IVF Round 2: Our Little Secret!

With the money for our next round of IVF sitting in the bank, we called up the clinic in November and told them we were ready to start Round 2 ASAP. Now, don’t get me wrong, I know we were in an extremely fortunate position to be able to afford this, and sadly this is not the case for many people going through IVF. But we’ll talk about money another time. 

The clinic told me if my next period fell between a certain range of dates then I would be put in the next batch ready to go for a January round. Huh?! That’s only two months away! Less than that really, because as it turned out, my period came on the very first day of the next batch of dates, and I was promptly put back on The Pill again, ready to get my body clock in time with the clinic’s calendar. In a way, this was so much better not having the time to get worked up over everything all over again. Especially with Christmas right slap-bang in the middle of it all, January would be here in no time.  

We were secretly going through our 2nd IVF round at Christmas - so naturally we had to have a pineapple ornament for our tree!

I didn’t have any appointments with the clinic this time, and instead they sent me my protocol and prescription for my new drugs list in the post. I didn’t need to have the injection training again, which worried me slightly. I was on a new stimulation drug – Menopur – and I had no idea how to mix and administer it! Thank god for YouTube, who made it look like a doddle.  

I was allowed to source my drugs from wherever I wanted, so being self-funded this meant that I could shop around and find the best prices for our prescription. Now, you know me – I love a bargain! And this was no exception. I scoured the internet for various fertility drug sites, started compiling yet another spreadsheet to compare costs, and got to work saving money! After this extensive research, I believed that Asda Pharmacy was actually the most cost-effective store, as they support IVF patients and don’t charge tax on their IVF drugs as an incentive. We ended up spending just shy of £500 in total (relatively cheap, when we were advised it would be around £1,000!), but shopping around wasn’t without its pitfalls. Obviously, a general pharmacy like Asda don’t specialise in fertility drugs, and they didn’t include any needles, syringes, or sharps bins in my prescription. When I returned to them to ask where they were, they couldn’t even tell me which ones I needed, or how many. It was extremely frustrating – and this was all in the week leading up to Christmas... I had to get my drugs sorted, and fast! Eventually I returned to the hospital pharmacy, tail between my legs, to explain what’d happened and requested the missing bits. The woman behind the counter even had the audacity to say to me, “next time, make sure you just come here!” Umm – hopefully there won’t BE a next time, love!! 

Our drugs haul looked slightly different this time, with some scary-looking new drugs I'd have to mix myself!

On New Year’s Eve 2018, I took my last contraceptive pill ready to start my Down Reg drugs on New Year’s Day. I love order and organisation, so the fact that we were starting again on the first day of the first month of a new year was just music to my ears! And if all went well, we’d be finding out if it worked right around the time that our babies would’ve been due – and the anniversary of our grandparents’ deaths. I needed this to work not only for our sanity, but for our families’ sakes. They needed good news as much as we did. 

We changed things up this time though, and – with the exception of a few managers at work – didn’t tell anyone we were going through it all again. Not even our parents. I just couldn’t handle the amount of messages the last time, even though I know people mean well and they just want what’s best for us. But after sending the hundredth text saying “thank you, that really means a lot!” it just got frustrating and I had to unplug from life. I know people want to support us, but I found that it had to be ME to say the first words if I wanted to talk about anything related to IVF. If someone else brought it up first, I clammed up and mumbled a vague response. It would catch me off guard and I didn’t know what else to say except I was “fine”. 

Having a cuppa in my favourite pineapple mug, ready to start another round of injections!

So, we went ahead exactly as we had done last time – two weeks worth of Buserelin injections, and then back to the clinic for my baseline scan. It showed up a few tiny follicles already, but they said it was nothing to worry about and my lining was less than 1mm, too. All was seemingly okay. 

I then started my new stims drug – 150iu of Menopur – two days later. This freaked me out a bit, as after my first baseline scan I started my stims that very night. Surely, I would be two days behind everyone in the batch and things would look smaller than normal on my follicle scans? But I had to trust in the doctors and know that it was just because they were pacing everybody in the batch out. I researched Menopur to see why the doctors might’ve decided to change my stims, and it seemed the general consensus that while Menopur usually produces less eggs, the quality of them should be higher than normal. Again, I didn’t question their protocol and just went along with everything.  

