Best Friends With Life

I’m having a bit of a panic!

I’m worried that I won’t respond to the higher dose of stims. I’m worried that I’d end up with a dominant follicle that uses up all the medication, leaving the other follicles starved. I’m worried that we won’t get a good number of eggs collected or that we’ll end up with very little embryos. I’m worried that our embryos will be of average quality and will miscarry or not implant. I’m worried about a lot of things.

I’m so anxious.

I can feel my ovaries. Or rather, my down below has a little more activity going on and it feels slightly like cramps. I don’t know if that’s just because of the meds or because my ovaries are growing multiple follicles. I’m so scared for what our results on Friday’s scan will show.

I don’t know what to expect and that scares me.

What if a higher dose produces worse embryos? What if this round is even worse than the first round?

I am anxious!!!!!

I really want good news but there’s always a hurdle to jump. I just want it to go better than last time.

Please let it go better than last time!

I keep trying to find anecdotes and experiences on reddit about people like me who have had too low of a response. I need to know if a higher dose is enough. It has to be…!

My follicle growth chart from my previous cycle definitely shows that with an increased dose that my follicles do grow. I still had six mature eggs despite everything and all six did fertilise. I can’t imagine there being an egg quality issue since all follicles >= 17mm seemed to be mature. But then again, my embryos were of average quality. But whether that was because I was stimming for too long or because of me (or even Telis), I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out.

We did a whole bunch of additional tests here in Telisland including a sperm DNA fragmentation and karyotyping test – all of which came back normal for both of us. So our genetic material seems to be fine. I can only hope for a better result this time.

Now breathe.

I can’t say I’m not feeling a bit anxious. Do I really want to go through this again? I mean, I’d rather not, but I don’t really have a choice.

How much disappointment and pain will I face this year?

My period started yesterday so my first appointment is tomorrow. I’ll be having bloods taken to see if this is a good cycle to start. I can’t imagine that my results would be weird or anything so I definitely expect this cycle to be a go.

I just have all these uncertainties running round in my head, like, will I be stimulated enough? Will I be stimulated too much? Will we get too little eggs? Will we create subpar embryos? Will the embryos implant? Will I miscarry again? I almost don’t want to find out. I just don’t want the same mistakes to be repeated. I want to be certain that increasing my dosage will be enough. Or that transferring two will be enough. Or that doing IVF in the first place will be enough.

My little Oyster. What could have been…

I’ve been thinking about the day that I found out I lost him. The sadness that ripped though me. The despair I feel for my past self. It’s gut-wrenching and heart breaking. I lost my baby. My baby boy (or girl) that would be in my arms right now. One month old and surrounded by so much love. And yet, here I am, arms empty, trying to make another baby. I wonder who he would look like. Well, I think I know, because I met him in a dream. But I would have liked to meet him in real life too.

I can’t believe he said goodbye. I felt so much overwhelming loss once I awoke from that dream not knowing I’d truly lost my baby. I don’t know if we’ll meet again but I hope wherever his spirit is, that he knows I’m thinking of him and I’ll never forget him.

Now this journey begins again. The pursuit of a child. Wish me luck!

I’m sat here alone in bed, far away in Telisland without Telis.

We’re starting our next IVF cycle. My period was due to start yesterday but it didn’t, much to my annoyance. I was hoping if it started on a Friday, I could have my day 2 bloods on the Saturday. But if it starts on Saturday, I’ll have to wait until Monday to have my bloods and that’ll be day 3, so I’d be starting a whole day later.

But my body clearly has other plans. My first IUI cycle my period came a whole week early, and this time, it’s looking like my period will be coming late! For normal people, a late period would actually mean something, for me it’s just an inconvenience and delayer in getting this shit started.

