February Has My Heart - February Cycle Buddies Wanted

[souris]

Hey guys!

Nicki, that sucks!! I find this county/postcode thing so stupid in the UK!
I am sorry that you will have to pay from your pocket, but 30 months is just impossible to wait...
Dont worru about the injections, i know it is scary at first, but once you have done the first one, you will be fine. And the needles are usually tiny, and it doesnt hurt.

Charity, my clinic is the same with blasto, they dont do it. They are also no good with the embryo freezing. They had to get rid of 8 of my embryos, because for them, they were not good enough...what a waste If I could do a FET and not the whole cycle again, i would be so happy!

Nims, Charity, I am also getting jealous/envious and I hate it. For the moment I hate every pregnant women! Dh think i am weird, but deppe down he knows that I am protecting myself

WISGAL, accupuncture needle are really really small and normally you dont feel a thing!

Jen, glad you had a fab time!

Nims, thank you for your answer concerning AF. My D&C was 4 weeks ago but I stoped bleeding only 2 weeks ago. Since a couple of days, my boobs are sore so maybe AF wont be late... Cant wait to have the date so I can work out my next cycle dates.

Julie, Reach how are you girls??

Dh kids are here, and so far so good!
I also got my two foster kittens, they are so scared i can hardly approach them. They decided to hide under the cooker, and they have been there since last night... They are cutties and I hope they will get less scared of people, or they will never find a adopting family..

That s all for now

Take care
xxx
souris

[nimble]

my poor poor tootsies - been in the terminals all day today because of the fog and had loads of flights canx so been helping out since 7 this am... it can't be good for me!! but I have to do it as I feel sorry for all these people trying to get home for chrimbo.......

Nicki - can't believe the waitlist for IVF on NHS - we paid for our first one as they said that we were unlikely to get any funding as it had run out for our area - however investigating I found out that every couple is entitled to one free go - but it is madness that you have to wait for so long. Our Dr said about going back to see before we start our next cycle but think in reality it will be too long..... the other thing that I am investigating which is 3rd of the price is natural IVF - Charity put me in touch with one of the other girls on the dec/jan thread and I'm waiting to hear back. Because they don't use drugs - its only about £1200 - don't know your circumstances but its more for women who have unexplained fertility. If I find out any more will let you know - this then means it doesn't involve injections or the side effects of drugs.

My accu said it must be better as it would mean that you also not using all your eggs as well.

Charity - hey the dates sound great so your back in the Jan box again, although your committed on this thread girl and not going anywhere!!

souris - no problem any time pm me - hope AF comes soon for you

I'm going to have to go and rest my throbbing feet before I go out and face the public yet again.....

Nims xx

[boonie]

Hi - I'm new to the board and just had my consultation this morning with Dr. I had a failed IVF early this month and looks like I will be going for round 2 in Feb.

I was hoping to do it in Jan. but I already had AF for this month and I'll be on the Pill for one month. So I'll start the process in Jan when I get AF and actually ET in Feb.

I'm hoping for myself and all of us that the month of Valentine's Day will be special for us!

[REACH-AEJ]

Welcome Boonie! Glad you joined us!!
I'm sorry you have to wait until Feb, I know how it feels to be eager to get going and try again. I am frustrated that I can only do an ER in Feb and then wait to do the ET. I'm still trying to find out how long I have to wait to the ET ~ I hope it is not too long afterwards!
This is a good group and lots of support!

Charity ~ I never thought about it, but I hope my clinic is good at thawing day 5 blasts!! We had 2 blasts that they wouldn't freeze because they said they wouldn't make it back out. I hope that means they know what they are doing! I have read that day 3 embies freeze better than blasts anyway...

Souris- ~sounds like you are enjoying the Holidays with the family already! Good for you I love that you foster kittens - how sweet. We are big animal lovers and cat lovers for sure. You are doing a good thing!

Hope everyone is almost ready for Christmas...not much time left!

[ajdecker]

Charity-thanks so much for that welcome! I hadn't logged and seen it until this morning. We live out near DeKalb (Northern IL.) I am taking a guess and thinking that if you are in WI and going to a clinic here, you are going to the one in Gurnee? Either way, where in WI? We are about an hour from Janesville. I would love to meet sometime and cry/laugh over a cup of tea! (gotta watch the caffeine intake lol)

Thanks to all of you for the welcome. Got AF last night and made my appt for blood work on Sat and ultrasound on Sun. They said if all looks good, I can start the Clomid on Sun. I was on it twice before and developed some bad pain. The nurse said that hopefully it will not happen again. They are putting me on two pills this time and I was only on one before. I didn't realize that hyperstimulation can occur from Clomid and now I am kinda worried being on this larger dose and all. My body seems really sensitive to any type of medication. On the positive side, I hope that means they will get a lot of good eggs to work with. On the negative, I hope there are no major issues or side effects.

