I am embarking on this blog with the idea in mind that I am probably going to write about my experiences trying to conceive, and encountering the pain, agony, anguish, trauma, torment, trauma, hurt, affliction, sadness, unhappiness, sorrow, grief, angst, heartache, heartbreak and stress [thank you thesaurus] of recurrent pregnancy loss along the way.
Beginning the journey in October 2003, I fell pregnant for the first time in February 2005. It was ectopic and required emergency surgery. My next pregnancy occurred September that same year, was a chemical, and I was pregnant again (November) before I'd even had a period. This too was a chemical. Then nothing happened until March 2006, when I had another chemical and after that I decided to try IVF and see if that had any answers.
August 2006 we did our first IVF with PGS (Preimplantation Genetic Screening) which tested 8 from 23 chromosomes. Seven embryos were genetically abnormal and the eighth didn't survive to be tested. January 2007 we did our second fresh cycle. 8 embryos made it to testing, five were abnormal, one was potentially abnormal, one was normal and one was normal but not developing that well.
We put the two normal embryos back and froze the unknown. I began to bleed 10dp 5dt (my normal luteal phase is 10 days) but took the beta anyway. It was positive, but low (like all my other bets had been). I continued to bleed and lost the embryos.
In October 2007 we did an FET. Our embryo thawed successfully but again I began to bleed at 10dpi. I didn't bother with the beta this time as I felt there was no point knowing if it had been positive or not.
And then I stopped 'trying'. Stopped charting and temping and peeing on OPK's and obsessing about my cervical mucus and demanding sex at ovulation. Just let it go. And it felt great. Like a holiday.
I went on a real holiday in March 2008 and came back pregnant. (I HATE those relax and go on holiday stories, so don't think this is one of those, please!). I refrained from even peeing on a stick until I began spotting at 5 1/2 weeks. Then it was time to crack out the betas again, which of course were low and not doubling on time. Ectopic again.
Surgery (9th April 2008) failed as the embryo was too small to detect, so I had a methotrexate shot at 7 weeks 2 days. That was on the 19th April. It has been the longest and hardest of all my pregnancy losses to date, finally ending in early August.
The subsequent HSG showed a 3cm scar tissue in the left tube, but the right was fine.
June 2009, in the middle of my two-week prac, [and my year off TTC] I (unintentionally) became pregnant. I pulled out of the subsequent 6 week prac, leery of my previous history, which not-so-very-much later proved the sensible choice. Early spotting and cramping led to beta testing for ectopic, but came back normal and doubling so we waited until 7w4d when we thought we ought to have a good chance of seeing a heartbeat, if there was one. This time we tried daily clexane 40mg injections for the clotting disorder discovered in early January, and hoped we were finally in with a chance.
Well there was a heartbeat, but it was perilously low at 90bpm, and although the sac measured 7 w, the embryo only measured 6w1d. Doesn't take a genius to figure out how it ended. Second scan showed embryo measuring at 6w2d and no heartbeat. D&C the following day.
Finished the 'cooling off' period before heading into a donor egg cycle, which ran in April 2010, and was cancelled due to the donor overstimming. We set up another (and final, with this donor) attempt for July 2010, which failed again for the same reason as the first, even though she was on much lower doses.
Meanwhile I did 'one last cycle' (in May 2010) to collect my own eggs, which was disappointing to say the least. There were only 3 eggs collected, and only one fertilised. This has become a grade 2, 5 cell embryo that we have put on ice. I am not willing at this stage to subject it to my womb of death.
We are now slowly progressing through the legal hoops required to use a surrogate, this lovely lady M, who is willing to take this embryo and bring it to term for me, if the donor egg embryo (should we ever get one) does not take to my womb kindly. I was in serious talks with a surrogate from March 2010, but as of June 2010, this has fallen through and by lucky happenstance I am now in agreement with a woman I met online a year ago whose arrangement fell through at the same time as mine. Our clinic has accepted us, and we've done the counselling require by the clinic. Our meetings with lawyers and the psychometric testing were completed in December 2010.
