Category: My Tips

Full Circle

Posted on by Egg Girl

Round 19

Over the past few months there have been a few rounds I have started and cancelled for one reason or another, in fact looking back the last time I got any eggs at all was in February this year. I have been trying for months now just to use this last round from the package I purchased with my U.K. Clinic and things haven’t worked for one reason or another. I had almost given up hope that they would to be honest. I knew as I got older it would get harder and it was hard when I started so I though, having had 6 months with no success, that that was it….. it was time for me to walk away and just be happy with the 15 eggs I have already frozen and forget the last round I had paid for with my U.K. Clinic.

This round I was thinking would be my last, my body is tired and I’m ready to start living not living on eggs shells. So I went into this round with an open mind but in all honesty not being too hopeful.

5 days into stimulation and things weren’t looking great. Dr Greg is away so I have had to see another doctor in the UAE. She has been lovely but seeing a new doctor who doesn’t know me is always hard when you are doing something like this.

7 days into stimulation I went back to see the doctor not hugely hopeful that I would be making the trip to the U.K. For any collection this time and things were looking up. With three follicles in the double digits the doctor believed things were happening and was hopeful. A holiday in the UAE making it a 3 day weekend meant that flying to the U.K. For a scam and bloods on the Friday was important if we were going to get the collection date right, so rather than having a weekend of yoga and relaxation I’m sitting at the airport U.K. bound for hopefully the last time for this reason. I have said it before but I really am ready for this chapter to be over.

Thr timing of my trip couldn’t be better, because today my older sister had her third baby, a healthy little girl who I can’t wait to meet tomorrow when I arrive, just one day old. The timing of this trips feels like I have literally come full circle, I started this journey 18 months ago, and now here I am at round 19 off to the UK to meet my new niece hopeful so that I to will one day have this amazing amazing experience that my sister is having today of welcoming a new little person she has created into this big wide world. I think whatever happens at the end of this round I will beable to say I have done all that I can to give myself as much chance as possible and that, I think, is all that I can ask of myself.

I don’t know what the next few days will hold for me but I am hopeful that within the next week I will be in a position to close the egg freezing chapter of my fertility journey . Then I need to decide if I am going to keep waiting for Mr Right or try and go it alone with a sperm donor.  I think it’s time for the next chapter, this one has taken a lot longer than expected.

One step in front of the other

Posted on by Egg Girl

Round 17

I think i may have lost count as to what round this actually is.  The last few rounds I have started and then shortly after starting stimulation i have had to cancel the round because it hasn’t been working so i’m not sure if they count as rounds or not.  When i started this process i never in a million years thought i’d get to this number of rounds.  Mind you i never though i’d get into double digits of eggs being frozen either so i guess i should be looking at that positive rather than the number of rounds i have started.

Today is Wednesday and i am 4 days into stimulation of this round.  I am having my second scan tomorrow to see if anything has started to happening.  I am so hoping that this round is going to be a good one.  I really do just want this to be my last round of this hard and emotionally draining process.  I have time when i don’t think about it and realise that it has actually just become a part of my life, the injecting, the visiting Dr Greg, the booking a last minute flight back to the UK and the being put out while a handful of doctors and nurses pass a needle through the top of the vagina under ultrasound guidance to get to the ovary and follicles in the hope to find an egg that they can detach from the follicle wall and suck out of the ovary.  Thinking about it like this makes the whole thing slightly overwhelming and depressing, so i try not to think about it too much and focus on the ‘when i am done’ part of the process or the ‘when i reach 20’ part of the process.  Will this ever come?  As each round goes by and i get one moth old i start to wonder if i am being unrealistic about the possibility that i will ever becoming a mother to a biological child.  I have been so positive for so long and I guess i am becoming drained and reality is starting to set in.

The other thing that i am seriously thinking about is the reality of using these eggs and trying to get pregnant alone.  This is something I never wanted to do but as the biological clock ticks on I think it is something that is becoming more of a reality and something I need to get my head around in the next few months.

