Eggs-actly what I wanted to hear!!

Ok, that was so lame, I'm going to apologise and force myself to watch another episode of The Bold and the Beautiful so I can be reminded again just how fertile 47-year-olds really are. (That would be you, Brooke Logan Forrester Moroney etc etc)

So, EPU was good. E2 was 6000 3 days prior, so I was expecting maybe 12, with a few immatures. I got 10 and 8 fertilised with straight IVF, thus reinforcing the bizarre paradox of an ancient infertile hag being an excellent responder with "good eggs". I haven't heard from the clinic, but I will be in on Saturday to transfer 2 little blast-offs and I'm pretty confident there'll be at least 2. Not for this clinic the daily updates that I was used to in WA, but hey, I'm paying $3000 less per stim, so I'll wear the disinterest.....with interest!!

I'm kind of vaguely impressed by the old antagonist protocol as well. Not only did I still get a flipping good haul on a low dose of FSH, but my fert rate was 80% as opposed to 69% on the down reg. In addition, the lack of lucrin has meant that I'm feeling fine, baby. No mood swings, no fatigue, no bloating, no worries! 12 days of drugs to EPU is OK by me.

I've started my prednisolone and my skin and eyes are sparkling maniacally like the proverbial Stepford Wives, plus I've put myself on baby aspirin on the "it can't hurt" theory. Apparently being ANA+, I'm at risk of platelets rising when my body reacts to dastardly foreign invaders, so miniscule clots can affect implantation at this early stage.

I'm still extremely pessimistic. I am truly at the stage where I'm sure we are merely going through the motions so we can say that we did our best, but I'm very dubious that there'll be a take-home baby at the end of all this. I just can't even think it anymore. I'm mentally preparing for a childfree life at the end of the year, as I'm not one who will keep going and going like Everready. Perhaps I'm weak, perhaps I'm strong. All I know is, I want resolution!!

Antagonise this!

So, I guess I should update this whole IVF thing, since it's kind of the raison-d'etre of this here blog.

I'm feeling slightly antagonised by the whole experience. Ha ha, geddit, antagonist cycle? *insert roll-eyes emoticon here*. Gotta love a bit of Infertility humour in the afternoon.

Ok, so the thing is, this new clinic swears by the old antagonist cycle. They're completely mad for it. I was pretty concerned about the whole OHSS thing, being your atypical 38-year-old high responder, but they assured me that this cycle was good at suppression and led to less, but better, eggs. Without lucrin. O-Kay! "Suppress me Baby one more time!"

In my usual sceptical Mez fashion, I did indeed attempt to convince them to go down reg again as that had been so successful last time, (like, up to the having a baby part *insert roll-eyes emoticon again*) but to no avail. Looks like old clinico was correctamundo and old Mez was wrong, capeesh? (how many languages can I slaughter in one sentence?) My E2 today at the CD10 scan was 1200 and I have around 10 1cm follies so far. So it looks as though less may well be more. I'm not panicking about over-stimming now, and in the cliched vernacular of millions of teens world-wide, IT's ALL GOOD! Maaaaaaaaaaate.

Next scan/BT is set for Wednesday and we need my lining to get a wriggle on and start plumping itself out, y'all, kinda like Madonna's new face.

On another slightly optimistic note, it also turns out that the results of my hyst/endo biopsy were awesome and there's no sign of killer cells or any other murderous cellular fiends lurking nefariously behind uterine lines. Dr Suave was trying to convince me that due to his brilliant planning, (cunning like a fox, I tell you!) I had the hysteroscopy on CD 21 so that I was at the right part of my cycle for the results. I didn't bother reminding him that I actually had it 2 weeks later than initially planned due to the clinic not booking me in on time. *can I keep using the roll-eyes motif here, or would that be twee?*

So, after a chilly early response, I feel that I've warmed up to Dr Suave. His moniker is meant ironically, as in, I think he thinks he's pretty suave. You know, one of those mid-40s, silver haired dudes still in pretty good nick who tries to be in with the young'uns. I just realised that I'm deludedly allying myself with these self-same young'uns. I guess you're only as young as the man you feel. (boom boom)

So, Dr Suave is starting to listen to me a bit more, now that I'm paying his clinic the big bucks to stim, rather than using them to shoot my previously acquired, ring-in blasts into the vortex known as Infertile Mez.

Every time I leave his office, I feel like saying that I really hope I never see him again. Strangely enough, I don't feel that it's time for those words, yet.

Out, out brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

RIP Barbara.

Inconceivable!

No, it's not blog-time yet, but I wanted to put in a plug for a new website run by those with fertility issues, for those with fertility issues. Occasionally, some of us feel like a minority freak-show on the usual parenting board we play at and have been looking for a safe haven where we can discuss fertility related issues without being told that we're bitter and twisted (there's that phrase again) yada yada yada. It's still in its infancy, but check it out, you might just see some friendly faces and get the support you're looking for!

http://inconceivable.ipbfree.com/

Bitters with a twist of lemon.....

I received an interesting message this week. It went something like this:

Dear Mez,

During the day when I have nothing else to do, I frequent online forums. Occasionally I notice that people seem to say some pretty mean stuff, like, things they probably wouldn't say if they weren't sitting behind a screen. I'm not sure what to think. How do I take it? Do I take them seriously and get involved, or just assume that everything I read on the net is a pile of boredom-induced bollocks??

