I can't sleep, I can't stop my brain.

You know it's three weeks [on lucrin], I'm going insane
You know I'd give you everything I've got
for a little peace of mind.

I'm sure that's not quite what Mr. Lennon had in mind, but I'm gonna put lucrin right up there with whatever demons he was battling circa 1968.

So, to manipulate my cycle to fit in with DH's work roster, I'm down regging my brains out, baby! By the time I start stimming in 10 days, it'll have been 4 weeks on the demon. Crazy.

Everything is being thrown at the Last Stim Cycle. Sceptical Mez has booked the acupuncture and the gluten/dairy/caffeine/alcohol free diet is going quite well, after some major headache withdrawal.

The Recurrent Miscarriage expert has been consulted and has added thiamine to my mega-B6/B12/folate/aspirin concoction. He has told me to ditch the prednisolone (yay!) and to up the clexane to 60mgs. Apparently, despite my FS's confident assertions that my homocysteine levels are normal, they are way too high at 8.3. A woman in her reproductive years (sick joke, but you get the drift) should be around the 4.3 mark.

The good news is that my ANA levels have reduced substantially to a titre of 1/160 and my scary borderline Rheum. Factor is negative again. My theory is that they were elevated due to pregnancy as the last round of tests was only a week after my last miscarriage. Thus the vicious cycle of pregnancy elevating auto-immune disease, which then increases miscarriage risk.

I don't have a lot to add, however I do look forward to the end of this cycle with optimism. I have devoted an entire year of my life to IVF. One way or another, I will have my closure.

Trying to taste the difference 'tween a lemon and lime.

Yup. The ol' spidey senses are certainly working overtime. I'm at that point of utter confusion. The intense, researching, Dr-sceptic Mez thinks that if I just research some more and find that secret ingredient that's holding me back from eventual success, then all will be well. The tired, laid back, fatalistic Mez thinks that what will be will be and that we have no control over this heartless process. Pregnancy isn't really a science. Millions of fat, lazy, overweight, smoking, drunken crack whores daily conceive and bring forth more spawn to fill the world.

In the past week 3 people have asked me if I have kids. Funnily enough, up until I started trying, I was never asked. Four years of TTC has aged me now to the point that even the baby/toddler assumptions have stopped and people wonder which schools my mythical children attend. Like most long-term Infertiles, I've worked on a stock response of which I'm unnervingly proud. It goes something like this:

II (that's Inquisitive Idiot): So, do you have kids?
Mez: No. (smart punters get the point here.)
II: Oh! (tone of surprise and disbelief)
Mez: Not everyone has kids.

I'll pause here to explain that if this is the end of the conversation, I go no further. However, there are those Extra-Inquisitive Extra-Idiots who need to continue to the next level....

II: Really? Why not?
Mez: Not everyone can HAVE kids. (glare)

This is where it ends. Normal, switched on folk assume at "Not everyone has kids" that a woman in her late-30s may well be childless involuntarily. Those clueless folks who assume that everyone has kids, need it spelled out. I will single out for honorable mention in the area of gross self-absorption, the woman last week who, even after the final line in my little dialogue, still went on expectantly to tell me that she had two. O-KAY! Cue Mez mumbling hmmmm and turning away quite quickly. No, I really don't want to hear the exciting tales of parenthood, and if you think I'm going to start breathlessly interrogating you about Tyler and Logan (or whatever bizarro surname-first names are trendy this year), then think again.

I guess I'd better get used to this little speech. I do feel (believe it or not) that as I prepare myself for the inevitable, the bitterness is receding somewhat. I actually stood next to a hugely pregnant woman at a party last weekend and chatted away blithely. I guess it helped that I just thought she was fat and only realised her state when someone else asked about her adventures in cot-purchasing. The baby hole will reduce in size and other things will take its place. I'm working hard on the husband to find work in Melbourne so I can have my career and life back. All this running from Infertility has to stop someday.

Unhappily yours....

Today the last negative has finally sunk in, along with the realisation that I'm less than 2 weeks away from starting my final stim. This time a year ago I reluctantly joined the AC circus, with the expectation that what my body wouldn't do naturally could be effected quickly with science. As it turns out, we were actually a whole lot more fertile before IVF, if that's even possible.

I don't really know what else to throw at this. There's nothing we need to do to improve response, quality of eggs/sperm, blasts, hormones etc etc. Each cycle chugs along swimmingly, that is until the red lady sings. We are taking steps to counteract possible clotting and inflammation issues. I am truly ruining my FC's stats.

I took my post-it list of concerns to Dr Suave on Friday with some wins and some losses.