Two days later, I started the Menopur injections. And let me tell you, those YouTube videos lied and trying to administer them was like something out of a Carry On film. You are given a vial of powder which you have to mix with a water-like solution, then draw it back up into a syringe and inject. But the parts were so fiddly and no matter how many times I watched the YouTube video it just didn’t make sense to me!! In the end I finally got the hang of them, but my god what a difference to the pre-filled Bemfola pens I had on my first round?! 

Over the course of the next couple of weeks, I went through the same motions as Round 1. I went to my scans to measure how well my follicles were growing, and in a way, it was annoying that I had the ultimate person to compare myself to... ME! I would meticulously look at my results vs. The last round, and was disheartened to see that with every scan that my follicles were smaller, there were less of them, and my lining was thinner, too. What the hell was going on with my body this time?! Again, the doctors reassured me that things were fine and to not worry – my numbers still looked good. I asked them if it was worth increasing my dosage just to give me a little boost towards the end, but they didn’t seem fussed and just told me to carry on like normal.  

All too soon, it seemed like we weren’t just slowing down in growth, we were coming to a complete stop. In general, our clinic usually scans the woman three times before she should be “cooked” enough to come in for egg collection. I ended up having five scans, and by the end of it... it wasn’t good news. After plugging my body with six weeks’ worth of The Pill, and then four weeks’ worth of various injections, my body was just not playing ball. The clinic advised that I could continue with the cycle if I really wanted to, but the likelihood was that we would go through egg collection all over again and maybe get one good egg. Their advisement, though, was to pull the plug – they were officially abandoning IVF Round 2. 

Gutted, hurt and angry was an understatement.

KEB x

It's the Little Things

I started this blog with the intention of telling you all about everything that could and did go wrong with our wedding, so that it might help you avoid the same kind of mistakes we made! Suffice to say, whilst our wedding didn't exactly go off without a hitch, we would've just been happy to hop on a plane to Vegas to say our I do's! We got married because we want to spend the rest of our lives together, not because we wanted a massive party. However, there are some parts of the wedding that just absolutely made our day - so I wanted to share them with you! And as I hit publish, please know that I'm crying tears of joy at these amazing memories!!

I remember... My mum, bless her heart, had organised a surprise for me for the wedding day. She knows how much I love Ferrero Rocher and had booked to have a giant heart-shaped stand available on our dessert table covered in those glorious balls of choco-nutty-ness! 

I remember... We went up to a local beauty spot – The Hoe – where there’re glorious views right over Plymouth Sound. There was a funfair up there at that particular time in the summer holidays, so J and I went on the Dodgems in all our bridal finery! A group of lads cheered as they saw we were joining them – but that didn’t put them off bumping our cars every chance they got! 

I remember... One of my flower girls coming up to the top table and sitting on my lap, taking selfies together inbetween courses.  

I remember... Having a dance-off at the evening disco - boys vs girls! Girls won, obvs! 

I remember... Having to take off my entire dress just to pee. It was so tight on my Beyonce-bum! I was prancing around the loos chatting to my cousin whilst in my underwear when my gran walked in. Mortified doesn’t cover it.  

I remember... my cousins, J and L, coming over to have a photo taken together with me. We stood in exactly the same order that we had done 18 years previously at our auntie's wedding - and look at the difference! From then on, we make sure every photo of us together is in the same order :) 

I remember... J’s best friend introducing my dad as “the Bride of the Groom!” by accident, and the resulting photograph of us falling about laughing. I’m laughing now as I type! 

I remember... Stuffing Ferrero Rocher and slices of cake into people’s handbags as they left the evening reception – Kate and Terri you know what I’m talking about! 

I remember... The DJ playing “Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey. Now, this is MY song. I loved it before Glee and X Factor made it cool. I’ve seen Journey live, for god’s sake, and belted out all their hits alongside 60,000 other fans! Anyway, as it played, everyone just knew to get up on the dancefloor and form a ring around J and I as we had a second dance in front of everyone. 

I remember... Forgetting we hadn’t done a confetti throw! It was about 10pm when we were asked what to do with everyone’s leftover confetti, so I told the DJ I was going to do the bouquet throw, and then stage a confetti throw for photography’s sake. The resulting photo is awesome and looks like we’re just leaving to run off to start our married bliss! 

