We finally received our letter from the FC confirming that we're top of the list for IUI. The joy was short lived though because it said on it that they wanted another SA from hubby before starting treatment. The letter said I had to call to discuss it further, but I couldn't call until today as the letter came in on Saturday.
So, I called the clinic today and spoke to the nurse. When I had my bloods done the nurse said if hubby's last SA was within a year then they wouldn't need another, but when I asked about that the nurse told me that as hubby's samples are so variable (he's had one good and three bad), they want to do another one before starting treatment. However, if the sample is the same as three out of the four he's already done, then they won't go ahead with treatment. I really thought this was our first step to getting help to have a baby, but looks as though it could all be snatched away from us again.
The sensible part of me knows that it would be silly to undergo treatment when there isn't much chance of it working, but as anyone who has been TTC a long time will tell you - I'd do anything even if there was only a half a percent chance of it working.
So, from being so excited and positive about starting treatment, now we don't know if we will be starting at all. Hubby is putting in a sample on Thursday and I've to call the nurses that afternoon.
One way or another, we'll know on Thursday afternoon if we can have IUI or if we need to continue our seemingly never ending wait to have a baby.
S x
Monday 29 August 2011
Saturday 20 August 2011
Sometimes things happen that puts everything else in perspective
Since our good news last week I've been feeling a bit strange. I can't really put my finger on why, but I've been really emotional and weepy all weekend, which is strange because I thought I'd be happy now that we are about to start treatment after all the time we've been waiting.
AF decided to show up a couple of days early on Sunday (wasn't due until Tuesday) which was a surprise, but it doesn't really matter much anyway because it just means my next cycle will start earlier and *hopefully* we'll be ready to start IUI then.
I went on Tuesday afternoon for my AMH bloods to be taken, and when I arrived the nurse said I'd have to come back to have another set done. When I asked which ones, she said day 1-3 bloods, but as it turns out I was on day 3 so she did those then too!! Pleased about that as a) one less time to be a pin cushion and b) we'll have all the results we need sooner meaning less chance of the start of IUI being delayed. Now it's just a case of waiting on the letter from the FC to arrive and see what happens next.
**Very Sensitive**
On Wednesday night I got a telephone call from Mum to tell me some bad news. My cousins little boy had been falling a lot, so his mum took him to the Doctor on Wednesday to find out why. They took some bloods, and within twenty minutes of them leaving the surgery they called her to tell her to go straight to Yorkhill with him (Yorkhill is the major children's hospital in the West of Scotland) To cut a long story short, it turns out that he has Leukemia and last night we found out that it's full blown adult leukemia rather than the more common childhood leukemia. He's been put into isolation and is going to theatre today to have a central line placed for all of the medication he's going to need.
I don't think I've mentioned it before, but I work in the Histocompatibility and Immunogentics Laboratory in a hospital (we're one of only two of these labs in Scotland) The main parts of our work are dealing with the the tissue typing for renal (kidney) and bone marrow transplants. Due to this, I know a little more about leukemia, and for a child to have adult leukemia is not common, in fact I've not seen any in the six and a half years I've worked there. That in itself is not a good thing, as the chances of recovering from it are not very good at all. While I was speaking to mum last night she said that his parents have been told there is a 90% chance of him not leaving the hospital.
How to you even start to deal with the fact that your two year old child is so sick, let alone that you've been told that chances are he's going to die? I've spent the last two years stressing about us not being able to get pregnant and thinking how unfair life is - but facing your two year old dying really is unfair. How can it be that someone is given a baby to love, only for it to be potentially snatched away from them two years later?
I have to say that all that's happened the last few days has raised a lot of concerns for me about having a baby. I still would love to have a child of my own, but how do you continue to live if that child is so cruelly taken away from you? My husband's brother died when he was 19 years old, he had been ill with heart problems as a child but had been well for years then just suddenly dropped dead in the street when he was out with his friends. It's been 20 years since Patrick died, but every day my mother-in-law still wakes up and has to deal with the fact that her child is gone and will never come back. Every day it chips another piece of her heart away, and every birthday, anniversary and Christmas she still feels the pain of losing him as much as they day he died. How to go you go living after your child dies?
Back to Ryan, and now that he's in isolation he'll be given chemo to kill of any remaining white blood cells in preparation for him to have a bone marrow transplant. His brothers will be tested first to see if they are a match (they're only 7 and 10 so even that is traumatic for them) and if they are then they'll donate bone marrow to their brother to try and save his life. If not, the testing will move out to the immediate family, and if a match still isn't found then the wider family (including me) will be tested to. I just hope one of us is a match for him as finding a match through the donor registries is totally hit and miss, and without a transplant I don't think he'll have any chance of getting better.
