It feels like the time has come to resurrect the blog. Why? Because we are Waiting Again.
If someone had asked me pre-trying for a baby back in 2009 how many children I wanted I would have said three. As far back as I can remember I have always wanted three. Of course, once we hit the sub-fertility wall just one baby was enough. And we did it, we climbed over the wall and found ourselves parents and subsequently parents of a second, rather surprising naturally conceived baby. Finally, we had our children for whom this blog was made, long before they ever were.
But there still was the desire to complete our family with a much-wanted third child. Of course, we now hoped that we could do it on our own. Early in 2017 we decided we should try. And, like our history before us, we tried and tried. Every month came with a sliver of hope that we could do this; we have proven that we can. Yet, rather like that first time trying, it hasn't and we found ourselves facing the year mark and wondering if we should use one of our frozen embryos from 2011. The embryos have a ten year expiry date and we have 12 four-cell embryos frozen, identical in size to their older brother.
Back in January we bit the bullet and booked an eye-wateringly expensive consultation with our former IVF consultant. It was at 7pm on a dark and cold January night. We had left Stanley and Lucy with a trusted friend, one of only two people who knew what we were doing.
The consultation was not really what I was expecting. When paying for private treatment I had envisaged a clinical, white, chrome and pastel office with bright lighting. In reality it was a ground floor room in a building in the centre of a small local town with a brown leather sofa in a waiting area and a small room at the end with an old wooden desk inside. Our consultant welcomed us inside like we were old acquaintances. Given that it was 7 years since our last meeting, he seemed to know our story, all our details. Seeing him again after all this time brought back the memories of one of the last times I saw him, when he told me I was pregnant with Stanley. It is etched in my memory forevermore as is he.
In the meeting, it seemed to be a fairly straight forward case of defrosting a couple of embryos and putting them back. He told us that 4 of our embryos are top grade 4AA embryos and 4 are close at 4AB. The others are slightly less but not bad by any means. He told us that given our history and success, we had about a 25% chance of success. Of course, I had been hoping for more. But, it is what it as and we have to have the hope that it worked once so there is no reason for not to work again this time.
We decided that we would delay starting until after I had been away with work in early April. We were all geared up to start on the first day of my next cycle. However, I became really unwell with a whole host of ailments: a lump under my chin and a mention of breast pain at the doctors resulted in me being referred urgently to the breast clinic. Whilst waiting for that to come through I began to have significant pain in my lower right abdomen, had blood in my poo and generally felt unwell. I had an out of hours GP appointment but still ended up in A&E a couple of days later. They diagnosed a urine infection but had initially suspected appendicitis. I also had blood tests which were borderline but ok in terms of the markers for ovarian cancer, to my relief. The pain faded but niggled on away in the back ground. The breast lump was a benign cyst and the lymph nodes that they were very concerned about reduced in size. I had the all clear so we were ready to go again.
My cycle started and we arranged our first appointment to get going. Since then my stomach issues have returned and I've been referred for an urgent gynae scan. However, the GP does believe that the whole thing could be linked with constipation, which would make sense to me given some recent symptoms. I'm now waiting for medication to work. The joys! At present, we are still going ahead. I'm waiting for a call back from the nurses to confirm that they are all happy with this.
In the meantime, we are just waiting. Also in the meantime people are getting pregnant and having children with ease and without ease. Just yesterday I learned of an exciting twin IVF pregnancy. The world really can work miracles. We just have to hope that we are allowed another miracle. Three is the magic number! People may wonder why we are trying, why put ourselves through the stress, the medications, the heartache. But unless you've been in these well trodden shoes then you just don't understand. If you've had your children straightforwardly, or completed the family size that you wanted then it's impossible to grasp, and I try to understand that.
I know that we just have to wait a little longer than most. If we use up these embryos and we are still without our third child then that will be it; we would not do another fresh round. But at least we will have tried. Maybe science and nature will be kind again. I can't help thinking we've used up our luck, but I don't really believe life works like that.
I guess it's time to think names, albeit prematurely. After all, Stanley and Lucy had their names from some time in 2010 or 2011. Waiting for "baby 3" doesn't quite have the same ring to it!
