Saturday 31 December 2011

Cycle Day 63

Hi guys, hope you're all well, can you believe we are less than 6hrs away from 2012? Hopefully next year will be better than this year.

So as the title suggests, I am currently on CD63 which is a real bummer, at the beginning of this cycle I was so hopefull to have a normal cycle of about 35 days. I started taking agnus castus from cd1 as I heard this will help to regulate my cycle, but only up to ovulation. I also resumed temping with FF and the aim was to get a really good idea of how my body behaves. When I got to around cd 22 and there were no signs of ovulation I got fed up all the eratic temps, I was getting loads of negative opks up until cd30. So I decided to give up. Clearly, my body has it's own plans and I got tired of failing to be in control of it.
I even tried to check my cervical position, but failed at that too as I was so confused as to what I was supposed to be feeling for.

About a week before Xmas I started to notice the presence of CM in my underwear and I did notice the slight changes from sticky to slightly EWCM. I actually had my most fertile CM on Xmas eve, which actually means I could have ovulated on Xmas day- that would be a lovely story to tell. Since then I have literally had no CM which is the usual characteristic immediately after ovulation. My DH and I did BD around that time so that's a good thing. However, if you know anything about pcos you probably know that your body can show you all the signs of ovulating but you may not actually ovulate. So I really don't know whether I am in the 2ww or still have not ovulated. If my AF does not show up by Jan 10th I will just test.

Well hope you guys have a wonderful new year

God Bless

Thursday 29 December 2011

Hope you had a great Xmas

Wow, it feels like I have not posted for about a month. To be honest I wasn't sure if anyone would want to read my little updates, I thought it would be better to have a few things to say when I post. However I have changed my mind about that idea because now I don't really know where to start, lol.

I would like to say a big thank you to all the wonderful people that have decided to follow my blog, I hope that I will be a source of strength and support to you guys as you will be to me. It's great to know that other people who know what you are going through are there to listen to your rants.

I hope you all had a fantastic Xmas, I had a good one with my family and then we have been in Brighton for the past few days with my in-laws having family time. We have an 18 month nephew, so spending time with him in Brighton has been fantastic and made me even more broody.

I will post a ttc update later today so you know what's going on.

How have you guys been? Any news? What was your Xmas like?

Saturday 17 December 2011

1st Fertility Treatment Appointment

Hi guys, how are you? Hope you're all well.
I love it how I'm speaking as if I have so many followers, I don't have any yet, I'm literally writing to myself - wishful thinking I guess. Anyway, back to the point of the post.

So 23rd November was the big day that I had been waiting for forever (6weeks actually, but it might as well have been forever). I was really excited but nervous at the same point. Even though my case had been taken up a notch, at least I was in the hands of the people who could help me to make this pregnancy happen. Upon arriving I saw many women who were pregnant already which filled me with a lot of hope. I signed in and was given a few forms to fill in, my OH too. After about 10 mins or so a nurse called us into her office to check my blood pressure, height and weight (59kg, I have gained 4kgs in this marriage-not good). She checked over our forms and said they were fine. The forms were basically to find out if you had been pregnant before, how regular your AF is, history of STD's, alcohol and drug intake, all that kind of stuff.

Then the consultant calls us into her office, the first thing i noticed was that she had a wall of photographs of babies(I'm assuming that she helped to conceive)-this was quite reassuring. She looked over her notes and said "so you have pcos", and I was like excuse me, she then said " well look, your an educated woman, it doesn't take much to see that your periods are highly irregular and your blood tests show that some of the hormone levels were higher than normal." I almost burst into tears because although I had often thought that I may have pcos I had never been labelled as someone with pcos. My doctor had told me that all seemed fine (she was really vague) previously and that I would probably just need help to ovulate. She asked me a bit more about my cycles and stuff and reassured me that I was still young and healthy and getting pregnant should not be too difficult. She said the next step would be have a few diagnostic tests done, so they would have a clear picture of what was going on inside my body.

1. Transvaginal Ultrasound- to be done between day 2-5 of my next AF. This is basically an ultrasound using a probe through the vagina so as to have a much clearer picture of my uterus, ovaries, and Fallopian tubes. I think they want to see how many cysts/follicles I have on my ovaries. I believe you should be able to see the dead follicle in which the egg was released from, if indeed I did ovulate. The disgusting thing is, that I will still be on my prior while this is done, that totally freaks me out.

