end of her pregnancy, it wasn't intentional, just how things worked out, and I was so looking forward to getting together with her.

I can tell you... my anxiousness completely melted as soon as I arrived at her house and this perfect little girl was placed in my arms. I didn't feel that usual sense of 'when will it be me?' that I usually feel. I was pure mesmerised by her absolute beauty, her perfectness. And when this beautiful little girl, just nine days old wrapped her fingers around my finger and wouldn't let go... that was probably the most amazing moment of my life. It amazed me that this tiny little being, less than 7 pounds in weight could fill me with such a wonderful sense of just being ok, because what can possibly be wrong when something so tiny and innocent can sleep happily in your arms, the picture of contentment, not a care in the world. I could have quite happily stayed there just holding her and looking at her all day.

Maybe some day it will be my turn, maybe it wont... but I can certainly appreciate the special moments in life, and this was by far one of the most special.

Happy Birthday Noah Bear.xx.

It's been a while since I've posted on here, not for any particular reason but I just haven't felt the urge to write or post anything on here recently.

Life has been pretty routine lately and I am very happy about that. We have decided not to even think about any more treatment til sometime next year at the very earliest, so this has been the first time in quite a number of years that I haven't been either preparing for treatment, going through some kind of treatment or recovering from some procedure or operation and I have to admit.... it is nice to just 'be' for a while.

I'd been suffering with some horrible headaches for about 6 weeks, I thought they were migraines but they were different to the migraines that I usually get and a lot more frequent. My Dr. has diagnosed them as cluster headaches and prescribed some sumatriptan nasal sprays and some preventative medication for me to take. The nasal sprays worked very well but they can only be taken twice a day and I was getting these headaches three or four times a day, so my Dr. thought it might be a good idea to try a preventative medication to try and keep the headaches away altogether.  I haven't tried this medication yet, but its now looking like I wont need to.

I mentioned it to Gordon in an email on Thursday and he responded telling me that he is fairly confident that he could help with these headaches at my appointment the following day.
When I got to Gordon's clinic on Friday, he asked me to lay on the table and he placed needles in both of my feet and then in both of my hands. The needles in my hands really hurt, he was moving them about and they were really uncomfortable. After a few minutes Gordon asked how my headache was and I told him that I could no longer feel any pain in my head. I had a sensation of there being perhaps a black shadow over my left eye, but definitely could not feel any pain. He explained to me that the headaches I was getting were related to a liver deficiency and the points he used in my feet were connected to my liver. He then told me that the points he used in my hands were anaesthetic points and so the combination of all of these points helped to make the pain go away.
Gordon left the room for about 15 minutes and when he returned, he took out those needles and asked me to lay face down on the table. He explained that he would be placing two needles in the back of my neck, right at the base of my skull. I wasn't at all comfortable with this idea. The needles didn't hurt at all, I barely felt them but I just couldn't relax knowing that I had needles in the back of my neck. Gordon said that he could tell that it was very much out of my comfort zone and he stayed in the room with me for the whole time that I had those needles in. He eventually removed those needles and I got up. The pain and sensations in my head had completely gone and I was feeling fine.
We chatted for a bit and then I left to go back to work. When I was about half way up the motorway, the pain in my head started to return. I pulled over the car with the intention of taking one of the nasal sprays. For whatever reason I started rubbing the back of my neck and placed my thumbs on the spots where the needles had been, instantly the pain went away. Any time I have felt twinges of headaches since then, I have put pressure on these points and it has killed the headaches straight away.

I knew today was going to be a tough day for me. Today would have been Noah's third birthday. It doesn't get any easier as the years pass by. I think of all the three year olds that I know (there's quite a few) and I think about the things that he should be doing now.
Patrick and I went to Switzerland when Noah was due, we just didn't want to be at home thinking about what should have been, we wanted to be able to have some good memories of that day. We went to this lovely silver store in the Old Town at Lucerne and got a beautiful silver bracelet engraved with Noah on the front and 23.6.10 on the back. We then bought a 'Name a star' gift set, which was just perfect because it came with a blue teddy bear. The teddy became 'Noah Bear' and he wears the bracelet around his neck all the time. He is just perfect.
Today has been hard, I've cried a bit, I've wondered a lot. I kinda regret not doing anything special today but in a way, I did what I needed to do for me... and that was absolutely nothing.
It will be an evening of serious cuddles with Noah Bear and shedding some tears and then tomorrow Noah Bear will once again sit beside our bed and represent our beautiful baby, until the next time I'm feeling a bit sad and needing some Noah Bear cuddles.