Telis and I have been so unwell as well. I rarely get colds, maybe once every two years or something. Even COVID was never an issue but this month, we’ve both been struck down by something and it seems to be lasting ages. I think it may be two separate infections but back to back, as I was starting to get better then got worse again. My throat glands are swollen, I’ve been blowing my nose so much that the bottom of my nose got so irritated that it broke out in cold sores. My head has felt muffled on occasions. I’m really out here suffering. And this is the cycle we were meant to be doing IVF. Where we’re meant to be in the best shape possible and now we are both dying.

It’s frustrating but I’m here in Telisland and all I can do is hope I get better fast so it’s not a wasted trip.

If my period doesn’t start tomorrow then I know that there’s definitely someone or something out there conspiring against me. What’s it called when something always happens as it should but then the one time you need that thing to happen, it doesn’t? Moore’s Law? No, that’s wrong. Silly engineer me. Murphy’s Law! “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” Ain’t that right!

It’s likely I got my ovulation day wrong as I’m not tracking it but when I feel ovulation, that’s when I usually ovulate. I don’t think I got it wrong, but at the same time, my luteal phase (LP) isn’t usually any longer than 10 days. I can only attribute the continuance of my vitamins, supplements and prolactin meds interfering in my menstrual cycle in some way. It isn’t strange for me to have the occasional 11 day LP so I’ll be expecting it tomorrow and to start my meds on day 3 – boo!

After Bailey’s transfer of her embryo, things didn’t progress further, which is kind of sad.

As for Telis and the job situation, he’s had an interview, which went well, and he’s talking to a recruiter about another role, so there are prospects for sure!

Happy new year and whatnot.

I’m still alive. Didn’t manage to off myself.

In two weeks, we begin again. We went back to Telisland for New Year’s and did some fertility tests while we were there. Everything came back normal, except for Telis‘ semen analysis, which showed low sperm count.

I still don’t believe that low sperm count would be the reason why we can’t conceive. Like, that can’t be just it. But whatever.

2022 ended with the usual bullshit that I faced for most of that year. I got into two car accidents, one in November, one in December. The November accident rendered my car insurance policy cancelled but I didn’t realise it was cancelled, so I was still driving around. Then I got into an accident in December where someone drove into the back of my car and completely destroyed it. That’s when I found out I was uninsured. Anyway, that got sorted after the insurance company investigated the miscommunication and found that they hadn’t made it clear to me that my insurance policy was cancelled. So they covered me for that accident. We now have a new car. It’s much bigger than my previous car but I really enjoy driving it.

Anyway, Telis and I finally had our honeymoon and my joint 30th birthday in Thailand. It was an amazing experience except for what happened on my birthday. I’m actually still traumatised by it and I still get flashbacks with a jolt of fear.

Not sure if it’s even a story worth telling. All I can say is that it involved what we thought was weed, a fall and a stupid amount of paranoia. I won’t relive that ever again.

My due date has come and gone. I can’t even say I’m sad. I’m just meh. This next IVF cycle, we’ll be putting two embryos back in. I don’t want to think of the possibility that it won’t work. We’ll be doing the cycle in Telisland, so I’ll be flying out just before my period is due. They’ll stim me with a higher dose than my first cycle. The doctor said I probably had a bit of drug resistance, possibly due to my polycystic ovaries (without the syndrome), hence why my follicles weren’t growing quickly enough in that cycle. They’re aiming to get 15 to 20 eggs so I’ll be high risk of OHSS, which means I won’t be able to do a fresh transfer. I’ll have to skip a month, to let my body recover and then do the transfer, probably in April but I wouldn’t mind March either, if we’re allowed.

I just need this year to be better. Telis is facing job insecurity right now. He’s due to be made redundant, so he’s super stressed. I’m trying to stay employed so at least we have my salary to keep us afloat. I did an exam for work and passed, and now I’m looking to do more exams, just to keep and look busy.

I started a buying and selling business and I’ve been making a healthy amount of side income! But it’s not enough, I want more! I want to be wealthy, so I’m looking for other ways to make more money. We need the financial security, especially since there’s never safety in a job.