If anyone actually reads my blog, please keep Ryan in your thoughts and prayers as he needs all the help he can possibly get.
S x
AF decided to show up a couple of days early on Sunday (wasn't due until Tuesday) which was a surprise, but it doesn't really matter much anyway because it just means my next cycle will start earlier and *hopefully* we'll be ready to start IUI then.
I went on Tuesday afternoon for my AMH bloods to be taken, and when I arrived the nurse said I'd have to come back to have another set done. When I asked which ones, she said day 1-3 bloods, but as it turns out I was on day 3 so she did those then too!! Pleased about that as a) one less time to be a pin cushion and b) we'll have all the results we need sooner meaning less chance of the start of IUI being delayed. Now it's just a case of waiting on the letter from the FC to arrive and see what happens next.
**Very Sensitive**
On Wednesday night I got a telephone call from Mum to tell me some bad news. My cousins little boy had been falling a lot, so his mum took him to the Doctor on Wednesday to find out why. They took some bloods, and within twenty minutes of them leaving the surgery they called her to tell her to go straight to Yorkhill with him (Yorkhill is the major children's hospital in the West of Scotland) To cut a long story short, it turns out that he has Leukemia and last night we found out that it's full blown adult leukemia rather than the more common childhood leukemia. He's been put into isolation and is going to theatre today to have a central line placed for all of the medication he's going to need.
I don't think I've mentioned it before, but I work in the Histocompatibility and Immunogentics Laboratory in a hospital (we're one of only two of these labs in Scotland) The main parts of our work are dealing with the the tissue typing for renal (kidney) and bone marrow transplants. Due to this, I know a little more about leukemia, and for a child to have adult leukemia is not common, in fact I've not seen any in the six and a half years I've worked there. That in itself is not a good thing, as the chances of recovering from it are not very good at all. While I was speaking to mum last night she said that his parents have been told there is a 90% chance of him not leaving the hospital.
How to you even start to deal with the fact that your two year old child is so sick, let alone that you've been told that chances are he's going to die? I've spent the last two years stressing about us not being able to get pregnant and thinking how unfair life is - but facing your two year old dying really is unfair. How can it be that someone is given a baby to love, only for it to be potentially snatched away from them two years later?
I have to say that all that's happened the last few days has raised a lot of concerns for me about having a baby. I still would love to have a child of my own, but how do you continue to live if that child is so cruelly taken away from you? My husband's brother died when he was 19 years old, he had been ill with heart problems as a child but had been well for years then just suddenly dropped dead in the street when he was out with his friends. It's been 20 years since Patrick died, but every day my mother-in-law still wakes up and has to deal with the fact that her child is gone and will never come back. Every day it chips another piece of her heart away, and every birthday, anniversary and Christmas she still feels the pain of losing him as much as they day he died. How to go you go living after your child dies?
Back to Ryan, and now that he's in isolation he'll be given chemo to kill of any remaining white blood cells in preparation for him to have a bone marrow transplant. His brothers will be tested first to see if they are a match (they're only 7 and 10 so even that is traumatic for them) and if they are then they'll donate bone marrow to their brother to try and save his life. If not, the testing will move out to the immediate family, and if a match still isn't found then the wider family (including me) will be tested to. I just hope one of us is a match for him as finding a match through the donor registries is totally hit and miss, and without a transplant I don't think he'll have any chance of getting better.
If anyone actually reads my blog, please keep Ryan in your thoughts and prayers as he needs all the help he can possibly get.
S x
Friday 12 August 2011
RESULT (not of the BFP kind sadly)
So, last month I decided to phone our local FC and find out where we were on the IUI list with them. The consultant told us that the chances of IUI actually working for us is pretty slim, but in his opinion it's worth a shot while we're waiting on the IVF list.
So, I spoke to one of the nurses last month who checked the list and told me we were 11th on it. She estimated that we'd roughly be at the top in around 3/4 months. Two days ago (and two years to the day since we started TTC) I suddenly decided to call the FC again to ask where we were on the list. My thinking was that I could see how far up the list we'd gone in a month, then that would let me work out better a rough date when we should be about ready to start treatment.