I am trying to take one step at a time, focus just on this round and getting through it and then maybe regrouping for a few months, getting my spirits back up, my weight back down and my head screwed back on without these horrid hormones in my body so that i am brave enough to think about next steps for me and come to terms with the possibility and probability of being a single mum.

At work today someone told me about a colleague of ours who is pregnant with her third child and was having a hard pregnancy and had to inject herself during her pregnancy as she has developed gestational diabetes.  As awful as that is, i couldn’t help but think about my last round where i had 38 injections in 6 days and i had done that all by myself, with no one to tell, no one to talk to and no one to care.  It is when you stop and think about it that it becomes a little too overwhelming.  I would do anything to have someone by my side during this, someone to be ‘my person’ and pick me up when i am a little down, which isn’t often but there are times that being strong and being alone just gets a little too much and right now seems to be one of those times.

I’m even being so irrational that i actually think i am mad at the father of a possible future child and/or husband that i haven’t even met yet for not having met me and for letting me do this alone.  I realise that is a totally ridiculous irrational thought and anyone NOT being pumped with hormones would know this but these thoughts still go through my head on days like today when i feel defeated and alone on this journey.

I just need to keep telling myself not to think too much, to keep putting one step in front of the other, so as i tell myself this i just keep breathing and know that everything will work out just as it is supposed to.  With this thought i hope and pray that the end of at least the first part of my journey, the egg freezing part is soon coming to an end.

 

That Happy, Sad, Guilt Feeling

Posted on by Egg Girl

Yesterday my older sister told me she was pregnant with her third child. Those of you who have read my blog and followed my journey will know and hopefully understand that this news wasn’t easy for me to hear, and I feel exceptionally selfish admitting that.

It goes without saying that I am thrilled for my sister and her family about this exciting news, but at the same time it just further shines a spotlight on my personal situation. I know how difficult it must have been for her to tell me her exciting news, news that to be honest….. I had already figured out. Last time I was home she hadn’t been drinking, was a little bit moody which is very out of character and was exceptionally sick in a way I have only ever seen her been before and that was when she was pregnant the first time around, so I knew that it was likely she was pregnant. maybe that’s why I called her to have a chat, to give her the opportunity to tell me what I had already figured out. I didn’t want it to be difficult for her to tell me something she was obviously so happy about and I didn’t want to find out another way. How would I be a good sister to her if I didn’t share in her joy and be there for her like she has been there for me particularly over the past few years as I have been on this egg freezing journey?

I think today as I think about her news what I feel most sad about is that she didn’t feel she could tell me, that she had to protect me from the hurt. She told me over the past 18 months she had had two miscarriages and she had to experience the pain of that without the support of me, her sister and her friend. That breaks my heart. I haven’t been a good sister or friend to her and feel exceptionally selfish for that.  There will always be news from friends and family all around that relates to preganancy or having a child and if I never end up having children this topic will likely always be hard for me personally to digest, not because I am not thrilled for them but because it just shines a light on my own personal sorrow. I hope over time It will have less of an impact of sadness on me and be more of a joyous occasion and one that I personally come to terms with. One thing I do know however is that I never don’t want to be a good friend of hear about this exciting news from anyone I care about, even if it is painful for me to personally digest.

Maybe the journey I am on was sent to humble me, to show me I’m not invinceable and that sometimes we can’t always have what we want.

Injection Expert!

Posted on by Egg Girl

Round 13

With 6 injections alone today and more than 38 over the past 16 days it’s no wonder my stomach looks like it’s taken a beating! I have so many bruises around my belly button that it was hard to find a bruise-less space for the final three trigger shots!  It’s funny as I look back 19 months ago when I started on this journey and remember mixing and administering my first injection and how long it took and how worried I was about if I was going to beable to inject myself! I really have come a long way!