Another Due Date

Our twins from my last transfer were due today and I've been having a really... well.... 'sad' day. I'm not feeling loss or grief or even what should have been.... I'm just feeling sad, to the point of almost feeling defeated.

I'm still pretty much laid up from a series of operations, procedures and hospital stays that I have been subject to for the past 5 weeks... so not really in a good place anyway, but today has been very very difficult for me.

Until about 10 minutes ago.... Ten minutes ago I received an unexpected email from a lady who came across my blog just this evening and it moved her so much that she felt that she had to contact me.

I only wish that I could have held this lady and hugged her. Her experiences have been so similar to mine and she is very much in a similar place to me with all of this right now.

Sometimes I find it very difficult to read other people's stories because most of the time it is focused on how they now have three healthy children or some such story that is trying to give me hope and assure me that everything will work out in the end, but this just felt like the best email I could have received today, because it helps me to realise that I really am not alone in my experiences and no matter how much I am suffering..... there is always someone else who is going through something similar. I think it also helped that this lady is from Ireland as well. I receive a lot of emails from people all over the world but rarely from Irish people who are going through something similar.

I have a lot that I need to write about but I need to wait til my head is in the right place to actually write all of these things on here, but for now I really just want to say to 'Jennie', thank you so much for your email and I am very happy that you have been moved by my story and I hope that we will be able to draw some strength from eachother's stories when times are difficult in the future.xx.

Operation Update

I had my operation almost 2 weeks ago and the outcome was completely different to what we expected.

We got to the hospital early on the morning of the operation, a beautiful hospital, no waiting around to check in, no delays in going to the room, no delays even  in going to theatre. The only delay actually was waiting outside the theatre and going through all the checklists.

I'd been to see Gordon the day before. It was one of those 'I really dont know what to say to you' appointments. I was really struggling with the thought of having to have yet another operation, kept thinking about how much I was dreading that feeling, right before I go under anaesthetic.... that feeling of losing control, of losing consciousness.
Mostly, Gordon worked on helping me relax a bit..... I really was in a bit of a state about having to go through this again.

As soon as I was gowned up and they said I was next in line to go to theatre..... I began to panic, I began to cry, I really did not want to be there. Ok... I know nobody wants to be in that situation, but I felt helpless, I felt like I have been through this so many times before...the preparation... the surgery... the outcome... the recovery... the hope..... the devestating blow. I really just wanted to go home.

I'm sure I probably told the nurses and Dr.s that too... that I really just wanted to go home. I was in such a state while waiting outside the theatre. The Surgeon came out to meet me, went through the checklist with me and then made some comment about him feeling it would be best to leave me alone. The anaesethist then came to see me and he actually helped to relax me a bit, he had a great sense of humour.

Then it was time to go into the theatre and as soon as I went through the doors and inhaled my first breath of 'theatre-smell' I broke down again, that smell holds so many bad memories for me... of all the times I've been pregnant going into the theatre, knowing I wouldnt be pregnant when I came out of there. The operating table... the lights..... everything about that room made it the only place in the world that I didnt want to be right then.  The anaesethist put a needle in my hand and fed through some kind of relaxant first which did help me a bit, made me feel like I was floating. He then produced the syringe of white liquid and I started to feel panicky again. I made eye contact with the anaesethist  and locked my stare, as he pushed that liquid into my hand. I was going to fight that anaesthetic to the very last. I felt both sides of my face starting to burn and still I kept fighting to hold my stare with the anaesethist..... and well.... the next thing I knew.... I could hear somebody calling my name and I could feel the tube being removed from my throat.

The next thing I felt was a sharp pain in the left side of my lower abdomen and they gave me some morphine to help with that.

As expected, I had trouble breathing after the anaesthetic... that happens to me every time, so I had an oxygen tube fitted for 24 hours.

I was then brought back to a lovely private room where I was able to rest for a few hours, before the Surgeon came to see me... and to my surprise... he brought pictures. Before and After pictures of what he had done inside of me. I found it fascinating every part of my insides was a different colour.... my womb is a purpley colour and my tube is a red/light purple colour and my ovaries are snow white in colour..... I guess I just thought everything was red.

So... the outcome then...................

First of all..... the emndometriosis was not something we needed to be too concerned about.

Instead he found the real cause of the horrific pain I had been experiencing...... a very badly infected fallopian tube... the left one. The tube was blocked which is what they call a Hydrosalpinx, but not only that... it was blocked with an infected growth, a Pyosalpinx. If you can imagine for a second.... a Bic biro and imagine the width of the plastic tubing of that biro... that fairly accurately repesents the width of a normal fallopian tube....... now imagine the plastic tubing of a Bic biro with a golf ball inside of it and you will have a fairly good idea as to why I was in so much pain.
The infection had been there for so long, it had formed a growth that was about the size of a golf ball. The Surgeon had to open the tube and remove the growth and then close the tube again.