So, again I spoke to the nurse and she checked the list to see where we were on it - only to come back and tell me we were at the top!!!! Anyone who knows me knows how much I like to talk, and I swear when she said that it was the one time in my whole life that I was actually stuck for words - I just sat on the phone in total shock. After getting myself together a bit, I managed to find out from her that basically we'll get a letter out to go for counselling, then following that we're good to go on my next cycle. She checked my test results, and I haven't had an AMH done so she booked me in and I've to go on Tuesday next week to have blood taken for it as the results can take a couple of weeks to come back.
Having calmed down enough to think about things logically, my thinking is that with AF being due next week and allowing time for the counselling and any other appointments we need, we should be starting IUI in mid September - THAT'S ONE MONTH AWAY!!!!
Although I know the basics of IUI - DH's sperm will be washed and inserted into my uterus with a catheter exactly at OV - the ins and outs aren't totally clear to me yet. I know that it could be either a medicated (the same sort of thing as IVF where you take drugs to mature the follicles then have a trigger shot to induce OV) or non medicated cycle where you OV normally. Either way I need to have bloods taken and scans carried out throughout the whole process to check things are progressing as they should and to monitor when I OV to almost the minute to make sure we have the best chance of fertilization.
I just hope that we get lucky again with DH's sample and it's a good one with plenty of swimmers. I'm being realistic (well, I'm trying to be) because I know that with the problems we're dealing with IUI isn't the best treatment, but I'm still going to keep everything crossed that maybe, just maybe we'll be one of the lucky ones and won't have to go as far as IVF.
It's just as well I've been on a bit of a health kick recently (diet wise anyway because my hip is still playing up so I'm not able to get back to exercise yet) and now it's stepping up just a little bit more to make sure my body is ready if our miracle does happen soon. Even DH is being really good at taking his vitamins every day to encourage good swimmers to grow - and that's a feat in itself because normally I have to force him to take them!! lol
I'm sure I'll be posting her more often now that things are actually starting to happen for us, to record our journey, maybe help anyone else about to start down the same road - but mainly because sometimes it's easier to write how you feel than it is to say it out loud, and that does help keep me sane!!!
S x
So, I spoke to one of the nurses last month who checked the list and told me we were 11th on it. She estimated that we'd roughly be at the top in around 3/4 months. Two days ago (and two years to the day since we started TTC) I suddenly decided to call the FC again to ask where we were on the list. My thinking was that I could see how far up the list we'd gone in a month, then that would let me work out better a rough date when we should be about ready to start treatment.
So, again I spoke to the nurse and she checked the list to see where we were on it - only to come back and tell me we were at the top!!!! Anyone who knows me knows how much I like to talk, and I swear when she said that it was the one time in my whole life that I was actually stuck for words - I just sat on the phone in total shock. After getting myself together a bit, I managed to find out from her that basically we'll get a letter out to go for counselling, then following that we're good to go on my next cycle. She checked my test results, and I haven't had an AMH done so she booked me in and I've to go on Tuesday next week to have blood taken for it as the results can take a couple of weeks to come back.
Having calmed down enough to think about things logically, my thinking is that with AF being due next week and allowing time for the counselling and any other appointments we need, we should be starting IUI in mid September - THAT'S ONE MONTH AWAY!!!!
Although I know the basics of IUI - DH's sperm will be washed and inserted into my uterus with a catheter exactly at OV - the ins and outs aren't totally clear to me yet. I know that it could be either a medicated (the same sort of thing as IVF where you take drugs to mature the follicles then have a trigger shot to induce OV) or non medicated cycle where you OV normally. Either way I need to have bloods taken and scans carried out throughout the whole process to check things are progressing as they should and to monitor when I OV to almost the minute to make sure we have the best chance of fertilization.
I just hope that we get lucky again with DH's sample and it's a good one with plenty of swimmers. I'm being realistic (well, I'm trying to be) because I know that with the problems we're dealing with IUI isn't the best treatment, but I'm still going to keep everything crossed that maybe, just maybe we'll be one of the lucky ones and won't have to go as far as IVF.
It's just as well I've been on a bit of a health kick recently (diet wise anyway because my hip is still playing up so I'm not able to get back to exercise yet) and now it's stepping up just a little bit more to make sure my body is ready if our miracle does happen soon. Even DH is being really good at taking his vitamins every day to encourage good swimmers to grow - and that's a feat in itself because normally I have to force him to take them!! lol
I'm sure I'll be posting her more often now that things are actually starting to happen for us, to record our journey, maybe help anyone else about to start down the same road - but mainly because sometimes it's easier to write how you feel than it is to say it out loud, and that does help keep me sane!!!
S x
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