I remember... the morning after. We got married on a Friday, and weren’t leaving for our honeymoon until Sunday, so we spent Saturday furiously ripping open our wedding cards so that we could take any cash into town to exchange for dollars! We stopped by Frankie and Benny’s, where we’d invited our closest friends for some breakfast. Suffice to say, J was so hungover he couldn’t even finish his fry-up... lightweight!! 

KEB x

The Worst Days

One of the many, many things I’ve struggled to deal with throughout our infertility is the feeling of standing still whilst the world rushes on around you. Weeks turn into months. Months turn into years. The seasons change, another Christmas goes by, and still no baby to take pictures with next to the Christmas tree. Meanwhile all around you, your friends start settling down into their own little families, and you notice even those kids who were in the years below you at school are popping out sprogs themselves. Life goes on. Right?

Wrong. How very wrong we were.

Before our first round of IVF, before the pregnancy and before the miscarriage, we were dealt not one but two devastating blows that didn’t even occur to us would happen. In February 2018 - within the space of 9 days - J and I both unexpectedly lost a grandparent. For me, I was (ironically) at a baby shower when I saw that my mum had tried to call me, twice in succession. When I finally realised and called her back, she delivered the awful news that my grandma had passed away in her sleep. I was inconsolable – I had only just had a roast dinner with her the week before – she had been fine! I couldn’t handle that as well as our infertility troubles and coming to terms with the fact that we would have to go through assisted conception to be able to have a child, I had now lost my gran out of the blue. I had so looked forward to the day that I could present her with a great-grandchild that it didn’t even cross my mind that she wouldn’t be around to see me become a mum.

Over the next 8 days, we found out that J’s grandad had fallen and his injuries were quite nasty. After a short spell in hospital, he sadly passed, too. I had been quite used to seeing him often over the 12 years that I’d known him – always over for Christmas, or popping by for breakfast on a Saturday morning. It was like losing another of my grandparents, and I was so unbelievably sad for J and his parents, especially his mum who was fiercely protective of him.

This is the thing about infertility. It CONSUMES you. People say “just don’t think about it and it’ll happen!” Honey, oh my god just shutthefuckup. I literally eat, sleep and breathe fertility. It’s the first thing you think of when you wake up (usually because you’re taking your Basal Body Temperature) and the last thing you think of at night (usually because you’re - uh – trying to make a baby?!) Everything else in life takes a back seat. Want to go on that fancy holiday? Not this year, babes. Oh, you wanted that promotion? Better not go for it this time love, what if you get pregnant straight away?! Your life hits the pause button for as long as it takes. Because that’s another thing about infertility – it'll take as long as it takes.

Our grandparents’ deaths hit us hard, and I think it was because we were so all-consumed with infertility that we didn’t stop to realise what was going on with everything else. You just expect people to be around for you, in the literal and figurative sense. You don’t realise that actually you could be losing your family, friends and support system around you, because they don’t know how to cope with your grief.

What came next though was an immense outpouring of support from family. This was obviously a very family-oriented situation, and - like weddings - death brings everyone together again. I ‘came out’ to my cousins about our troubles, and their enthusiasm for IVF and support for it was incredible! Aunties, uncles, cousins all rallied around to just be there for each other, supporting each other through our own sadness. It’s so good just to talk about things, and realise what we were all going – or had been – through, too. It made J and I even more determined to see things through. J’s mum even made sure that his grandad’s funeral wasn’t on the day of our IVF consent appointment, as she knew how monumental it was for us! We were all in this together.

As you know, our first round of IVF wasn’t meant to be. But I believe that knowing we had two extra stars in the sky cheering us on was what gave us that glimmer of hope in the first place. It was that little bit of support that said to us “you CAN do this, you HAVE got this!” And we’ll do it again, no matter what. We have said time and again the phrase “when we are parents”, not “if we have a baby” and I think that’s such an important mindset to live by. We WILL be parents someday, and sure it might not be to our own biological children, or I might not carry my own baby... But IT WILL HAPPEN.

Fast-forward to July 2018. 

After I realised I was miscarrying our babies, I rang the on-call nurse who confirmed what we had suspected. She called it a “chemical pregnancy” which I think is a really shit term to use. If you Google it, it’ll tell you it’s an early miscarriage. It’s deemed “chemical” because the only thing that proves that you were pregnant was the chemical changes to the hormones in your urine or blood test – essentially, you didn’t make it far along enough to be able to see anything on an ultrasound. It’s usually around the 5-6 week mark of pregnancy, and actually they’re so common that most women who weren’t actively trying for a baby would just mistake it for a late period than an actual pregnancy.