Yours, Confused.



Well, Confused, thanks for the note. Strangely enough, I myself have a few theories on this very topic, so with your permission, I'll humbly expand upon this phenomenon.

We live in interesting times. Everyone is a writer, everyone is a researcher. In this post-post-modern world, we don't merely exist as the sum total of our various experiences, we deliberately create whole personas with which to enter the day, to live vicariously, or to express what is not socially acceptable in real life. Like a societal safety-valve, if you will. It's all a bit Tyler Durden, except sadly, the practitioners come off more Ed Norton than Brad Pitt.

Interesting times indeed. I set to musing on this topic recently as I pondered the highly unoriginal, yet classic phrase so beloved by many, "bitter and twisted". This is one you hear a lot when you don't have the good grace to hide the grief and emotions associated with long-term Infertility. It's dropped frequently into random, anonymous conversations; sometimes I wonder indeed if the purveyors of such originality have considered the fact that they, in lowbrow parlance, are stating the bleeding obvious?

Hey, why not just tell me that I have brown eyes? That's about as far-reaching and pithy as telling someone suffering IF that they're "bitter and twisted". Here's an oldie but a goodie: you might want to consider getting some new material. Or, here's an idea. Try moving beyond the false, wannabe, Alpha-female online persona and consider your responses to such people in the real world. I'll tell you now, that not one friend/acquaintance in real life has bothered to utter such a pointless phrase. In an authentic world, people are slightly more empathic, and if not, just slightly more intelligently original.

I can see it now, groups of women draped languidly around a warm fire in the withdrawing room, dropping the phrase "Oh, you're so bitter and twisted" with all the eclat of a divertingly considered bon mot, while sipping sherry and laughing delicately. NOT.

I hope that's made some sense, Confused. To paraphrase that famous twentieth century philosopher, George Costanza, it's not you, it's them.

Do Infertiles Dream of Infertile Sheep?

Sometimes, a hidden memory crawls around the nether regions of my shrivelled, aging brain, jolting me with a blast from the past. A memory, pre-TTC, when the world was a warm, happy place. Well, at least predictable and logical in many ways.

The other night, when I was peering out the window trying to take my mind off yet another surgical procedure which was not guaranteed to bring me a baby, yet had to be done, one of these time-tendrils brushed my cheek. For some reason, I couldn't get out of my head the Tyrell corporation logo, "More human than human". Further analysis took me back around 9 years, possibly the last time I saw Blade Runner. Why was this in my head? Was it the thought of being placed on yet another operating table, to be entered, cut, scraped, violated again? Has technology gone too far? Why am I putting myself through this personal trespass? Clearly it's not something I enjoy, hell, I'd never been admitted to hospital until the age of 35 for my first M/C.

I guess the genetic engineering themes in Blade Runner were flittering through my mind with the thought of yet another procedure. I can't extrapolate much more deeply than that.

For me, very occasionally, art gives hope, a type of wish-fulfillment that the world could be a different place. Things like the simple yet blindingly poignant death speech of Roy Batty, who, in a few words, reveals his understanding of the world and empathy for man through the ages. At that moment, he is indeed more human than human.

If only human empathy were that simple.


All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain.
Time to die.

Ya got nuthin I want, ya got nuthin I need.

This is a banner week in Mez-land, a week unlike any other. My slightly melodramatic way of announcing 2 blog entries within a week.

I'm not completely clued up on this whole blogging etiquette thing. It appears that to obtain comments on your own scintillating entries, you must elicit such responses by commenting on OPBs. (that's other peeps' blogs y'all) Which presents me with the slightly problematic issue of actually having to read the aforementioned OPBs. Occasionally I do attempt this, dear reader, but oh, the banality! And the blogs of fellow childless slapper friends are becoming a wasteland of lost hopes and discarded words, ie: they seem to have stopped/diminished their blogging activities recently.

For what hope can there be, year after year of dashed dreams, disappointments, while your newbie barbie TTCer gets her magical 2 lines within a few months of trying? It seems that even IVF newbie barbies seem to be fulfilling their hopes much quicker than the rest of us.

I'm hoping, now, that we've stumbled upon the solution to our IF. No longer Unexplained, thanks to recurrent miscarriage testing, I find myself quietly hoping that this is the answer, and that the hysteroscopy/biopsy next week doesn't throw some other foul impediment to our efforts into the ring. Because I'm thinking that this is about as much as I can take.

The response to my testing ANA positive is for me to take a low dose of corticosteroids from transfer onwards. If this works, I'll definitely ditch the headfuck of AC and try for number 2 naturally, if we get that far. Being horrendously old, I personally am now a 1 child preferer, but DH and I both have issues with the idea of having a pampered, neurotic, spoilt, only child. "But ours won't be spoilt!" I cry, not even giving half-hearted credence to my own words. How on earth could this mythical child not be spoilt, after what we've been through? This child will be the prince/ss reigning over our lives, if only the mythical child would enter those emotionally-battered, yet still mildly hopeful lives at some point soon.

Where are you???

***what's with the irrelevent, Barnsey-esque title this week? No, I haven't tripped over to the bogan -side. I'm just a bit angry.