So what next?

So we've been going through this process for 8 months and suddenly we find that it could all have been for nothing.  We have five embryos, which isn't a huge amount at the best of times, and they need to be implanted within the next day or so.  But it looks like they are not going to survive for long if there is something wrong internally.

The advice from the doctors was that we could go ahead with the embryo transfer or delay and have further investigations before the transfer.  But the implication of the second choice was that our five delicate embryos would have to be frozen which would not only cost yet more money but would also give them even less chance of survival.  So, transfer them now and they may not survive because of whatever is going on with the bleeding, or transfer them later and they may not survive either the defrosting or the later transfer.

The odds of the second choice seemed slightly better so that's what we chose.  The embryos were frozen immediately and I was booked in for an hysteroscopy and a polypectomy.  Without wanting to sound like I'm obsessed by money, clearly one of the big things about fertility treatment of any kind, is that it is costly and these additional procedures were not included in the basic cost  - an extra £1500 including the cost of a private anaesthetist.  And this wasn't the only cost - the anaesthetist managed to slip while putting his mask on my face and cut my nose enough to leave a cut for weeks and a scar for months.  Ho hum!

In any event, any polyps were removed and nothing more untoward was discovered so we were ready to start taking drugs again!  First of all, we had to wait a couple of months in order to let my body recover from all the drugs it had before the egg collection and for the hormones to re-stabilise (before de-stabilising them again!).  Then I had to start the process of 10 days of tablets, then 7 days of nasal sprays (4 times a day), then a scan, then oestrogen patches for 2-3 weeks.

The final stage of preparation for the embryos transfer was the really good one!  Because the embryos had been frozen, I needed four days of intramuscular injections into my backside - up to that point, one of the most painful things I'd ever had to go through!  It involved poor Muddled Hubby mixing up the drug (Menogon) into a solvent with a large needle, then swapping over to a slightly (but not much!) smaller needle.  Then he had to carefully pick a space on the top quartile of my buttocks (very specific that!) then push the needle in fully at 90 degrees.  Then he had to withdraw slightly to check that there was a clear bubble - and if there wasn't, he had to withdraw and try again (ouch!) with a new needle.  Finally, he had to inject the drugs - in itself, hugely painful.  They say fertility treatment can test a marriage and this has to have been one of the worst times - knowing that every night, your husband is going to cause you excruciating physical pain!

And so we had made it to the embryo transfer day.  In itself, nothing was guaranteed - all of the embryos could have perished in the defrosting even after all the preparation, drugs and the final day of anal suppositories and having a full bladder for the whole day!  In the event, two of our little embryos survived and both were transferred - and one of the joys of this whole procedure was that we actually have a scan photo of the moment of conception!  Now not many people can say that, can they!

Once upon a time.....

.... all that motivated me was to do well at work and to have fun out of work.  But as soon as we started trying to have children, it became my sole obsession.  By nature I'm a planner and organiser and I've never been great at handing over control to someone else.  And there's no greater loss of control than when you realise that you can't just click your fingers and get pregnant (and before anyone says it, I do know that there's more to getting pregnant naturally than clicking my fingers so that wasn't the problem!).

And up to this point, I was someone for whom failure was not an option - at least not often.  Everything had always come easily to me with little effort and, although I had a successful and exciting career, I had never really tried too hard.

So I had now "failed" 3 times at the IUI 'test'.  I had pumped myself full of drugs to stimulate the ovaries and had undergone countless scans - including, on one occasion, walking from one side of London to the other to get from work to hospital for a scan because there was no public transport due to the 7/7 bombings.  And poor Muddled Hubby had gone through the indignity of producing a sample for numerous tests and for the 3 IUI attempts.

Did we want to continue with more treatment?  Was it worth the money, emotional stress and physical 'abuse'?  The answer fro me - the eternal optimist - was definitely yes.  And for Muddled Hubby - the slight pessimist - was "whatever makes you happy".

So 6 months after our first appointment, we were back at the hospital for another consultation.  The inevitable next step was to start IVF.  If we thought the drug regime was bad for IUI, for IVF it was a nightmare - although for me, the nightmare was really the number of drugs we had to take and the schedule for doing so.  At least I wasn't like a normally very calm friend of mine who had extreme mood swings when taking her IVF drugs and broke her hand punching her husband for some perceived slight!

We had 11 days of tablets, nasal sprays four times a day, scans everyday for 3 days, self-injections in the tummy every day and then more nasal spray.  Then I had blood tests and scans every other days plus a chromosomal test for abnormalities and Muddled Hubby had a semen culture test.