1. I want a down reg, I got a down reg. Hard work to pull for that at my FC, AKA Antagonists R Us. Here's hoping for a good haul like the first one.
2. I thought maybe going up to 50mg prednisolone might give me an edge but he demurred. Apparently 25mg is actually quite high and they usually prescribe 10-15mg. I don't like this drug at the best of times, so I'll play ball on that one.
3. The role that being ANA+ plays....apparently it's like saying that 5% of cars outside are red, but that doesn't mean only red cars crash. Thank you, Dr Weird Analogy! So we just don't know.
4. I brought up the possibility of transferring a day 2/3 embie as obviously these perfect little blasts don't take to mama. Better in than out? No. They like blasts, they have success with blasts. They don't want to waste time transferring embies which may well have stopped dividing in the dish at day 4. It makes sense and I deferred to his greater medical knowledge on that one, but I'm still not so sure.

I'm also going gluten, dairy, caffeine, sugar and alcohol free this cycle, and I tell you what, that last one really hurts! If it takes down the inflammation in my body by even 5% extra, it might help.

I really don't know what else to do. If this is a bust, I use up my frosties, pack up my cricket set and walk off into the setting sun of childlessness.

Fixing a Hole......

but unfortunately, it didn't stop my mind from wandering......

I took a long walk today with the aim of working off some of the bloating/meds associated with failed Stim #3 (yep, you read right), as well as to practice some 'mindful walking' as recommended by Dr Alice Domar in "Conquering Infertility". Now, I have to say that if I took drugs and had any talent at all, this walk would have inspired a Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds-type lyrical explosion. Perhaps because I was attempting to walk mindfully and stay in the moment, there was instead an explosion of picaresque symbols lurking furtively around every corner. I even fully expected to see a number plate "IVF111" somewhere along the way. And so, like old Jean-Jacques, roaming around that park in Paris and staring at the tree's roots, I set forth to be Enlightened.

The bad thing about moving interstate frequently is the complete lack of familiarity with one's surrounds. This is also a positive and something I took full advantage of today, through the twisting, stone-cottage studded inner-suburbs of south-eastern Adelaide. Dear reader, I did persevere with the mindfulness, despite many intruding ruminations on more negative aspects of my life. I'm one of those people who could never meditate, and even yoga is beyond me. Just how do people turn their minds off for even a minute? Peace of this kind eludes me, instead pushing me into stressful, mental meanderings which eventually become too much, the effects of which can only be ameliorated by a fatalistically exhaled 'meh' during these existential episodes.

Walking past the first park, I was smiled at gingerly by a teenage girl with Down Syndrome and what looked like some type of palsy. Once again I was saddened and inexplicably sickened by the jolting realisation of the rarity of such scenes these days. We seem to have selectively reduced the incidence of Down's and other "imperfect" babies in our society. I don't want to get too deep here as this is a personal decision that each person needs to make. Suffice it to say that it's something simmering not too deeply below the sea-level of this late-30s, TTCer's thoughts.

Next, I spied at the end of a lane way, a virtual horde of perhaps 5-year-olds and their parents. It was a cult, you know, the Fertile People Cult, AKA, Everyone Else. Normally I would have done a swift 180 and found myself another route, however, in the interests of moving beyond being a Professional Infertile (as I have been called) and dealing with the reality that most people do indeed get to have children and I'd better start accepting that fact (girlfriend!), I charged ahead with spirit and verve. Call it some sort of masochistic Aversion therapy; I walked past and through possibly 20 children without a care.

Beyond that was a dog with a plastic neck brace. Truly.

Paying for my not-doing-IVF-so can-drink-coffee-with-impunity-coffee at the local cafe, I was bemused to see the sign on the change dish: "If you don't like change, leave it here". Not bad, Brown Dog Cafe, not bad. A change dish on many different philosophical levels is a change dish after my own heart.

What was the point of this? I really don't know. I think it's time to start accepting the inevitable. Not for me the delusional/optimistic (2 sides of the same coin, really) belief that if I stim indefinitely, I will find success. I haven't been able to find the statistics, but I'm pretty sure that the majority of people who do IVF are unsuccessful. I commit to one more stim and have a review with Dr Suave this Friday to discuss my demands/protocol.

Out of Puff.

I'm unenthused by this cycle and can't really be bothered. I tend to mentally and physically hibernate during the 2WW, particularly the last difficult week, during which time I try to put myself on the backburner, if that's even humanly possible. In reality, I'm trying not to think about the inevitable BFN and the next step. Anyone who even vaguely believes in the power of positive thinking will assume that I'm willing it to fail. Me, I'm just gearing up the defence mechanisms to avoid the crash and burn when the red lady sings.