Just wanted to vent and basically I'm scared and its only just begun. Thanks for listening ladies!

Where do you guys get the hearts and pictures that you can post on here?

Julie

[Jen1d]

Hi guys

Welcome to Boonie

Nicki - I have the best solution for you and you will love me for it Have you ever heard of Emla Cream? You can buy it at the chemist over the counter. Basically its for little kids before they have any injections. Anyway i put a small blob on my leg about 30-40 mins before i have my injection and it numbs the area so the nipping is not nearly so bad as it would be. I know, i'm a wimp but who cares, it gets me throught the injections, which i hate and thats all that matters. So get investing in some soon, its fab.
I am the same as you with the funding. We have three free cycles but were told we have to wait 2 years for our first go so we decided to self-fund. If this had worked then we would have lost our other 2 goes and if we wanted a sibling then we have to self-fund until it works ourselves. However as it did not work we still have to wait until the 2 years for our next go and if this still does not work then 2 years for our 3rd go. Its absolutely crazy specially considering infertile women usually only find out when they are much older----i needed to find out at 21 to start going through all these years. We just have to self-fund everytime until our free go arrives its a complete disgrace in this country. But don't get me started or i will start to list all the things this Government waste their money on----do you see the drug addics paying for their medication, prescriptions, methadone

Ok you can all come out now, i have calmed down

Charity - my hospital only do day 2 or 3 transfers. I wish they would leave them until 5 but they just say they are better off inside the woman. Why is it Britain invented ivf but the Americans are way ahead of us?

Oh you've started me off again, think i should go and lie down for a bit now or maybe book a flight out to you guys---------any spare rooms going?

Am on a sleepover tomorrow night at work so will catch up with you on Saturday.

Thinking of you all

Love Jen x

[souris]

Hey guys

wanted to put a pics of my foster baby kittens, but i cant do it? does anyone know how to do it??

Had my post m/c and D&C appointment today, and as I thought, I did not get any reason for my M/C.... Just that it happens, 1 in 4 pregnancy...

All the news for now

Merry Christmas Phoenixes!!
[/img]

[souris]

DUH!!

Merry Christmas Feb and March buddies!!!

[REACH-AEJ]

Hi Julie and Welcome! Charity is the guru on the cute pics...she'll fill you in once she comes back on!

I looked at my last post and see my confused face is now wearing a santa hat..how cute! They must have just added those recently. I wander why they only put them on the sad, confused, cool and very sad faces...??

I would love to see your kittens, Souris, but I'm no help on how to add pics. Once again, Charity probably knows!

Merry Christmas to all!!!!

[Charity]

[Charity]

Boonie...Sorry to hear about your BFN. You're definitely in a place where you'll find understanding and support. I'll be on round 2, too...St. Valentine is going to bless us all by filling our hearts with love...This is going to be a good month...I can tell already!!

Julie (ajdecker)...Too weird, but I live in Janesville and am going to a clinic in Rockford...That would be so cool to actually meet someone in the area going through the same thing with me...Are they just putting you through the Clomid Challenge, right? It almost sounded like they were using Clomid to do your whole cycle, so just checking is all...Probably a stupid question, but thought I'd ask. How old are you Julie? The only reason I ask, is that I overstimulated to Clomid too, so my clinic didn't require a challenge. Just wondering if your age is a risk factor that they're just checking. Otherwise, it seems a little strange that they would be putting you at risk of getting a cyst if they already know you stimulate well to Clomid. I had a couple cysts with Clomid that's the only reason I bring it up...On the subject of the pics, if you want a ticker (count down in your signature) you can go to this link, you get to select the bar, the cursor, the date, and the event you're counting down, and then copy the code into your signature and you will ahve yourself a cool ticker tape...http://www.tickerfactory.com/ezticker/t ... php?type=4

A couple of other cool smiley face websites are: http://www.cheesebuerger.de/smilie.php? ... &ziel=bigs
http://www.emotihost.com/ver1/pageindex.htm (scroll down)

For pics, I know how to post pics from a website. Souris, if you want me to, I can post the pics on myspace, and then I think I can link them for you to a posting here...Let me know...You can email them to me if you are interested...Otherwise, if you take a website picture, do a right click and get the website properties, then put a "[img" in front of the www. and a "[/img]" after the .gif or .jpg, etc...you should get the picture to post for you...Not too complicated, just seems harder than it really is...