In amongst all of this, the doctors did a dummy run for the embryo transfer to see how it should be done by mapping out the route they would take.  I felt like I had the most interfered with and well-known ovaries and uterus in the world!

Into the 2nd month of the drug regime, I had been noticing ongoing bleeding which was a bit worrying but which I put down to all the drugs I was taking.  The doctor doing our scan was also fairly dismissive so we tried to stop worrying about it.  And so it came to the final injection, 36 hours before the egg collection.  And then the big day itself.

Egg collection is done under light sedation but that didn't stop me hearing the consultant during the procedure telling his colleagues that there was bleeding and that this wasn't normal.  Even sedated, I was outraged and started telling him that we'd been saying this for weeks and had been told that everything was OK.  I think at that point, the anaesthetist gave me more drugs to knock me out completely!  In any event, they managed to collect around 10 eggs which were fertilised to create 5 embryos.  And I had yet another scan to determine the cause of the bleeding and to decide on next steps.

Looking back, I can't believe that we handled all this so calmly and patiently - we didn't argue massively or have huge emotional moments.  We continued going to work everyday - both of us in stressful and busy jobs (and I had only recently been promoted so was learning a new job too).  But we put the rest of life pretty much on hold in the interests of healthy living and relaxation.  And we certainly weren't going to let all this hard work go to waste at such a late stage.

What price children?

Sometimes infertility cannot be explained and that was the case for us.  For someone who likes to be in control, not having the answer to such a basic question is a nightmare.  When we first got married, we optimistically started trying for children straightaway and, although both of us would probably be defined by the medical profession as geriatric parents, neither of us imagined there would be a problem - well you don't, do you?  But months dragged on and on, failed tests mounted up, and we didn't even have any close calls.

As usual, I was in a rush for answers, as well as for children, but the NHS doesn't like to start doing tests until you've been trying for a while.  So we had some basic tests done privately - providing no answers - then some more done on the NHS - again no answers and then started looked for infertility specialists.  We always knew that tests and preparation would take months, months that we didn't feel we had because of age (and impatience) so we thought our only option was to start off the down the private treatment route.

For the first time, I felt in control of the process because I was able to research success rates, and pick one of the best.  Of course, this feeling of control didn't last long - firstly there was the long wait for the initial consultation - success leads to waiting lists even at private clinics; then the consultant wanted to order more and more tests, so my vision of pregnancy within short period went out of the window again!  One expensive test after another provided no answer until we had to accept that there were no answers - sometimes infertility cannot be explained.

Reading this back, I realise that it seems to all be about the cost of the treatment, which seems rather cold-hearted!  But very few people, particularly those with public sector salaries and London mortgages, can find a spare £1,000 which is what this was already costing us, before we even started any treatment.  So the answer to my title question is - you can't put a price on children, but the cost to us, both financial and emotional was huge.

So we had no answers, but more big questions - the next of which was which treatment to opt for - go head first into the invasive and costly IVF or start with something less invasive but with lower success rates like IUI.  Head, heart and wallet clashed over this one but, given that there was no real reason why we shouldn't get pregnant naturally, the head and wallet won and we started with the first course of IUI.  The good thing about IUI is that it is quite quick - no lengthy preparation with drug regimes over a month or more before the actual treatment, and no long wait for the next attempt if the first one doesn't work.

Which it didn't for us...

Neither did the next one...  

Or the next one....

I remember each month with the testing kit on the prescribed day.  And each disappointment as we tried to put a brave face on it.  Looking back, we were really extraordinarily optimistic in the face of ongoing failure - we never stopped believing that one day, the test would be positive.  But after 3 attempts, and now nearly 6 months since deciding to have some kind of treatment, we needed a bit of a breather.  A long weekend in a boutique hotel; walking in the countryside; eating nice food and drinking nice wine - lovely!

Blogging virgin

This is for no-one but me.  But if you read it, I hope you find something interesting!  What am I going to write about?  I'm not totally sure, but I've been meaning, for a while, to write about my experiences of IVF, having very premature babies, and the joys (?) of bringing up young twins.  So that's almost 5 years to cover for a start and then we'll see.  Hopefully by writing with the benefit of some hindsight, I can edit the depressing or stressful bits - not trying to edit them out of history but I'd like my children to read this when they are older and not to think that having them was a really difficult and horrible experience.  Four and half years on, I can say with certainty that it was all worth it so my memories of earlier times should reflect that hindsight.

But that's all I have time for now.  The twins have a fancy dress party to go to (toddler birthday parties - a possible future subject!) and I have a girls' weekend with my 6 school friends (a bunch of 40 year olds on the town - scary!).  Mostly I'll be posting on a Tuesday which is my day off from work and from childcare.  See you then.

MM