2. Hysterosalpinogram (HSG)- to be done between day 7-10 of my cycle. This is an xray of the uterus and Fallopian tubes to check the tubes are clear and there are no blockages. They insert dye through a catheter into the uterus and use an xray machine to see if it has dispersed clearly through to the end of the Fallopian tubes. I have been reading up about this, I think it may be painful.


So I need to book both of these tests once my AF appears, which I have no clue, I think I'm on cycle day 40 already, with no signs of AF showing her face.
The consultant booked a return appointment for the 18th January 2012 to review the results and decide the next step. At this rate, there may not be any results to review. Fingers crossed for AF then, I never thought I would be saying that.


So there we have my journey so far, I'm just waiting for my AF to come so I can have the 2 tests done and get them out of the way. I'm really hoping 2012 will bring me the gift of motherhood.

What has your journey been like so far? Have you been diagnosed with PCOS? Have you had a transvaginal and or HSG? I'd love to hear your experiences.

Friday 16 December 2011

..........Part 2

Hi there, I hope my first post was not to boring for you - not that anyone has read it yet, I will be so excited when I get my first subscriber as I have not told any friends or colleagues, just my mother-in-law (she's amazing).

So let me continue. About 1 month after my doctor appointment I went to have an ultrasound and some blood tests. The u/s was a good experience as it was good to actually see the insides of my body and it was actually commented that I had quite a few visible cysts but it could be due to the fact that I am preparing to ovulate. It was not painful, just a bit uncomfortable as my bladder was so full. My blood were tested for LH, FSh, prolactin, and some other stuff I can't remember.

2 weeks later I went back to my doctor for the results. She said my blood work was reasonably normal and the ultrasound came back fine - she was so vague it was annoying. She told me to de-stress and it would probably happen naturally. I forgot to mention in the last post that she told me to get my DH to get a semen analysis done also, so by this time we had the results for this too, and once again, all was fine. In my mind I was thinking "so where does this leave us now" and what will we do now. She told us that she would refer our case further and that we should receive a letter about what to do next. Her advice was that I probably would need something to help me to ovulate.

So I was waiting impatiently for this letter to come - I am not lying when I say I did not receive anything for over a month. The stress and the anxiety was getting to me so much that I just decided to call my doctor and have her withdraw the referral. I had quite a lot of other things going in my life at that time and did not want the added stress. I decided to take the viewpoint of "it's probably not the best time anyway, Gods's time is the best time" that phrase can be so convenient at times.

Fast forward 5 or 6 months and we decided to play the game again with a more prepared mindset. I got my doctor to put in the referral again, to which she obliged, and then we waited patiently for the letter. I decided that I would use the time to learn more about fertility and my body. I read blogs, books and all sorts. I started taking the prenatal vitamins amongst other things ( I will share my experience of such in later posts)and started charting with fertility friend. After about 3wks I got a letter from UCHL from their reproductive medicine unit asking me to book an appointment with a consultant. I called and got an appointment for November 23rd 2011, it was about a 6week wait (thats the Nhs for you, but at least it's free).

In my next post, I will go into details about that appointment, but basically that's where were at now. Sorry if this was so long, I was trying to keep it concise, but I know some of you may want to know the details, I know I did. I read so many blogs trying to find out how my experience with the consultant would be.

What has your journey been like so far? Anything like mine? Also, please feel free to ask me any questions - maybe I did not explain something very well. I am new to this blogging thing and not so tech savvy. If you have any suggestions on how to make this blog a better reading experience,I would be happy to hear them.

Take care and God Bless xx

And so the story begins.........Part 1

Right, I will try to make this as short as possible - so as not to bore the hell out of you on my first post. My DH and I got married almost 2 years ago now and although I always romanticised about conceiving on my honeymoon night, we both knew that would not be ideal (after spending all our money on the wedding). So we just decided we would enjoy our marriage and begin by "not trying, not preventing" if you know what I mean. However I had noticed that for more than a year before the wedding my periods were extremely irregular (once in 3months was pretty usual), so I went to see my doctor and told her the situation. She said it was nothing to worry about. We continued with our strategy.

9 months down the line I decided to go back and this time tell my doctor that I wanted to have a baby, and so my periods need to be checked out - she said that usually I would need to wait for a year of ttc but because of my irregular periodS she would proceed with investigations. She told me it could be polycystic ovarian syndrome (pcos) but tests would need to be done in order to confirm it. She referred me to Royal Free Hospital to get some blood tests and an ultrasound.

Stay tuned for part 2......