Souris...I'm sorry you didn't get an answer to the lingering "why" question, it's great that there's nothing that they've found that could cause you issues. So, while no answer to give you closure, it does give even more hope for a new beginnings.

Jen...That's great advice on the numbing agent. I'm not familiar with that one, but I'll have to look it up...You're right, the situation with the medical system for you does suck! I wouldn't necessarily say the US is ahead, but I think with more private funds paying for our programs, they are a little more "customer service" oriented. If it were a social system here, I think we would be dark ages behind your IVF community of doctors. Oh...And I do have a spare room, too...

AEJ...Don't you worry...Your baby blasts will be fine during the thaw. I'm sure your clinic wouldn't do them if they weren't successful with them already. I'm just thankful my clinic was honest enough to admit they weren't very good at them, so I will have the best chance at success (if we get fertilization) if we have frosties left over from this cycle. The santa hats are on all my Emoticons...Not sure why you're only seeing them on some?? Strange...They put them there a day or two after we had the day that we were down...Merry Christmas Chickie!!

As for me...Af is nearly come and gone...Second day of BCPs...Had a horrible headache this morning after taking it. Didn't have it when I woke-up, so pretty sure the pill is what caused it. Got my meds in the mail today. Holy You-Know-What! There are a ton more than last time...I've got three injectibles that I'll be taking most of the time, and then there's the trigger shots (yes that was plural...I'm taking a double dose cause of the maturation level of my last "harvest")...I'm going to be a moody witch! My poor dh...On the other hand, all he has to do is show up and have a little fun one day, so I think that's probably his contribution to the suffering I'll be going through during the treatment... Poor guy is sick right now...It started yesterday and he sounds really bad tonight...Without trying to sound insensitive, I hope I don't catch it...I usually don't, but with all the year end stress at work, and the stress about the upcoming treatment, you just never know...I still need to look into acupuncture!! Darn it...I keep meaning to go online to see what my insurance covers...I'll do that when I'm done posting.

You ladies have a Fab-U-Lous evening, Friday, weekend, holiday, and Christmas!! I'll be around, I'm sure, but just in case any of you aren't able to get back with the hustle and bustle of the season. Take care my dear friends...

Later Gators!!

[sat14]

Hi all,
well, I had a failed beta yesterday and I am beside myself. I was just wondering if I could join you all for the feb cycle buddies? An Souris- Maldives are amazing. My hubby and I were going to go in Nov, but we chose to do IVF instead. He is from the Philippines, so if we don't get pregnant by Feb, we are going to go to see his family and maybe stop off to the Maldives for a little honeymoon ourselves. We eloped last year so we did not have a honeymoon either. You will love it! Our friends stayed at the Four Seasons and it just looked like the most beautiful place on earth(besides New Zealand, which I personally love!). Anyway ladies, I am depressed and not getting out of bed today. Christmas is going to be a bummer. Got AF on my way home from my beta yesterday. That killed me. I drove 2 hours alone to get the darned beta and on my drive back I had to stop to use the loo and there she was, dear old AF... I thought I said goodbye to the last of those darn tampons! Ok, well sticky, icky, wicky baby dust to all of us again!!!!!!!! Hugs, Susan

[ajdecker]

Charity,
Gosh, I can't believe you are so close! How cool is that. I'm 36 and my hubby is 33. Are you guys close in age? That would be great to meet. Its been so foggy here lately. Maybe the weather will be better after the holidays. Well, with the Clomid. See I am going to a different doctor now than I did when I did the IUI. My new doc does have all the records though. So you did overstimulate when you were on Clomid? What were the symptoms? I am cocerned about it. The first doctor I went to didn't say a whole lot about anything, so I didn't have any idea what to expect with the med. When I started getting these shooting pains in my ovaries, I called the nurse. Pain was enough to make me double over, but then it would pass in a minute or so. She said, "oh yea, that will happen. Its just a cyst, nothing to worry about." I think it would have been a little less scary if I knew that could happen, but what can you do, ya know? So I guess I'm wondering if that was a cyst bursting, or overstimulation? I'm confused. I don't know if that's something that I need to keep an eye on or not, so it would help me if you told me what symptoms you had. I know what to watch for then. In answer to your question, no, this is not for the whole IVF cycle, its just a test basically to see how well I react to the med. Then nurse said that that he will then come up with my protocol based on those results.