We went through the process of signing up a second egg donor (Can you believe I have been lucky enough to have THREE people I know offer me their eggs??), and completed the first stage of counselling, but she pulled out in October.
Change of plan required: I tried again to collect my own eggs in early December 2010, which yielded two embryos. We thawed the one from the May cycle and ran PGS on the lot. All three were chromosomal abnormal. I am loathe to sign up a third possible donor (and my third friend isn't offering anymore, so it would be a whole new search) due to the disappointment factor and serious wait time, but M's husband is unsure about M providing her eggs, so we need to at least try to find a donor.
Bloody hell, it's exhausting. No wonder I came down with shingles (July 2010).
This is how I ended 2010. I spent from Christmas Eve until the 3rd of January 2011 on a silent Buddhist meditation retreat, and just let the whole thing go, out of my hands, and found peace with whatever will be. On the tenth day, when we could speak again, the woman who had sat behind me for the course offered to donate me her eggs.
We set up the initial counselling for the 31st January 2011. Then there were the lawyers and the psychometric testing and three month cooling off period and blah blah blah. We did two IVF cycles with her and failed to get any eggs at all. By September 2011 we were back to the drawing board.
The surrogate offered her eggs, so we went back through that whole application procedure with the RTC, and this time applied for 'traditional surrogacy'. We also had to find some Dr who would do the IUI procedure because no IVF clinic in Autralia will touch Traditional surrogacy with a barge pole. Then that Dr had to jump hoops to get registered with the RTC as a surrogacy provider. By April 2012 we were all approved.
Meanwhile in Nov 2011 I discovered Dr Hurworth from Fertility Care, a Na Pro practitioner, who gave me a diagnosis: shit hormones in the luteal phase. Oh! So when I asked the gynae I was seeing in 2006 if he thought I might have a luteal phase defect and he scoffed at me and said they didn't exist, I WAS ACTUALLY RIGHT? She's got me charting my cervical mucus and put me on a slew of medications including HCG, amoxycillan, guafenisen, and naltrexone. It has taken 5 months to see the improvement necessary in my post ovulation estrogen and progesterone to allow us to TTC again, but we began in May 2012. (No thanks to the interference of an endocrinologist who put me on metformin and took me off T3 and put me on T4, only to see my thyroid freak out completely. Because, like the gynae, she doesn't believe that my particular thyroid problem [reverse T3 dominance] exists. We stuck it out for six weeks and then I went back to my usual regimen, but it set us back a cycle or two).
The surrogate is scheduled for her first IUI late June 2012, and we're still trying ourselves. Best of luck to all of us!
And that is my brief TTC history.
I know many other women around the world have similar stories to tell and I am not the only one. But I have called this blog solo trekking because that is what it felt like to me when I began it. I am in a small minority group within a minority group and I don't know anyone IRL who is walking my exact path. Even the bloggers with similar issues that I have followed over the years have now successfully had children.
I did feel isolated and alone and it did feel more like a trek than a journey. Every day seemed like a hard slog. If I didn't get up and move I felt like I would freeze to death where I lay. My heart was encased in a sheet of thin ice and my spirit had less spark. I was tired of hearing how I need to stay positive to give a successful pregnancy a chance, and that at least I can get pregnant. These words still do not comfort me and only serve to reinforce the guilt I already feel for being a failure, for not doing enough, for not being (insert whatever you like here) enough. But I no longer have an acute visceral reaction to their utterance and feel more grounded in my response.
This blog began in order to help me come to terms with being enough, being myself, accepting myself, and finding out who I have become over the past 5 years. Because I had definitely changed, developing a lot of unpleasant characteristics along the journey to baby. But through the journey to self I found I had relinquished some bitterness and as I delved deeper, and developed some positive aspects such as being gentle with myself, I finally gave myself a chance to thaw out.
And I am no longer solo: my baby making adventure has acquired both an egg donor, and a surrogate (and her family). So it's already a party of five adults and four children. But I'm not changing my name now!