The next bit might be a bit too much information, so I forgive you if you want to skip ahead.

The next day, I just laid on the sofa, waiting for it to happen. I hadn’t actually seen any blood clots at this point, but I was remembering the comment about the 50p from my friend’s miscarriage. I wasn’t even watching TV, I was just lying there, doing nothing. J had gone to work, I told him to go as there was nothing we could do. Then at about 11:30am, the most excruciating pain hit me and I just felt an overwhelming urge to go to the toilet. I knew at that point that the pregnancy tissue had left my body and I had officially miscarried. There was nothing “chemical” about that part of my pregnancy.

Luckily, J came bursting through the front door at that moment – I don’t think I’d even flushed at that point. I know some people scoop it out of the toilet and bury it, or take it to the doctors for analysis, and each to their own. But I needed it gone. I can’t remember who did it, but I just remember sobbing that it had gone and that I believed it was my fault. This is so important - a miscarriage is NOT the mother's fault. Although the term is crap again, and implies that we somehow "mishandled" our pregnancy, there was just some chemical or hormonal imbalance which just did not mean that those precious cells would've created a healthy, living baby. I was so unbelievably thankful that J had come home at that point, it was like he knew that in that moment he had to be with me.

The summer of 2018 was a blur to me. I retreated far, far back into my own little bubble, which only J was allowed to enter. Friends tried to reach out to me, but I literally just wanted to be with J. Even if he was sat watching the football, I didn’t care so long as I was with him. I went to work, and went home again, not caring if I’d done a good job or if I’d gone the extra mile that day. Our families tried to rally around us, but no one could pick up the pieces. I uninstalled WhatsApp in an attempt to switch off from life, and I deleted my Instagram account for fear of seeing yet another pregnancy announcement. Friends could see that I wanted to be left alone, and I didn’t even realise as some of them slipped away for good. I don’t really remember much of what happened between July and November that year. I didn’t do anything remotely worthwhile, and looking back I realised that I stopped taking photos of things, too. I stopped seeing the beauty in the life all around me.

Straight after we miscarried, I tried to bounce back to normality and continue on with plans to go to a concert with my best friends. I ended up breaking down massively, probably putting a right downer on the weekend. All around me there were mums with their little girls, enjoying the concert. Usually, babies and bumps are triggers for me. But I felt a pain I’d never experienced before, as I never thought about the fact that of course those babies turn into children who can walk and talk and sing and dance to their pop idols. Seeing them all around me made me feel like I couldn’t breathe. This was supposed to be my future, and it had slipped away as fast as I’d celebrated it.

6 long weeks later, the hospital scheduled us for a follow up consultation – also known as the “What The Fuck” appointment. They agreed that ICSI would’ve been a better protocol for us, and next time we would do that. They agreed that I didn’t respond as well as they’d hoped to the stimulation drugs, given my age and ovarian reserve levels, so next time they would put me on a different medication. They agreed that we should try fertility counselling, and referred us to a specialist. All the while, everything was just spoken about in “next time” terms. Next time would be a long way off for us, as we were now out of NHS funding and would have to find around £5,000 to go self-funded.

Counselling wasn’t really for us. The therapist tried to get J to open up, which is like trying to get blood out of a stone. She tried to get us to start thinking about a Plan B, such as surrogacy or adoption. As I’ve stated, we are totally for going down that route, if that’s what it takes. But we’d only had one try of IVF, and I wanted to give it another shot – after all, the first round is described as a “tester” to see how you respond to things. She told me to avoid my triggers – pregnant women and babies – which was shit advice being that 99% of my friendship group fell into this category. We didn’t revisit counselling. 

One thing that stood out massively for us at this point in the year is that my parents gifted us a generous portion of my grandma’s inheritance. They knew the money would be used towards future rounds of IVF, and I think this was the burst of light that I needed to get through things as best I could. The next morning, J and I toasted our next chapter at breakfast, and I broke down over my pancakes when I realised that our grandparents would be helping us achieve our dream of becoming parents. It was like that age old saying, one door closes, another one opens. I was determined to make them proud, and knew that the next round of IVF had to work, for their sakes as well as ours. We weren’t just doing it for us now, we were doing it for them, too!

KEB x