To update, we had transfer of 2 excellent Grade 1 blasts, one of which was even double Grade 1, apparently. Both Specialist and embryologist gushed, ooohed and aaaahed appropriately at the perfection of our little blasties, clearly thinking that this is what I need to hear. Unfortunately, I'm well versed in the perfect-blast/negative result dichotomy and was in no mood. This qualifies me, in the words of the FS, as an "old-hand" AKA a cynical infertile bitch.

Additionally, we have 1 definite Grade 1 frozen and another they were watching. So all in all, despite previous fears, probably 4 good blasts out of 5 fert. Again, cold comfort when nothing seems to be working.

BT next Monday, but not I'm not expecting to get that far.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1.....blast off!!!

.....or not.

So, I hear that every year after 37, fertility drops drastically. I understand that, but this is getting ridiculous!!!

The good news was that despite potentially overstimming, with an E2 of 15400 two days before my EPU, I was OK and awoke to see that lovely, double-figure of 10 biroed on my hand. After insisting that they give me the voltaren messary that they'd forgotten during the EPU (and boy can you tell they've forgotten the pain relief!), I heard the woman in the bed next to me look at her sad and solitary number 1 and say to the nurse, well, it's better than last time. So, me, I no complain.

Next day comes that previously non-dreaded call from embryology. Me, smug?

Perky Embryologist:"It's good news! You collected 10 eggs (derr) and we have fertilisation of 5."

Mez: "(in a daze, not really taking it in) err, we usually get much higher fert rates."

PE: "Well, we aim for 50% and you've got 50%, congratulations!"

Which sets my mind a-thinkin'. Last time, with 10 eggs, 8 fert, we got 3 usable blasts. Following the same process, it's possible we'll end up with nothing.

A rudimentary revision of my previous cycles shows a heinous and unheralded, highly-rapid decline in my Fertility.

Stim 1: 16 eggs, 9 fert, 5 blasts.

Stim 2: 10 eggs, 8 fert, 3 blasts.

Stim 3: 10 eggs, 5 fert........????


How does it go so far downhill in a matter of 9 months?

My problem to be overcome on this whole nightmarish treadmill to oblivion seemed to be implantation/miscarriage issues.

Throw in some age-related cruddy eggs and this could all be over much sooner than expected.

Something else to worry about. Perhaps, in a crazy way, it's a good thing. I'm telling you, all these textbook but negative cycles were doing the old head in.

I've pushed Dr Suave to prescribe Clexane and am back on the 'roids, so let's take some deep breaths and worry about what we can control, which is zero, nada, niente, rien.

No news from embryology is good news, until transfer next Wednesday, which no longer seems a cert.

Relax, go on a holiday, stop thinking about it.....

.....well, 2 out of 3 ain't bad. Guess what folks, being as fertile as a Stop sign didn't lead to a natural pregnancy whilst enjoying the balmy warmth of Port Douglas 2 weeks ago. Funny that. I even deludedly stayed on the prednisolone (and have the moonface in the photos to prove it) against the instructions of Dr Suave, on the off chance that I'm actually quite fertile but just need to keep the inflammation down for a successful implantation. Not to be. As always, stupid hope will always spring eternal in the bosom of the Infertile.

Since my last blog entry there has been some small progress in this journey.

1. I have obtained a referral to the OB who's a thrombophiliac expert and await his call for an appointment. I've stayed on the megafol/B6/B12 and aspirin for now.

2. Dr Suave wants me to stim again rather than FET, due to age....ie: he wants the old duck to build up a supply of blasts before the eggs give out. Whatever, just lead me to that general anaesthetic. Same protocol, antagonist with 100 puregon.

3. I insisted on a Clexane prescription, despite his disbelief that my MTHFR is a factor. He kept spouting the "homocysteine is normal" line, but somehow I've stumbled upon a very pro-Clexane GP who is happy to supply me, so I told him I'd be using it with or without his approval. FS is no doubt highly sick of Mez and her friend, Dr Google, however I'm now firmly of the belief that an informed infertile is a (contradiction in terms) a relatively happy infertile.

4. DH's SCSA/Tunel test came back perfect, so again, it seems that embryo quality is not the issue here.

5. This will be full stim number 3, and transfer 7+8. I'm now looking down the barrel of the business end of this fertility caper. I may or may not do that statistically significant 4th stim, it really depends on a number of factors, including where we'll be living in a few months, which could change momentarily.

Let's go!