This round, round 13 (unlucky for some, but hopefully NOT for me. 😜) I have tried a slightly different and I’m told somewhat ‘ground breaking’ protocol. I have introduced the growth hormone ‘saizen’ into my daily ritual, infact I started these injections 3 days prior to the start of my period and have continued with injecting it daily throughout this round.  I am told there has been evidence that the use of growth hormone helps slightly in the encouragement of more follicles to grow and also in the quality of the eggs that grow. At this point I will try almost anything to complete my last two rounds and get as many eggs frozen as possible. We shall see but I’m hopeful that it will help.

I’m sitting at the airport awaiting to board yet another flight to the U.K. for my collection which is scheduled for the day after tomorrow (Friday morning). No more injections for this round. Now I need to just hope and pray that I haven’t ovulated before collection and that there are good eggs to collect, I think at best it will be three which I would be really happy with.

This trip couldn’t actually have come at a better time as I found out 2 days ago that I’m loosing my job. I am still waiting to find out when, next month or later this year and I won’t go into details but it hasn’t been the best of weeks in my professional career so I couldn’t be happier to leave the UAE for a few days and go home and get some family love. It’s been a very tough and lonely week, couple that with all the hormones I’ve been shooting into my body’s and there is no place like home even if it is destined to be freezing cold!

As I look forward with optimism I think if I could just have two more good rounds and get the number of eggs I have frozen up to ideally 20, then I could start the next chapter of my life wherever that may be and whatever that will be doing, with excitement and time and I think it will afford me a lot more options as to what’s next, buts I’ll try not to get ahead of myself. At the moment as with every other past round, let’s take it one day at a time and just hope for the very best. I think I’m due a bit of a break and some good luck.  Here’s hoping my expertise in injecting myself pays off this round. 😀

The only egg this Christmas is in my eggnog!

Posted on by Egg Girl

Round 12

Round 12 ended in the only eggs i’ll be seeing this Christmas being in my eggnog!  Sadly by the time collection was scheduled i had already ovulated.  I won’t go to much into the ins and outs of it all, but only to say that I believe due to a lack of continuity in care from my UK clinic and seeing two different UK doctors during this round neither of which really knew me, i ended up being in a position that I wasn’t able to see if i would have collected an egg this round.

I believe i should have been put on two cetrotide’s and monitored daily when my follicle was 15mm (Friday 16 December) but instead the doctor said ‘come back Monday’.  That was three days of not being scanned and only being on one cetrotide which i did question but was told ‘it’s fine, we will scan you again on Monday’.  After a scan and bloods on Monday it was evident that i had already started ovulating and thus the only option was a collection just 12 hours later on the Tuesday.  It was unclear from the doctor if they had ever collected mature eggs from a patient who had only had the ‘trigger shot’ in their system for 12 hours and not the usual 34-36 hours but having taken stimulation injections for 16 days i wanted to at least try and collect the one egg.

On collection day (Tuesday 20 December) i asked to be scanned prior to being put out for collection and the scan showed that i had already ovulated.  This was obviously devastating and being so close to Christmas made it even harder to digest.  All i really wanted this Christmas was to collect an egg or two but it appears that was not to be this year and so i went into the festive season with a fake smile on my face so i could just make it through.  Thankfully my sister was there to pick me up off the floor and take me for a large glass of mulled wine!

I have decided to take a little time off, let my body have a bit of a break over New Year and just see what 2017 has in store for me.  I still have two rounds of egg freezing paid for which I intend on doing but maybe after a month or two break.  Rebuild my positive outlook and got back into my exercise regime to loose some of the egg freezing and xmas pounds i seem to have put on!

So as I go into a new year with the hope that i still have some eggs left to collect and that I might be able to get another 5 eggs to add to the 12 already collected.  I hope 2017 will be the final step in my egg freezing journey for a while.

