Hello!

We found out yesterday we actually had 20 eggs not 19. I am going to have to take responsibility for that as Liz was out of it.

Over the last few days Liz has had some pain from the retrieval but she is doing ok.

We had a phone call from the clinic yesterday morning to say we have 17 fertilised eggs from the 20. 3 are abnormal and will not progress, 4 are of an ok grade and 10 are excellent very good grade. This is so good to have so many viable embies, we were told we can go to blastocycst stage and a day five Monday transfer.

They are going to call Monday morning with an appointment time of probably late afternoon. They are very pleased with how it has gone, all bloods look good for Liz. I think we must have a decent shot from here and if it fails we know it can work for us. After all these years we are so used to things not working it is just good to know that over maybe three cycles we must have a high chance. We both hope so as Christmas might be hard otherwise. But in the same way we can role our sleves up and try again.

I will post how Monday goes and Liz wanted me to say that retrieval is uncomfortable but she really cant remember much about it now.

Fingers crossed the transfer goes well on Monday and we get a growing embie in Liz! Hopefully it will stay and grow! Fingers and toes crossed.

Max

Hello

Well what a day, started with a 2 hour drive from home to the clinic. It normally takes 20 mins but we have such heavy snow. Really really deep, luckily I have a 4×4 pickup truck so we got through.

On top of that our kids schools were shut son we had to sort childcare out as well, thanks. Grandma!

Once we got the clinic the nurses were good as they had difficulty getting to work as well. We were seen on time, Liz had her pre med and did bloods etc. I had to provide a sample which is obviously simple in comparison to what Liz has been through.

We went into the collection room and Liz was sedated quite a bit. She was squashing my hand really hard and it hurt her a lot. She battled through it and we got 15 good size eggs which is very promising of getting to 5 days and blastocyst stage. Liz was pretty out of it for a good while and doesn’t remember to much about the collection. Which is kinda good as i don’t think it was very nice.

Anyway we are so happy with getting so many eggs and we now just hope they get fertilised and grow well. We find out how they have done on Friday morning and get a decision on Saturday or Monday for putting them back. We also hope ton maybe get some good eggs for frosties.

Its been a long hard day and it now looks like we are getting snowed in full stop in Yorkshire. Still we can get on the sledge maybe tomorrow, perhaps not Liz though.

It’s weird to think right now our next child could be developing in a lab somewhere, ivf is both amazing and confusing. But we are grateful it exists and hope it can work for us.

Thanks again to everyone on Twitter.

Max

Hello!

Well Liz has been taking her injections each night. We went for a 2nd scan yesterday and she has 19 follies. They seemed slightly concerned with this number and advised that over stimulation is a possibility. However after some info from all the wonderful people on Twitter we are not so worried. Liz has been drinking tons of water and isotronic drinks to try to help.

Liz had her pregnal last night and we are all set for a retrival first thing in the morning. She has 600mg of pain killers ready from the clinic and her dressing gown, slippers etc. She is nervous about it but excited as well. We hope we get some good size follies and lost of good eggs. We also hope over stim is not an issue, Liz feels fine so we are hopeful it is ok. All been well some healthy fertilized eggs will go back on Saturday or Monday. Then we start another and probably what will feel like the longest wait.

It is good Liz has responded well to the drugs, our problem has always been her blocked tubes so we are really hopeful now. She has a fibroid which is pretty large but apparently should not cause a problem.

I will post on the retrieval tomorrow night and then regular after that, we want a diary to look back on. I need to keep this up to date.

Thanks again to everyone on Twitter and fingers crossed things ok tomorrow. All this snow isn’t helping, it will be a challenge just getting to the clinic I think.

Max

Hello again! Sorry for the delay in getting this out. I have been working so much it has been difficult to get things written down.

Well we are now at the stage of starting of scans, Liz had a trial run to make sure they could put everything back in place after they have done the magic. Apparently that went well!

She has been injecting into her stomach every evening to turn her hormones off etc. It really itches afterwards but she has been coping pretty well. She has had some pretty crazy dreams and been a bit tired but ok so far. She has a scan on Friday to see how the down regulation has gone before starting some injections in her leg along with the stomach ones! These ones are to stimulate things ready for egg retrieval which we think will be in a couple of weeks or so now. Liz is worried about time off work which is tricky, but it is unavoidable so we will work it out. I am kind of lucky as I work for myself,having said that I need to keep my customers happy. But it is all small fry to achieve our goal of a baby!

Liz has had some crazy dreams, some pretty random but some centred around hospitals and babies. Side effect of the stress and drugs I guess. She is taking Buserelin at the moment to down reg. It seems to have a variety of side effects, but the dreams are not so bad.

She has a further scan on the 26th to see how things are going before scans the following week to decide when to retrieve. It is very scary that time is just rushing past. Once we get to the two week wait I bet it will feel like time has stopped.

Anyway I will be posting more frequently from here on in as all the exciting stuff starts to happen. Didn’t have anything exciting to say for a while

Thanks for reading our journey.

Max n Liz

Well we are only a week away from our group meeting, anyone ever had of those? I guess it is more a question and answer session?

We have had all our blood tests and sample tests, all fine so hopefully once we get through next Friday we can look to have a proper attempt in October. I think our IVF consultant plans this for us anyway.

Its a bit like waiting for Christmas at the minute but also we are full of fears and worries about how we would deal with a failed attempt. For the minute we want to stay positive as I think it helps, well I hope so.

Keep hearing all sorts of stories about how it worked first time for this person and hasnt worked in 5 attempts for another. We just so desperatly want it to work

Anyway once we have had this meeting we will post all about it.

Thanks

Max n Liz

Hello again

Sorry for the lack of twitter and posts on here been so busy with work it is unreal. With the kids on school holidays as well it has been near impossible to get a minute to myself.

The good news is our eldest son seems no worse for wear, he has been fine since his faint. He has to wait until mid October for his follow up appointment at the hospital. Speedy NHS! NOT! But we are just please he is ok, we kept him in and off his gadgets for a few days. This made him very moody and I think he was suffering some severe withdrawal symptoms from his Ipod touch and games consoles. Apparently his whole life depends on them we are just a bit nervous about the small screens and fast images until we know what actually happened to him. He doesn’t realise it is all because he has caring loving parents. He just thinks he has bossy parents who don’t understand Guess he is only 6 months from officially been a teenager.

We have Liz’s dad and step mum over from California in a week, that should be fun it has been ages since we saw them.

On the IVF front progress is been made, I had my test results back and everything was fine their. Liz has to have her blood samples in a couple of weeks, then we have a group session mid October before I guess the real fun begins?

Anyway I just wanted to let everyone know we are still blogging/tweeting just maybe a bit less often until these kids go back to school in 22 days, not that I am counting

Max

Well time is ticking until our first IVF appointment, we are both feeling excited and anxious about it all at the same time

We have been thinking of making our first IVF appointment for over 2 years so to finally get here is pretty amazing.

We have to be at the IVF clinic for 6:15pm, not sure how long we will be there?

Max is a big baby and hates neddles so  I am sure he won’t enjoy giving his blood samples. He better not complain though

Hopefully they give us a clear path for our IVF treatment and things move quickly from here onwards.

Please check the forum out and post here or on there, we really want to get some help and feedback with our IVF.

Just a picture to relax me

We now have a live support forum for IVF, please join and post your comments and thoughts.

Max did a lot of work on this so hopefully it works!