Gosh ladies, loving all your posts, so much to catch up on!
science that is brilliant news!! So, so pleased for you
Vap appt sounds perfectly timed - you might well find that you can in fact see a heartbeat at that point, you might be pleasantly surprised (although good to expect that it might be too early, definitely). Makes sense that having more betas would just be something else to worry about, so hopefully you can hold tight until your appt and your little embryo can chill out in the mean time
Newleaf Good luck with dry Jan! Apart from a couple of glasses of wine on my birthday, I haven’t actually had a drink since June, believe it or not! Given what a weekend warrior I used to be in my more, er, hedonistic days (and basically spent the year leading up to my wedding permanently pissed), how things change….!
God, the baby blitzkrieg just isn’t letting up for you! You’re doing amazingly considering the ex BF issue is understandably raw, however much you are way way better off with Mr NewLeaf. He on the other hand is with a gf who is barely more than a child herself, so when the baby arrives and he realises he’s with someone with zero life experience, he is in for a rude awakening.
Flat ugh your work need to just nob off. I work in advertising which is a pretty long hours culture - although nothing compared to banking or law, although not the salary to match. It is so so hard because we are all type A people who were brought up to want to be the high achievers that we all are, we’ve succeeded in our professional lives - I did a big project with EY last year all about women on boards, and I actually think it’s not just a women issue, it’s just that corporate life is fundamentally incompatible with any kind of life balance, regardless of your gender.
This article in particular really spoke to me - I realise this offers nothing useful in the way of advice, but just to say I completely empathise and know there are no easy answers
www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2014/02/25/recline-dont-lean-in-why-i-hate-sheryl-sandberg/
I hate the ‘Lean in’ argument - as I don’t think I’m a failure because I decided to step off the corporate ladder. I was on the senior management track, but decided I didn’t want to spend my entire life in the office and working myself into the ground, ruining my health. I’m not a freelance strategy director, working with lots of difference agencies on loads of different projects, I pick the stuff I want to work on, I don’t get involved in office politics, I come into the office and spend my time doing the work I enjoy, instead of on management bollocks. I work WITH companies and not FOR them, which gives me much more control over how I work - and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. OK, I’m not in a board position, and I might have been if I’d have stayed on the corporate ladder, but I’m earning the same, working less and tonnes happier than I think I wouldn’t be if I’d decided to ‘lean in’.So fuck off Sheryl Sandberg! Sorry, I’ll get off my soapbox
(Oh and I did used to get some great smellies, but stopped nicking them when I realised the stash at home was getting out of control- and I’m still nowhere near working through them, despite telling myself ‘oh they’ll be great for the gym’. I had a few months of glamorous sounding travel on the Coca Cola company’s dollar, but the five star hotels and business class travel were exciting for about 2 weeks, then it was just being on the road endlessly and being desperate for my own bed. Five countries on four continents in 3.5 weeks did me in - I handed my notice in when I got back from that stint!!)
So, amazingly, I am actually starting stims tomorrow!
Consultant had said although general rule of thumb is that you don’t count spotting as CD1, and that day 1 is normally the first day of full red flow - in my case given that there was so little lining to shed after so long down-regging, it’s unlikely I would get a proper period, and should count the first day of spotting as CD1, so we didn’t miss the window for starting stims.
I only took my last pill yesterday, so wasn’t expecting anything to start for a couple of days - but spotting and crampy feeling started today. So emailed consultant’s secretary with the gory details of my flow - she checked with the Dr and he said to count today as day 1, and told me to start my stims tomorrow, hurrah!!
Basic outline of how my IVF cycle should go - this is the short antagonist protocol (although I started on long protocol, we've switched up because of the false start, Dr doesn't want to go back to square one to have to start down regging me all over again). I’ll start stimulation injections tomorrow, to try and get a decent crop of eggs growing. I’ll come in for tracking scans every few days to see how the follies and lining are doing, and my stims dose will be adjusted accordingly.
After about 4 days of stims, depending on what the first tracking scan shows, I’ll add in another drug, which is a blocker. Normally, when your follie grows and produces oestrogen, that signals the brain that the follie is ready to go, and that triggers the LH surge that OPKs pick up to say ov is approaching. Obv with IVF you do NOT want those eggs to go pop, so you take the blocker to stop this happening. So that’ll be two injections a night once I’ve added this in.
The scans will also monitor my lining, so once I’ve started the blocker, if my lining isn’t thickening up enough, he will give me some extra oestrogen (HRT tablets!) to help give it a boost. When the leading follies are at a certain size, I’ll be given instructions about when to trigger. The trigger is an injection of hCG (the pregnancy hormone) which simulates the LH surge, and signals the ovaries to finish ripening the eggs - however, the trigger has to be given at EXACTLY the time instructed by the Dr, which is exactly 36h before scheduled egg collection time. Trigger too early and you could end up releasing the eggs before retrieval which would be a disaster. Trigger too late and the eggs aren’t likely to be sufficiently mature. So you have to get the trigger time spot on. DH counted down with the stop watch last time, so I could push the plunger at exactly 2130 
Last time I stimmed for 12 days, and had EC on day 15 - so if this cycle goes anything like last time, we’d be looking at retrieval somewhere around 2 weeks today!!
In answer to the IVF vs ICSI question, the main difference within IVF is that if you’re self funding, ICSI costs a grand more! There’s also a possible school of thought that in IVF there’s an element of survival of the fittest - the strongest sperm selects itself to fertilise the egg; whereas in ICSI the embryologist is just going off appearance, and picking the best looking one. That said there’s no statistical difference in fertilisation rates or outcomes between IVF and ICSI so that’s really hypothetical. The bigger implication is that if you require ICSI it’s because of male factor issues, which obv has implications for a surprise natural BFP - so in my case, the fact that DH’s sample was good enough for IVF, means that we’re not considered as having any male factor issues, which is good news for TTC naturally if / when this cycle fails
There’s also the small possibility that the ICSI process can damage an egg, but that’s pretty unusual, and in a decent quality lab that should be very rare - but it is a risk you have to be made aware of.
I had a brilliant hypnotherapy session today and am trying to be mega positive and not do my usual endless catastrophising about every last possible eventuality. I’ve got my IVF cycle relaxation MP3s loaded up on the iPod to try and keep me sane throughout this cycle - although stims were pretty much OK last time, it’s the 2ww that will be the killer, if we get to transfer. But one step at a time!!
Stims ‘diet’ of shitloads of protein, 3l of water and a pint of milk a day starts tomorrow. Here we go…..!