Treading on Eggshells

Posted on by Egg Girl

Round 12

It’s day 9 of stimulation and things aren’t looking that great.  I keep looking back at previous rounds to see if maybe there is a pattern occurring but it seems that every round is so different.  Today my scan showed 1 growing follicle on the left ovary and 2 small follicles on the right that don’t seem to have grown much in the past 9 days.  I think the doctors both here and in the UK are thinking this round is a ‘no go’ but I am so desperately hoping that things will improve over the next few days.

I’m literally treading on eggshells trying to do whatever it is I should do to make these follicles grow, sadly i haven’t figured out what that is yet, even after 12 rounds!  You would have thought by now I would have some sort of routine or know what to expect but….. nope, still no idea how to get these suckers to grow!

This round I have had serious headaches, almost migraine like that have knocked me down and out.  This only happened in one previous cycle and I have no idea if that is a good or bad things in terms of showing that things are working.  I have given up on trying to read the future and predict what might happen each round.  I think i just have to let go and believe that there is a plan.  Let someone bigger than me (maybe Santa) be in control of this one.

All I want for Christmas is some eggs!

Posted on by Egg Girl

It is 16 days before Christmas and everyone seems to be asking “what do you want for Christmas?”

Is it inappropriate to answer “this year, all I really want is some good eggs, have them frozen and be one step closer to this egg freezing journey being over?”….. I realize it probably is inappropriate to answer this way, so I opt for the politically correct answer, the answer that doesn’t raise eyebrows and makes it easier for people to digest which is “i’d love a pair of pjs I saw in the White Company or a book I have been recommended”.  These are all things I really do want, but I’d trade every Christmas present in this year for some good frozen eggs! It’s funny how sometimes the things we want the most are the things that other people can’t give us despite knowing how much they might want to.

I know that I have friends and family who would move heaven and earth to give me good eggs for Christmas if they could, but sadly they can’t so I just have to hope and pray that Santa wants that for me this Christmas. I think I’ve been pretty good this year!

Round 12 is underway

I’m into round 12 of this journey which I can’t actually believe. It is day 6 of stimulation and to date nothing has really started to happen. There are three small follicles showing, two on my right ovary and one on my left but my first blood test and scan yesterday showed little to no change from the day 1 scan. Dr Gregg has changed my medication slightly from 225 Gonal F daily to 225 of Menopur in the hope this will help get things going and all I can do is wait now and see if anything happens over the next few days. I am back to see him again on Monday for a blood test and scan to see if this round is going to work.

I know the best thing I can do is sleep as much as possible and get on with my life as normal, but god it’s so hard not to worry and hope and wonder. I am literally wishing the next few days away so I am closer to this being over. Again I know this is absolutely the worst possible thing to do but wishing days and weeks away seems to have become my life this past year. Right now it’s “once I get these two last rounds done, then I can start focusing on all the other things I have put on hold in my life”.  I hate that I seem to be wishing days of my life away, when so many people out there  are wishing so badly for just a few more days of their life.

Bring on 2017

I think 2017 is going to need to start with some serious soul searching and maybe some adjustments to how I’ve been viewing and living my life, so I can stop wishing my life away and start actually living it .

In the meantime I’ll be hoping and praying that this year my Christmas wish comes true.

Eggceeding Eggspectations

Posted on by Egg Girl

Round 10

This could quite possibly be the first time on my egg freezing journey where things have gone better than expected!  There are times when you think if all goes really well then you may mange to get one egg from each follicle visible during the scans in the lead up to collection and if things continue to go really really well then each egg will be mature and can be frozen. Although it is difficult to avoid I have really tried not to even allow myself to think about how things ‘going well’ might look like, so scared of that soul destroying devastation that I know only too well when follicles are empty or eggs aren’t mature.

Today for the first time on my journey things have gone even better than I could ever have expected! Maybe it has something to do with me continually trying to manage my expectations throughout the process, or maybe it was just time for me to have some good news!

Collection time

Collection was this morning (14 days after stimulation had started), this was the longest period of stimulation I have had and clearly that seemed to be a good things as results were better than expected.