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!! Love and hugs to all,
Julie

[Charity]

[Charity]

Susan (Sat14)...I'm sorry to hear about your BFN...That totally sucks the big one! I have such a way with words, don't I? I see that you had rescue ISCI on this last cycle...I'm not sure if this will help, but my RE told me that he won't even do rescue ICSI anymore. He's never seen where a live birth has resulted in his experience. He indicated to me that the eggs chemically change when placed in the same dish with the sperm, and whatever happens prevents them from developing normally once ICSI is performed. BUT!! You now know that ICSI is the route you'll need to go in the next round, so you are having a great new beginning. I (amongst a few other ladies) have learned that the first round of IVF is almost an experiment. The docs never know what all the variables are going to be with your body and dh's sperm, until they do one round. Not comforting at the moment, but when you get a little time between you and the BFN, I think you'll see that there is a huge light at the end of the tunnel. You made it through every step of the process!! That's an accomplishment, and you've learned that ICSI is the route to go next time, so you're really in a great position right now. I know it doesn't feel like it, but you've come a long way baby! You take care of yourself, and stay under those covers until you feel like coming out. Just don't let that mean ol' BFN get the best of you. That baby is going to come this year and I'm sure it wants its mommy to enjoy her last Christmas as a free-bird...Next year you'll be busy with baby's first Chrimbo, so this one is just a practice run. You take care, dear...

Julie (ajdecker)...Too weird! I'm 35 and dh is 32! We're both just one year younger than you and your dh...Talk about strange...I've only met a few ladies on here that have a dh younger than them, so kinda nice to know there's another cradle-robber around... Starting to feel a little perverted. Is your dh as bad as mine when it comes to the whole age thing? Mine loves to say to me that he's going to "trade me in for a younger model" when I start to have aches and pains...He's only trying to be cute, but he's going to say it on the wrong day one of these times. Then, he better watch out... We'll have to hook-up when everyone has time...On the subject of overstimulating. I didn't actually get OHSS, but I did suffer from two cysts, super high progesterone levels (second and third trimester levels), very thin endometrial lining (4 mm on cd12), and nearly non-existent cervical mucous as a result of the lovely clomid...That was just on 25 mgs (half a tab)!! I didn't get the stabbing that went away, like you described. Mine were more of a growing ache until ovulation. Then, I would be constipated (TMI) for the next two weeks due to the high progesterone levels...I was on it for 8 cycles with a few breaks in there, but the last cycle was an IUI, so we had an ultrasound done on cd12. That's when I found out about what it was doing with my endometrial lining, so that's when we opted not to do that again. Anyway, the dh's sperm washing at the clinic I was at was poorly done, so his quality decreased, and the IUI failed. That's when we went to an RE and he said we could continue with the IUIs using their washing system, and potentially have success, or go to IVF. We opted with my age and my IF insurance cap not to waste any more time. So, that's how I came to be where I am today...Yeah! ) I did stimulate well to Follistim on my first cycle, but we had other issues that are still unanswered, so not sure if my egg quality due to protocol was poor. Basically, they collected 15 eggs, but only 6 were mature. That's pretty bad considering there were 15 available. This time, they're giving me a huge dose and a different protocol that doesn't include the down-regging (suppression of the pituitary gland) as my RE thinks that may have been an issue when it came time for the eggs to mature. There is a complicated and scientific explanation that I could give, but basically when you stop the lupron (suppression) most women's pituitary kicks right back in. Some don't kick right back in, and so he's not going to block the pituitary directly in the same way...This will hopefully allow my hormones to kick right in when they're supposed to...Wish me luck...Anyway, my point was that I didn't do too bad on these stims, as I did with the Clomid. They act in slightly different ways. If your body's anything like mine, maybe you'll have a similar experience and be just fine with these stims...With the super-ovulation they're doing this time, I am at higher risk for OHSS, so they're really going to have me keep a close eye on my abdominal measurement, and make sure I consume a lot of water and they recommended Gatorade. There are some that would argue with Gatorade, but I did fine the first round with it, so don't plan on changing for the second round. Anyway, thought I would give you some feedback on my experience...I've got to get back to work, but it was great talking to you and it would be great if we could meet one day...You'll have to tell me about dh's interests...Wouldn't it be a hoot if they were alike...

Sorry so long ladies...