Thank you Robert G. Edwards

The nobel prize for medicine was awarded this year to the doctor who developed IVF. Without the work of doctors like him millions babies wouldn’t have been born, including our son.

S is now 9 months. He has 5 teeth, he can crawl as fast as the wind especially towards everything forbidden, like electric appliances and cds. He also just learned how to stand up holding to furniture. He’s such a big boy that he doesn’t feel like a baby at all! When he’s on a good mood he is a smiling and laughing little sunshine and when he’s cranky everyone will definetely hear it.

Our little whirlwind

About this pregnancy, I’m 6w1days today and still have to wait one week for my u/s. The spotting didn’t return so I’m feeling a little more optimistic. I’m not having too much symptoms though and that makes me worry a little of course. Symptoms now:

• Tiredness, I could sleep the whole day
• Pizza face
• Yucky feeling in the mornings, but not too bad
• Some cramps and twinges every now and then
• Breasts hurt mildly when walking etc.
• Pregnancy brain, I forget everything. Even the fact that I’m pregnant.
• Everything even slightly emotional on tv makes me cry

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Not over yet

I seriously thought that this time it would be different; no worries about betas and I would just smoothly end up with a baby. Honestly, a second after I said to DH how nice it is not to worry so much this time the spotting started. Like a punishment from the universe for taking this too light-heartedly.

I’m not giving up hope though. Spotting ceased yesterday after the morning and today I’ve only had a little and it’s light. And I had terrible cramps with some light brown spotting last time too. But what worries me is that last time it was very light and yesterday it was dark brown with a hint of blood. To reassure myself  I did one of the digital hpts that tell you how far your pregnancy is and got pregnant 3+ (means 5 weeks and more). So that helped for a little while, at least my hcg levels are where they should be at this point.

The first u/s feels like lightyears away, it’s on 13th October. I hope we get that far without any further drama. And I hope so much to see that flickering heartbeat.

Of course

Of course this couldn’t be too easy.

I started brown spotting last night, accompanied with mild back and stomach pain.

TTC round 2

It’s so hot in here I would give my right arm for a normal Finnish summer. +30C (86F) the whole month is too much for us eskimos. People go crazy and drown in masses. Sure it’s nothing compared to Spain last summer. But enough is enough thank you very much. I’m not going outside anymore.

The first ttc#2 cycle is over. And guess what, I’m not pregnant. What a surprise!

This cycle was weird for many ways. CD1 started when I had forgotten to take one bcp and decided to throw the pack away even though I was on day 10 or something and hadn’t finished it yet. So I’m not even sure if I ovulated this month. Usually it’s really easy to pinpoint my ovulation even without OPKs; the pain is recognizable and sharp. Now I had a totally different kind of dull pain on several days so I have no clue whether I really ovulated or not.

And on top of that, AF totally caught me by surprise and arrived yesterday without any notice. Usually I know her coming a week beforehand from all lovely endo symptoms.

I have to admit that I am a little disappointed. Secretly I still wish for a magical natural pregnancy although I know that the odds are not on our side. A friend whose baby is now 8 months old got preggo right after starting ttc#2. I can’t even imagine how that must feel, to have your dreams fulfilled so easily.

I want to get preggo really badly. I want to be able to travel through that experience again. Unlike many other women, I enjoyed being pregnant a lot. I wasn’t too nauseous, too tired or too ill. I was thriving and loving my belly and kicking baby from the bottom of my heart. And of course the main reason is that we want to have a sibling for S. Another screaming, pooping and tantrum throwing lovely little monster that will drive us crazy.

I guess we’ll see for a couple of cycles if the natural miracle would fall on us. When If it doesn’t, we’ll move on to medicated IUI. And after that we have the chance for one FET. And after that it would be another fresh IVF cycle we honestly can’t afford since I spent all of granny’s inheritance on a new work computer.

bcps, why do you hate me?

From the moment we met after my 16th birthday me and bcps used to be best of friends. No endo pain (though I didn’t even know I had endo back then), no acne, no mood swings. Everything was just peachy between us two.

Now after last AF (or chemical pg?) I wanted to refresh our friendship again to keep endo away. But obviously bcps hold a grudge against me for ditching her and getting preggo because I ended up bleeding for 5 WEEKS IN A ROW, my face exploded and I was feeling like shit. Must say that’s one hell of an effective contraceptive since who wants to have sex when AF is visiting permanently and you are constantly snapping on DH?

I popped the first round of pills (while enjoying AF for the whole fucking month) and started the second one. Bleeding stopped finally. Then 10 days after I forgot to take one pill (nothing to get excited about) and 2 days later I’m BLEEDING AGAIN. During the 10 years I was on bcps there were many times I forgot to take one pill and this never happened. Obviously, bcps and I aren’t friends anymore. So I threw them away. And guess we are now on the ttc-train again. As scary as it is, yet strangely exciting at the same time.

One year ago

One year ago was one of the best days of my life so far. I still remember vividly the amazement and disbelief. Little did I know that the anxiety only would begin on getting a bfp. But we are now here so the rollercoaster was worth it.

I had the appointment with our RE and since me and dildocam haven’t been close for a while she did an u/s check on my ovaries. Turned out I had ovulated a little while ago and so dear AF visited me 10 days later for 9 DAYS. Biiatch! I wanted her to stay away longer as AF=endo growing back too. Someway I knew I’d be getting AF despite of breastfeeding. I admit, there was a small (crazy) spark of hope she wouldn’t arrive and I would be magically naturally pregnant again after one time of unprotected sex.. But no.

I guess I ovulated again last wednesday (kind of hard to ignore your body after numerous cycles of close surveillance) so at next CD1 I’ll start bcps once again to keep endo away.  This means breastfeeding will end in two weeks completely. It’s kind of sad since it has been one of the most intimate and close things I’ve shared with my son but he does appreciate the bottle much more than my milk machines and most times I try to breastfeed end up in him screaming his lungs off with anger.

We are thinking about cycling again next autumn since endo damage will be still low at that point and we’d love to have our children with a small age difference. Knowing our history it’s quite sure it’ll take some time for me to get preggo again although RE said she had a feeling I’m gonna be naturally preggo in no time…Hah!

S is almost 8kg already, he’s a happy, chatty, smiling and laughing baby and he loves his naps. I’ve got a lot of time for myself during the days as he sleeps happily 3 hours in a row, twice a day. Unfortunately he also likes to wake up at 5-6AM. And he wakes up several times during the nights so some days I’m tired as hell. He just learned how to grasp things with his hands and my hair is one of his favourite things to pull.

Posters

I came across to this great blog; posters about infertility. The author writes to the same Finnish ttc-board I used to. Since the posters are in English I thought my readers would appreciate them too.

(c) Jadekivi at impatientfemale.blogspot.com