Throughout stimulation there has been two follicles visible one on my left ovary and one on my right then about 6 days into stimulation another follicle popped up on my right ovary but it was small and thus always playing catch up.  I had a scan when I reach the UK on Friday 7 October and there seemed to be only two follicles visible one which was 18mm and one which was 16mm so going into today’s collection I had thought that the best case scenario would be to collect two mature eggs that could be frozen.

I had a scan just before the anaesthesiologist put me out (a request I always have just to make sure I have not already ovulated and thus are put out for no reason) and eventually after a look of searching Dr. Collection (my UK doctor) managed to see the two follicles, so again I was just hoping that at absolute best these two follicles might contain eggs, be mature and could be frozen.

Dream or reality?

So coming round in the recovery room to be told they had collected three eggs was a shock.  After 30 minutes I actually thought that maybe I had dreamt that so asked the nurse again, ‘did you say you collected three?’ and the answer was yes.

I couldn’t be fully happy yet because the next part, the part that usually takes 4-5 hours to see if the eggs are mature and can be frozen, often leads to disappointment when you are told that the quality isn’t good or they aren’t mature and therefore they can’t be frozen.

One hour after the procedure I was allowed to leave the clinic but before I do the embryologist wanted to see me.  In the past this has not been a good sign but she had a beaming smile on her face.  She took me into a private room and told me that the three eggs they had collected were excellent quality and they were already mature and would all be frozen within the hour.  She also told me that she was going to freeze these three eggs together because when I came to use them she recommended using all of these three in one go (not that i’ve got to the ‘using’ part yet but I believe you usually use 3 or 4 at one time hence why you really need to have quite a few frozen).

Ecstatic doesn’t describe it

If you have read my blog from start to finish then I needn’t try and explain just how happy I was and still am to hear this news.  Not only do I have another three eggs frozen, but they are good quality and I have now reached my 10, no….. I have now exceeded my 10 number!  I now have 12 frozen eggs!  My sister picked me up from the clinic and I wanted to burst into tears.  This journey has been long and it has been hard and this time last year I had been told there was no hope at all.  I had had three failed rounds with no eggs and never in a million years did I think I would be a year on with 12 eggs frozen.

Am I done?

So, is that it for the freezing of the eggs for me?  Many would tell me I should be done, but as I have always been an overachiever then I am going to say not quite.

Prior to this round I purchased a three round package with my UK clinic.  They haven’t offered packages since they have changed ownership, but typically now they are offering packages of three rounds!  Before I had my collection done I decided to sign up for the three round package, this round being the first of the three, so I have two left.   Two more rounds and then that is it.  However many eggs I get during the next two rounds that will be the end for me and then I will truly be able to say I did everything I could and if nothing else I will have a minimum of 12 frozen eggs which a year ago I don’t think any doctor thought was possible, it was a good job I did!

Knowledge is Power

Posted on by Egg Girl

Round 10

One of the main reasons we all choose a certain healthcare facility is because of a particular doctor…. right? Maybe it’s their medical experience or their bedside manner or maybe its because someone has referred them to us, whatever it is we pick a doctor, we rarely a facility.

I chose my UK doctor solely because of the referral from my UAE doctor.  The facility was completely unknown to me and hadn’t been recommended by anyone.  I had noticed that my UK doctor had worked at a couple of well known places before his current facility which filled me with reassurance but ultimately my decision to go with my UK doctor came down to a decision about him and not the facility.

It is because of this that I find myself increasingly frustrated that the UK clinic I attend failed to tell me that it had been sold until a few months ago I had a problem with my billing and the sale came out in the discussion and why they still haven’t told me (although I know through my UAE doctor as he is a friend of my UK doctor) that my UK doctor is actually leaving the clinic.

Dr Who?

My collection in Round 9 was not done by my doctor. I only found this out AFTER the procedure when my doctor wasn’t around and today I visited the UK clinic for my day 11 scan expecting to see my regular doctor who was the one I had been emailing with my results while in the UAE and who I had a 10:30 appointment with and I found another doctor in his place.

