TTC 10 months + Part 17.

[MuddyWellyNelly]

For all the lovely 10+ers, and anyone else lurking, who has been trying for long enough to start worrying. This is a great place to rest until the elusive BFP shows up.

Love and hugs to Fox. I know it will be hard but try to do something nice today as it's your birthday I think. I can't say anything better than what den and Cos has already. Just hugs to you.

Den it's a shame when friendships become like that. I know how that feels. Handhold.

Waves to all.

Yes cos, I've dropped lots of hints. And actually it should be pretty obvious to my good friends. I talked about ttc before we started, people knew it was our plan. They've either guessed and don't like to say anything (but then they've been insensitive many times if that's the case) or they just haven't picked up on it which suggests they've never listened to me.

fox I'm so sorry about the BFN. Can you hibernate for the progesterone crash?

mrsd that's a real shame about your friends.

cos next scan should be tomorrow, but they forgot to give me an appointment! I realised Friday afternoon and called them. Someone was supposed to call me back but never did. Grrrr. I'll call up first thing tomorrow and figure it out.

I started on the bastard stingy cetrotide last night.

I'm still feeling fine. Getting occasional twinges from my ovaries, but that's normal for me. And today I have bucket loads of CM, which is lovely.

Popping in with a big hug for fox. The disappointment of a failed ivf round is like nothing else and you had a more traumatic round than most. Like the others I thought I would feel miserable forever but we did both bounce back and were willing to try again. counselling is a great idea. I still regret not getting any and there is a lot of emotion and anxiety left even now.

sea going for it sounds the right thing to do to me. A quiet clinic will be worth it in reducing stress levels.

euro all sounds positive. Rubbish that you have to do stingy injections though.

Big waves to everyone else. Have been on my own this weekend and have had a knitting binge with leftover wool. Very therapeutic.

fox I am so sorry that this hasn't worked out for you in the way that you deserve and also so pissed off on your behalf that your hopes were raised before being horribly and cruelly dashed. I imagine that is the part that has made this even harder to process. It also isn't fair that you are having a horrible progesterone crash to boot. Big love to you right now.

euro It does sound like you are right on track with things.

mrsd sorry to hear that you are feeling a bit down about friendships at the moment. I think that this process leads to an evaluation & reflection on lots of things not least our personal relationships. It is hard when you realise that some people aren't what you thought. I can identify with the feeling that nobody has given a shiny shite about how shockingly awful all this has been (and still is) for me and MrP. Maybe us lot could all go and colonise some island somewhere & sod 'em!

madness I like your knitting binge. We have spent the day cleaning out the freezer and understairs cupboard to shoehorn in our Christmas food goodies. How exciting!

Sorry at crap catch up, I will attempt a better one tomorrow but for now have to rescue the dinner. Waves to you all.

Lovely fox I am so very very sorry. Thinking of you. It is so cruel that you had to go through this awful round. I kind of can't believe how shitty your experience has been. I'm so sorry.

Much love to everyone else in the tent. Sending you courage. X

Fox I am so sorry, the others have put it well, we are here to listen and hand hold.

Euro sounds like things are going well for you! Have they told you when ec is yet? I am going in on Tuesday for my first scan. I am looking forward to getting started now, I started this cycle in October!

Sea good news you are finally starting! Do all of your family know then? We haven't told anyone and I am starting to wonder how I am going to get around the drinking over Christmas thing.

MrsD so I guess yours is a medicated cycle then? I don't take anything just the initial scan on day 7, when are you starting? I know the feeling about thinking you might have been pregnant. I didn't book a couple of holidays over the last two years as I was worried about having to take anti malaria drugs (hollow laugh). Also we haven't told anyone either which can make it a bit lonely at times. But I know that even if I suspected one of my friends was having issues ttc I wouldn't mention it, I think if people want you to know they will tell you, so it might be that your friends think the same way? Sorry that you feel let down though, that sucks.

Waves to all I have missed!

Bollocks- just typed a huge message and lost it. So quickly wanted to say to Fox how desperately sorry I am. You have been toyed with so much and it breaks my heart that you have been trough such a crap time.i really hope you feel ever so slightly better today.

Be back later

fox I'm thinking of you today.

ten we've avoided the antimalarials while ttc too. Fricking pointless!

I'm back tomorrow for what should be my last scan. What time are you there?

I had my second scan this morning and it was rather disappointing. At the first scan on Friday I had 8-10 follies all growing. They are still there but most haven't grown much, however two have really taken off. This is the position I was in on my natural modifed second cycle. It makes timing EC difficult as I think the lead follies will end up over cooked and the little ones might not catch up. The dr said that they will up the dose tonight in the hope of getting "one or two more" (in addition to the lead two). Four would be fine and if it'd been told that was what I would get at the beginning, I would feel ok about it, but it's a disappointing come down from 8-10. We'll see what happens. EC will most likely be on Thursday.

