This is really long.... sorry! It was 6 years after all LOL!
This is my success story with TTC our first beautiful and much wanted bambino!
DH and I decided to start trying for a family in December 2003. I took my last pill on the 28th. A year passed and nothing had happened. We were still back in Scotland at this point so I went to my GP and got a referral for a women’s clinic. I got some bloods done, but was basically told “you’re young (was 24 at the time), come back in a year if it hasn’t happened”. :o
We still hadn’t fallen pregnant by the next year but by this point had decided to move to Australia. March 2006 we sold our house, car and said goodbye to our families and off we went. Brisbane welcomed us!!
We kept “trying” but I was getting really bad painful and heavy periods. So much so, that in January 2007 I ended up taking myself to emergency one day when at work because I thought I was having a miscarriage (I wasn’t) because the bleeding was so bad and the pain so unbearable. The Dr in charge that day saw me and was a bit shocked at what I was enduring each month. I was going through a maxi pad in half an hour. He gave me the name of a good gyno so I went to see her, who then referred me to the public hospital for some investigations.
It was a months wait and when we finally got to see a Dr he told me that he had a space in 2 weeks for a lap, hysteroscopy and HSG. Excellent, finally someone who was listening to me. He told me that he suspected I had endo.
I got those investigations done, and when I was coming round in recovery, was told by this stupid registrar who I’d never even met before that they found extensive endo inside and outside of my uterus and round my bowel - which explains the pains I was getting in that area too! I also had very blocked and damaged tubes. They were basically full of toxic fluid so any pregnancy I would have would more than likely miscarry because of the toxicity of the fluid. She told me that our only option would be IVF and then walked away from the bed. I’d just come round, had a really sore throat from the tube and was fuzzy from the anaesthetic. A nurse came and gave me a hug as I was crying so hard. For weeks after that I felt like someone had died.
Anyway........
My Dr then gave me another appointment for corrective surgery on the endo. He told me that in fact, after the corrective surgery, if we wanted we could try naturally for 6 months and then go see him if nothing happened.
We did this. I had the surgery in April 2008. But come september we still hadn’t fallen pregnant so he sent me for another HSG. This has to be the worst thing I have ever been through in my entire life and sorry to anyone who hasn’t had one and is going to have one but it was the sorest thing ever - but this was because one of my tubes had blocked up again. The Dr gave me 50mg pethidine and it turns out that this was too much - he’d overdosed me!! Which at the time was awesome because it meant that the pain went away pretty quickly but coming round from that was pretty gross. I vomited a lot. Ah well.
We were told by the nice nurse that we had an increased chance of falling pregnant after that procedure. We both looked at each other and just raised our eyebrows. We’d been told this so many times before. Wotevz! :wall:
But, we thought “let’s see what happens”. That next month was a crazy one. We had a lot on at work (both of us) and our social life had taken a hit too - we had a huge party at ours one night and a few other work functions. I was basically hammered for the whole month of October 2008!
I waited for my period to come, and it never did. I was 5 days late when I did an HPT and it came up positive straight away!!!!!!! OMG, my very first BFP! I had put the lateness of my period down to being so busy at work (we were in the middle of a very stressful accreditation process).
I rang my FS and he was very pleased for us, and sent me out some blood forms to get blood work done. We had figured out that I was 5w1d. This was a thursday. Saturday I bought another HPT as the nausea and breast tenderness had gone. The line was very very faint. I was gutted and not sure what to do. I told myself I’d ring my FS on monday and see what he thought. But the next day I started bleeding so we went to ED and they confirmed miscarriage (I was 5w4d). We were utterly devastated. They rang my FS from ED and he was really lovely, he spoke to me on the phone and gave me an appointment to see him later in the week when I was feeling better (my FS is such a lovely man - doing this on a sunday for us!!) I took 3 days off work and DH and I just looked after each other.
Our appointment with our FS was really good. He told us that he wanted us to wait 3 cycles and then we could try an IUI - a sort of intro to IVF. We agreed this would be a good idea - we were both pretty fragile from the miscarriage.
3 months came and went though, no other natural pregnancy. But our permanent residency had just come through and we needed to leave Australia to get our residency sorted. So we went to NZ for a couple of weeks for one last blow out holiday before we got down to some serious baby making business.
On return to Australia I had made myself an acupuncture appointment (my cycles were all over the place since my miscarriage) so I went to that and started my acupuncture sessions which continued all through the IVF process. We did an IUI that month (Feb 2009) but it didn’t work. We then had family come over, and a few other things got in the way of another IUI cycle. But in May we just decided that we were ready for IVF. IUI wasn’t the way forward for us So basically the time from my endo diagnosis to the day we decided to do IVF was 2 years. It took us that long to get our heads around it.
We chatted to our FS and he agreed IVF was the best decision. So we started our long down regulation cycle on the 4th June - 3 weeks of OCP, synarel and then puregon 150iu. My first follicle scan showed 9 follies in each ovary - my FS was a bit worried that he’d overstimulated me. But my bloods were perfect so he scheduled my EPU for monday 13th July 2009. We got 13 eggs, 9 fertilised, 4 were frozen on day 4 because they were such good quality and the rest were taken to blast stage. One strong little blastocyst was transferred on Saturday 18th July 2009 adn the rest frozen. The 2ww nearly killed me though. I hated every minute of it. My whole IVF cycle had been a breeze compared to the torture I put myself through in those two weeks. I was on crinone and had every symptom under the sun - and of course we all know that the side effects of crinone are pregnancy symptoms!! AARRGGHHH!
My FS wanted me to wait 2 weeks post transfer till I tested but since that was a saturday I told myself I’d test on the friday morning and go get bloods done after I tested. I deliberately didn’t have any HPTs in the house but went out on the thursday night and bought a FRER. I emailed DH at work to let him know that I’d bought them and he told me to go and do one there and then. So I did and the strongest line came up straight away - at 6pm that night! OMG! I went to my clinic the next day and got some bloods done and they were 796 at 4w3d. Pretty good! I continued my acupuncture sessions all the way through my pregnancy to keep me calm. I was super anxious through the whole pregnancy and not once did I ever take for granted that I would be taking home a baby. How could I after 6 years of nothing?????
Anyway, 8 months later my gorgeous little cherub made her way into the world via (semi)elective c-section weighing a very respectable 8lb 10oz!! Huge for my little frame! She was being very naughty and was transverse, hence the c-section.
I pinch myself every single day and know how very lucky I am that after 6 years and 4 months, we finally have our little bundle.
Thanks for reading!!
Sue xxxx