The infection in my tube had been leaking into my womb, making my womb a completely inhospitable environment for an embryo to grow.... hence why I had miscarried so many times. I was put on high dose antibiotics to kill any lingering infection in my tube or abdomen.

He also found another cystic growth in my abdomen which he cut away and removed, along with several adhesions from previous surgeries.

He also found that both of my ovaries were, once again, covered in hundreds of tiny little cysts so (like last year) the entire surface of both ovaries had to be drilled, blasted and burned to remove these cysts.

There were quite a few complications afterwards with breathing issues and that kind of thing, but I am home and recovering.

The Surgeon said that I will be sore for quite a while simply because of the amount of work that he had to do inside of me. I remember how long it took me to recover last March when I just had the ovarian drilling, blasting and burning done, so we are expecting this recovery to take a bit longer.

The good news I suppose is that we now know for definite why I have been miscarrying, although I find it very hard to take in that every time I have been opened up in the past 3 years... it has been noted that my left tube was swollen.... but yet, nobody thought to investigate why.
The Surgeon feels optimistic about our chances of conceiving through ICSI now as my womb wont be trying to kill anything that enters it.
The not-so-good news is that the Hydrosalpinx will come back, it is just a matter of when, but until then there is a chance that I will be able to carry a pregnancy to full term.

For now though, I am taking it very easy. The pain I am in is more than I had imagined it would be, a lot worse than after last year's surgery. I am finding myself being very up and down emotionally but that is normal for me after surgery and is mostly brought on by the memories that hit me from the operating theatre. I am not sleeping much at all, but again... that is normal after an anaesthetic and will come right eventually.

I will most likely be laid up for another while, but once I am fully better... we will look at our options regarding treatment and see where we go from here.


So... all in all.... a worthwhile operation, I must say that I was very impressed with the service at Aut Even Hospital in Kilkenny, and I offer my most sincere gratitude to Mr Trevor Hayes, the Surgeon who put all of this right for me, and to The Kilkenny Clinic for the original referral.

So for now..... recovery.... and then... maybe... just maybe........

Update

I am feeling extremely physically, emotionally and mentally drained from the events of the past few days... so I wont go into too much detail right now.

They are going to operate next Tuesday. Basically... the only way to solve the problem is a full hysterectomy, but this surgery... if it all goes well.... will buy us some time... somewhere between one and three years.

They have also said that in order to try and support a pregnancy after the surgery, I would have to go on long term, high dose steroids.......... not very happy at that prospect, but I guess the main thing now is to get this operation over with and allow myself (once again) some time to recover before making a decision on where to go from here.

That's all the news for now really, I suppose I will spend the next few days (and probably the rest of my life) trying to figure out how we have arrived at this point................

One Step Forward...... Fifteen Steps Back.......

We went to The Kilkenny Clinic today and even though we went with the intention, or at least the hope of starting treatment on my next cycle.... which should have filled both of us with hope..... neither of us could sleep last night. I lay awake all night sweating with anxiety...... Patrick tossed and turned all night and kept waking up. I guess on some level we knew it wasnt going to be what we wanted.


And... of course... our subconscious thoughts were right. Apart from some minor setbacks like Folate and Vitamin D levels being low,we were doing ok.... 2 cycles of supplements and a few more blood tests will sort those out.

Nah, of course that couldnt be the extent of what was wrong.

The Dr. we met today was extremely concerned that my recurrant pregnancy loss was never really fully investigated, things like my immune levels and clotting ability were never tested, and they needed to be done before we could start any treatment.

Another few tests... nothing to worry about... until we got to talking about the excrutiating pain that I still experience for a week during every cycle, and for 2 weeks on the cycles that I ovulate on my left side........

Can you say Endometriosis...???????

Yep.... that lovely disorder where the womb lining grows and develops outside the womb.... causing excrutiating pain, miscarriages and is the leading cause of hysterectomy in young women.... Yep.... something else to worry about...!!!

I am having tests tomorrow, meeting with the surgeon in Kilkenny on Wednesday and they want to operate ASAP. They won't really know how bad it is until they open me up.
Best Case Scenario..... they can burn away the lining outside the womb giving us a window of between 6 and 12 months to get pregnant, before it returns.
Worst Case Scenario...... I wake up from theatre minus a reproductive system.

The Dr today said it will be a very high risk operation anyway due to the sheer number of surgeries I have had in the past 3 years, but unfortunately surgery is the only option.

A very very hard pill to swallow........