Laura - your story was so moving & so deeply sad. You must be a very brave & special lady to help such parents when facing such situations. You are so right that there are no guarantees at all. And when we think that we are having a tough time, there will always be others who are having so much more thrown at them.
Love the ticker!!

Hope that you continue to not get any side effects. That is terrific. Must say that I had some headaches and hot flushes when I was down regging and then felt so bloated when I got near the end of the stimmies.
It is so sweet that we are the only people who know along with your dh. Do you think that you might tell your Mom or not? You sound like you are in a great frame of mind for this cycle. I understand that calm is good!!!!
We want to hear more abot Vegas when you get a moment

Did you win any money?????
Em - You are a brave lady working with cancer patients. Even if they are older it is a really tough job. All I do is adding up!!!! The rugby sounds like great fun - especially the going & coming in a limo. No wonder you went for it...............
I had pessaries for my progestorone too. I asked about injections when I failed my cycle and said even if they hurt like hell that I would do them if it helped my chances with implantation. Hammersmith said that they had tried both and that they gave the same sort of results so they prefered to use pessaries to cause ladies less pain. However, he did say that most US clinics go with the intra-muscular injections. London clinics - some use sniffing and some use injections for down regging. Not sure what the difference is there. I injected burselin (spelling?). No idea at all whether it makes any real difference to the cycle??? I used puregon injected via the pen. Found it quite easy especially when I got brave and injected in my tummy.
I was on a longer cycle - with 18 days down regging & then down regging at the same time as stimmies for 12 days. Hammersmith use this longer cycle if FSH level is lower to try to avoid over stimulation. I understand that a short or flare cycle can be used as it suppresses our system less and so may be produce higher number of eggs. Really depends how they think that your body will respond to the stimmies and how much they need to boast or calm your body down. This may not be strictly correct - just based on what I have read on the web and on here. Also after cycle, my clinic said that I must wait 3 AFs before I could do Fresh or FET so that drugs got out of the system. Not sure whether that is Hammersmith policy or whether I could have cycled again sooner after a short/flare cycle??
Good idea on e-mail list. I just cut & pasted it so I have if the site goes down again. Thanks
Jackie - Hope that you are having a nice weekend. Did you do a long cycle first time around? Any news yet on when you can get started on your short cycle and what your dates will be?
Vero - hope that you are doing a mix of sleeping and celebrating now that your thesis is in
Dania - thinking of you as always
I must be better as spent all day yesterday sorting out our study as I said and then I completed my tax return as well so it is all ready to send off. And did not feel totally knackered by the end of the day. Getting back to my old self. I still have some soreness but hope that will subside over the next couple of weeks. He did say 6 weeks for full recovery so still guess that I have some room for it to hurt less still.
I don't know why but feel pretty confident that I ovulated either on Friday (tummy sore) or on Saturday (some twinges in my left hand side). That would correspond with a cycle of about 32 days which is normal for me. So we had done plenty of baby dancing from Monday through Saturday. Given my tummy is still sore, & my poor dh has to go to work

don't think that we could have given it any better shot this month. Now I think that we shall just have to wait and see. In my mind, my second 2ww starts here................going to try to relax, have fun, not over do it and just see what happens........
Mike's sister and family have just got back from 2 weeks holiday in Italy so off to see them this afternoon. Best go and get ready..............
Enjoy the rest of your weekends.
Love to you all.
Carolyn xxx
Me 42, DH 52 IVF #1, #2, #3 ICSI #4 - 10.05.2006, 12.12.2006, 10.03.2007, 27.07.2007 ICSI/DE/TESA #5, #6 PGD/IVIG #7 - 24.11.2007, 27.02.2008, 23.05.2008 - 7 BFNs
Surrogacy/FET #8 - 15.10.2008 - BFP
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