The new doctor was lovely, but she wasn’t the person I chose and the person who has been working with me over the past 16 months.  The person who knows my body and how it reacts to certain medication.  She wasn’t who I had paid over 16,000 AED (£3,250) to see.

When I asked why the change I was told my doctor would definitely review my results and he would most definitely do the collection but that he was trying to take a step back from seeing patients as he was getting close to retirement stage!

Obviously if I thought that to be true I would fully understand (albeit it might have been nice having been informed formally of this rather than to stumble into it so I could make an informed decision on if I would like to stay at this clinic and see one of the new doctors or change clinics), but I have heard that my UK doctor, who was the owner of my UK clinic, has sold up and is moving to take up a position in Dubai of all places!

I understand people move on and I understand that my body is currently pulsating with a cocktail of different hormones so I am not thinking completely rationally, but I chose this facility for one reason…. the doctor and being a long standing patient of theirs it would have been nice to have been informed of his move, ahead of treatment!

Own it

I fear this lack of transparency is all too common with private healthcare facilities.  In a buy out they are so desperate to maintain a profitable business that this takes priority over being transparent and allowing a patient to make an informed decision on if they want to remain with a certain clinic or not.

This lack of transparency and harsh reality that profitability is the number one driver for clinics like these makes it evident just how important it is for you, the person that knows your own body better than anyone else, to take an active role in any medical treatment you receive.  Own it, ask questions, challenge what doesn’t feel right, understand what is happening to your body because there may come a time when you are the only person who knows your history as well as you do and this is where I am at right now.

For example:

I know that it is usually 14 days from the start of my period that collection is done.

I know that it is usually 7 days after the start of stimulation that I start to feel extremely tired and emotional.

I know that I need to take x2 cetrotides after 8 days of stimulation and I know roundly what my blood work should look like after a blood test during stimulation.

A little bit of advice

You may think that after 10 rounds of this I should know this stuff but it is amazing just how resistant my UK clinic is to share certain information with me including blood test results. I have to ask time and time again to be sent the actual results.  They will share what medication I should be taking once they see the results but never share the actual test results with me unless I ask.

My UAE clinic is different.  They are much more open to me wanting to self educate and understand the process.  I’m not sure why the UK clinic is so resistant.  Maybe most patients who only go through one or two rounds aren’t as involved or interested or maybe the clinic want to ‘own’ the process so they can control you as a patient…???? I don’t know but one piece of advise I would give to all of you out there who ever have to go through this or something similar is, you never know when you start something just how it will turn out.  I never thought when I started that I would be 16 months on and on Round 10! So take some time to understand what is going on.  This is your right and it will help you on your journey, if nothing else it will help you feel like ‘You’ve got this’…. and you have!

Double Digits

Posted on by Egg Girl

Round 10

I never thought I would be here at ‘Round 10’ to be honest, but then I never thought i’d need to freeze my eggs either!  It surprising how things work out so differently than we think they will.

I am day 6 of Round 10.  I had my initial scan on Tuesday (day 3 of my period) and there were two follicles showing. One on the left ovary and one on the right.  I have been taking the usual cocktail of medication over the past 6 days Femara twice a day, 225 Gonal F and then I started the Cetrotide (the injection to stop you ovulating) on the morning of day 5 (Saturday morning).  This time I decided to carry on doing the exercise I enjoy, trying not to put my life on hold too much as i go through another round.  I want to start feeling good about myself again and whilst I am slightly bound by the hormones i am pumping into my body each day I think it is important to do some of the other things that make me feel me.

So tomorrow I head to my clinic in the UAE for a blood test in the morning and then at lunch time I head to see Dr. Greg to have a scan and get the blood results.  Everything is crossed but my expectations are managed.  I haven’t booked a flight home yet as I am just going to wait and see how tomorrow goes.

It would be wonderful to finish this week with two more good eggs in the bank.