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

Hello and sorry for the delay!

We are now waiting for Liz to start her last period before we begin down regulation. It is weird to be excited about a period as this was usually the thing we were hoping against. Normally this dashed our hopes and we released another month had failed. Liz is thinking positive that maybe just maybe in our last month of trying naturally it might work. We have kept away from alcohol for over 6 weeks and tried to be as healthy as we can. We might get lucky but it’s nothing we habit tried in the 9 years previous.

I expect we will be going for the prescription a week today and writing a cheque for an huge amount of money. We are really hopeful as our clinic has an excellent reputation and record. It’s also really exciting to finally be at this point. Poor Liz is going to be prodded and poked a lot over the next few weeks and months and I do feel bad for her. I will be right with her though and have been working hard on my work schedule to make sure I will be with her at every appointment and step of the way.

Finally had time to write on here as I had got up early to watch the japanese formula one grand prix. Bit gutted qualifying has been postponed, up early for nothing on a Saturday.

Hope someone is reading, understanding and maybe enjoying this? I know spammers are trying to get web links on it via comments!

Have a good weekend.

Max

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 and again sorry for the lack of a recent post, purely due to work and the kids been off school. Only 2 weeks of that to go now!

The kids seem to have slowly increased bed time to later and later all through the school holidays, good work by them I must say

We just dont get online enough these days, we are making a concious effort to keep the laptops away and try to spend as much time with these lovely boys during the holidays. Plus we both work so much its just difficult.

Anyway to give a quick update, Liz had her blood test last week so we are another step nearer. We have our group session on the 17th of September and hopefully we can get properly started very soon after that. We were originally told that we could start our 1st run in October time but that might be slightly delayed we are not sure.

Just want to wish everyone out there the very best of luck, we have been trying to keep up with tweets of those currently going through a full IVF cycle. You are in our thoughts and we really hope it goes well

Oh and our eldest son has been totally fine since his faint, that is good news. He has his follow up in October but all looks well so far.

Take it easy everyone and as soon as we really get going with the treatment we will be posting much more regularly.

Cant wait to get going really

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

Not quite sure were to start with this one

Tuesday was well a busy day!

It started at the clinic for my seaman test, an experience in its self I must say. I have seen quite a bit of info regarding IVF from a woman’s perspective but not to much on what to expect as a man I was pretty nervous I must be honest. But the staff at the IVF clinic were very good. I was taken to a small room and asked to provide my specimen, it was all really strange. But I got the job done and we are now awaiting the results. I have had the test before but provided the sample at home and delivered it to the hospital. This was just one of those experiences I guess and far less of a job than poor Liz is going to have to go through.

The room itself was a pretty small room, just a bathroom really but with a sofa. I was told to make sure the door was locked, maybe they have had some embarrassing problems in the past Lets hope everything is ok anyway!

This all went to insignificance on Tuesday afternoon, my 12 year old fainted while paying out bumped his head and lost his short term memory. He was very dazed, scared and confused and I had to rush via ambulance to the hospital. He has fainted before due to his very fast growing spurt he has just gone through but it is a worry. This time he hit his head hard when he fell and lost his memory from the last week and didn’t remember any current events for that day. He was fine to chat to but 10 mins later he forgot about it. he forgot the ride to the hospital, getting to hospital, getting treatment. We had to keep explaining what had happened and he must have asked where his phone was about 100 times! It was very scary but after ECG’s and lots of tests they found nothing wrong with him. We are relieved he is ok but he has a specialist appointment as this has happened 3 times now only not with the memory loss.

His memory is now back which is great, we are just keeping him close by to make sure he is fully recovered. He doesn’t like this as he just wants to play out with his friends. It made us appreciate what we have even more that is for sure, we are blessed with these kids. I just hope the NHS come through and follow up quickly with the specialist and an MRI for the little man. When he has fainted before he has been fine almost straight after and we always get him checked by the local medical centre and hospital. They always say he is perfectly fine and his heart and ECG were great.

So what was a very weird start to the day ended very stress fully indeed and I was in hospitals for nearly the whole day. This is the main reason for my lack of blogging recently

I also had to go on the train to Dundee for work, that kept me busy and tired for a few days

We next go for our group meeting in the next few weeks.

I also took the forum off the site as I don’t see anyone using it in the near future.

Thanks for reading it helps our progress greatly to get your help and support

Well I am finally writing on my blog I am not sure if this post will work as I am emailing it into our account. Let’s see I guess

Today I am in so much pain, I have been suffering all week but it is really bad today. I still get a terrible sad feeling when my period comes as it means another month of no success but the physical pain I get with it due to my endo is awful. I have real bad pains and cramps all over my abdomen particularly on my left side. I also get a really bad left knee for a few days which is a bit weird! I have to dose up on so many pain killers just to get through it and it last for 2 weeks. I have been telling myself that having another child might help clear up a bit of my endo. While they are growing in my belly they can keep busy by cleaning up a little The surgeons have been in there and had a go but to be honest I don’t really feel much benefit from it.

On the plus side we have gone for a few days holiday on the English south coast. I am sure that will take my mind off it for a while, I just wish Max didn’t have to go to work while we are away

Well I best get back to suffering and smiling and maybe I can post a bit more often now I have broken my duck Hopefully when I get started on the IVF the monthly suffering might stop fingers crossed!!