Hang in there euro. Things change so much between scans. Remember I had only a handful and then ended up with 18 at ec. One of the problems with short protocol is that for some people (and I'm one of them) our eggs grow at very different rates so it's difficult to time ec. This was the reason I had to do long protocol this time and it did work much better for me. I'm not saying that you will need to do long protocol though. Our male factor issue means we need to get as many eggs as possible to give us a fighting chance. You seem to get good fertilisation and 4 eggs will be double what you've had before. And it only takes one :)

I got the bill today for our last round and I remembered that I never thanked you buzzy for the info on costs in Brno. It isn't actually any cheaper than here but will be something to think about if not taking to blast becomes an issue for us.

I got 4 on the second (natural modified) cycle and ended up with 2 poor quality embies that didn't do anything. This seems like a bit of a rerun.

Maybe LP would be best for me but I'm not sure I can face the suicidal downregging again. :(

If you do need to do downregging euro, ask about different drugs. I had enantone which was just a one off injection on day 21 and then no other injections or anything until stimming started. The only thing I felt on it was the day before my period I had a couple of hours of feeling ragey and snapped at dh for no reason. It was like a severe pmt feeling But that was it and I was back to myself after a few hours.

mrsd I think that would be worse because I wouldn't be able to just come off the drugs at any point if I felt too bad.

Euro I will be in at 8am. I am hoping that by heading in early they won’t be running too late, I have a meeting at 11 with big wigs I need to get to in plenty of time. What time are you in, will we be staring at each other in the waiting room and thinking the other looks normal?!

Heh. I'm not in until later. I am not a morning person!

Euro I am sorry the scan was a bit of a disappointment. Hopefully the new dose of drugs will do the trick and you will get plenty of eggs. You only need one though so even 2 would be plenty!

Ten - Hope the appt goes well and you make it to your meeting in time. It's the worst when you have to juggle meetings with AC appointments especially when they run late! Hope that's not the case tomorrow.

Fox - How are you doing? I hope you are feeling a little better. It will take time but you are a strong lady and there are other things to try and other options. Counselling sounds like a good step. Reading always helps me. I am reading fiction again as I just want to lose myself in something other than reality right now. Hugs.

Waves to all.

Thanks Sea

Ladies please can I ask for some advice. We need to make a decision about how many eggs to thaw. They were frozen on day one and once they take them out of the freezer they then watch them develop and decide which to put back. Taking all five out gives us the chance of picking the best but given my age they will only ever recommend putting one back, which means we potentially loose a couple of good embryos?? Or if we only take three out we run the risk of them all dying and having nothing left to transfer? What would you ladies do? It is a bit early for decisions like this given I was flying solo.

Tough decision sea. Will they develop them to blast? I think if you're decided on only having one put back then I'd only defrost three. But that's because I don't like the idea of destroying a good embryo, if it was a choice between transferring two or destroying one I'd choose to transfer two. But that's my personal choice. Sorry, I'm not being very helpful am I?

Sorry, stupid me addressed that post to sea. Obviously I meant ten. Sorry!

Ten we had this dilemma out of 4 - in the end we chose to thaw 2 (and 1 didn't thaw so they then did a 3rd) bit put 2 back. Would you mind going through more fet's? I'm not convinced how much they can really tell looking at embies so early other than the basics of course.

Euro good look for scan, still sounds like you've got a few potentials there, but completely understand the headf*k.

Big squeeze Den Fox and Joy and everyone else.

Tricky decision ten. I'd probably go for 3 in the hope that I could get anothr FET out of that batch.

Fox how are you, my lovely?

I've had my third scan. The two leaders are still doing well - now over 20mm. The next two have caught up a bit and are now at 18mm, so they hope to get those 4. There is a chasing pack of around 8 that will be too small to make it. It's annoying as they are still growing - the sizes are just too spread out. EC will be Thursday.

Euro - 4 is plenty. They sound like they are a good size. Having a couple of leaders and others growing slowly seems to be v common. Is there anything docs can do about it? Thursday isn't long now. How are you feeling about EC? Will you be doing this awake again? You brave lady.

Ten - I have no experience but I think what MrsD, Cos and Euro says makes a lot of sense. Would you not consider putting 2 back?

Also wanted to shared an amazingly heart warming story. Good friends of mine who live overseas have been trying for number 2 for 7 years. After numerous m/cs, ivf failures and even a v rare form of cancer - she gave birth to twins (from ivf) at the age of 43 today. This is the happiest birth announcement I have heard for a long time. Brings me hope although I am not sure I have her strength.

Four good quality eggs sounds good to me euro! Must be frustrating when you can see the small ones, but 4 is about average for a mild cycle I think and you may well end up with a few more. Last cycle I had a leader that turned into a cyst, but the others did catch up eventually in time for EC. The timing is all rather tricky. Good luck for Thurs! I too was wondering if you're going to be asleep or awake.

ten have the clinic said they would only put 1 back? Are you funding the cycle yourself? If so, I think they may let you have 2 put back? At 34, they let me have 2 back, which I think I would prefer rather than having to destroy one. I would prob defrost 2 or 3 and save some for a future FET. If one doesn't defrost well, can they then do another? Exciting that it's getting near!

sea not long til you start now! You must be excited. I have everything crossed for you.

foxy I hope you are ok as you can be. As others have said, you will feel better, but the pain of a failed cycle is so so hard at first. Big luffs.

Waves and sloe gins to everyone else.