I’d rather just have sex with my husband
“Fall seven times, stand up eight”
~ Japanese Proverb
Remembering IVF the good years – Part 1
Not long ago we found out that our 18 week scan was perfect, so I thought it might be a good time to remember just how I happened to get up the duff again:
IVF #7
I’d always thought when our baby would be conceived, that at least I would be in the room. My husband also, but only as an optional extra. I’d also always thought that the use of stirrups would come later at the delivery and not at the conception but alas, how wrong I was. Men in white coats, local anaesthetic, test tubes, oh turn up the romance!
With no medical explanation, who would’ve guessed it would take us 4 years of invasive infertility treatments, (3 x IUI, 6 x IVF) and a whole team of world-class experts before we would see the birth of our Blessed First Child. And now it was time to start the ball rolling again! Bring out the Tracksuit Pants of Comfort and sperm shaped balloons! Let’s just see if the whole Mac vs. PC issue could be solved again or will a sibling for our daughter be coming from Taiwan?
Day 23 – Syneral starts
Oh joy of joys! The day has finally rocked around when I get to put my body deliberately into menopause. With the help of a simple nasal spray, down regulation medication is used to suppress my own natural hormones so that the doctors can control what my body is doing.
It is exciting to get started with things after a few months of waiting. It is excruciating to get started with things after a few months of waiting. Why hadn’t the good old-fashioned method worked? Again.
We’ve done IVF so many times, who knows when it will work. We are going to give it a good try for a few runs but once we hit double digits, we will focus our hopes on adoption. At the end of the day, we just want the chance to fuck up another kid just like anyone else; it doesn’t matter where it comes from.
And with my hormones being controlled by a team of doctors north of Stockholm, it is the part of the IVF cycle that is famous for words such as: divorce! I hate this! piss off! unfair! and I’m going home! Usually, they are coupled with tears, tossing of the hair and the slamming of doors. Oh my poor Swedish Husband, we might be in this together but I’m taking drugs up my nose and they’re not the good ones.
After years of this, he knows what to do for his own sake. ‘Get down low and go, go, go’. Go to the pub, stay clear and do what I say, everyday, well at least for the next 2 weeks.
Side effects of Syneral include, but are not limited to:
hot flushes • headaches • mood changes • depression • acne • muscle pains • decreased breast size • irritation of the nose • pain and/or swelling of the joints • change in weight • insomnia • yelling at your husband • over reacting to everything • incredibly irrational behaviour • PMS on steroids
In other words, just another Friday night at our house.
[Photos courtesy of http://www.sxc.hu ]
loulouloves 
Test tubes? Hot flushes (already having them and that’s because I am apparently premenopausal), headaches? I think I will continue living vicariously through my friends’ pregnancies. 🙂
I think your other friends might have had more fun!
Thanks for sharing… I never knew!
Wow…and you’re still married. Your relationship is obviously made of the strong stuff!
Love your sense of humor about it all. Don’t envy you, though!
Yes, we found having a laugh was way better than crying!
Tks for being brave and talk about your trials with IVF. It’s sobering to hear that you refer to it as “invasive” — the doctors want to shut down the natural and have control over the whole process, which is no control at all right? They can’t give you 99% confidence that it’s going to work! Well, even if you had to get a baby from Taiwan, it’s not so bad. I’m from there and…wait, maybe that makes you feel even better about IVF ;). Can’t wait to hear more of the story! And also how this 2nd conception happened.
I wasn’t sure if I was going to write about it but in the end I did, thought it might help other people going through it as it is more than you may think. They gave us good odds to start with but then those quickly went down which wasn’t so nice to hear, but we just didn’t give up. We would have loved a dear little one from Taiwan and we are actually still on waiting lists, you never know what the future holds. I had always thought ‘we can just adopt, that would be nice’ boy was I wrong! Once we started getting into it we found out how complicated it is and how long it takes (between 5-7 years and its getting longer all the time, and then you have been in the cue so long that you end up being too old to qualify!). Our daughters name means Gift from God and she totally is and we can’t even believe our luck that #2 is on its way…
Yea, I’ve heard both ends of the waiting spectrum when it comes to adoption. But yea on the blessings!
Too funny and sad all at once….you’re one tough cookie girl. xxx