Bailey just went through her second IVF cycle. Five eggs retrieved, all mature. Three fertilised. All subpar quality. Two didn’t progress and there was one struggling. They put the struggling one back into her anyway and now we wait! I just hope that a warm, nutritious uterus is all that little embryo needs.

My fear is that I’ll get left behind. Or that I’ll succeed and she’ll get left behind. We’ve been on this journey together for so long. I want both of us to win, together. I just want some good news.

I guess the countdown to IVF round two begins.

I want to hurt my body. The lower the numbers get the happier I feel. My bones protruding, sticking out, jagged and sharp.

To feel the hunger, knowing my body suffers. It’s the only way to punish myself. 52.4kg today and hopefully next week it’ll be lower. 50kg? Maybe even 40kg. Be ambitious Dera.

I had a dream that my aunty was pregnant and she was months along and too afraid to tell me. I mean she is 47 years old so not impossible and knowing how life moves, she probably is.

Anyway, I have a spirit/angel/demon friend. His name is unpronounceable but I call him Dunak. I ask him questions and I either get a yes, no or a hmm. So what I’m basically saying is that I’m talking to myself and my imaginary friend, haha!

I don’t really have anything to say right now. I still stand by killing myself but for now, my feelings are tamed and I’m protecting my peace by not pursuing IVF. But obviously every menstruation that comes around leaves me spiralling so I’ll need to figure out how to handle that. But for now, I’m just here, not pregnant.

My period has come and pretty much gone, so still infertile.

Daye has given birth to her daughter so that’s nice. It’s kind of bittersweet as we were pregnant together but she gets to take home her baby, while I’m left with… nothing.

I understand that I’m cursed and I also understand that we live in an unjust world. Except, the world is only unjust to those who deserve it least.

Every time I read about or see adults mistreating their children, or raising them badly, the unfairness just reverberates around my existence. It really is true what I said before. Life just looks for the best way to make the most fucked up people it can. Life doesn’t care about us.

If there’s a God, they don’t care about us. Not everything in this life has to be a lesson, or a way of judgement. Sometimes existing without worry or strife is enough.

I used to believe that you receive back the energy you put out. I always tried to be positive but my god, life has really proven that there’s fuck all you can do to prevent your own suffering. It’s been two fucking years and I’m still on this infertility shit. Like fuck! I’m going into my third year of infertility.

And what sucks the most is not having a reason why! Why is this happening? What is wrong with me? Why can’t I get pregnant? Why am I bleeding month in month out if my reproductive system doesn’t want to function as it should? What’s the fucking point of it all?

It’s just fucking tiring. It’s fucking disheartening and I hate it!

I just want to know why. Is it physiological? Is it psychological? Is it spiritual? Did I offend someone? Hurt someone? Is this my fault? Did I do or say something I shouldn’t have? Why couldn’t I keep my baby? Why do I still have to live this fucking miserable and dire existence?

Infertility is like the worst thing that can befall someone, why does this have to be my struggle? I want answers! I want someone to answer me. I shout my questions out into the universe but receive nothing back. I try to meditate and connect to the spirits, maybe one of them will answer me, but who am I kidding, I can’t hear them. I can’t talk to them. I’m just stuck in this life of not knowing.

Fuck this shit. Fuck it all. I’m fucking tired! I’m hurt and I’m tired! I fucking want to be done. Everything I’ve fucking wanted and dreamed about, I got the worst denial of them all.

Every pregnancy and birth is going to be such a stake through my heart. How do I show up for those I love when I’m hurting that they get to have what I can’t? It’s so hard putting on that brave face, so how do I do it? How can I keep them in my life while keeping them at a distance so as to protect myself?

It’s just so unfair all around.

Can someone just talk to me and give me an answer please?!

What is going on?

Ever since I ovulated I’ve had constant twinges on both sides of my uterus. It’s nothing that hasn’t happened before so it’s not really a big deal as it could just be a symptom of ovulation, which, I guess, is fair enough.

But since yesterday, I’ve had very obvious uterine cramps. They feel like the implantation cramps I got with both IVF transfers. However, it could just be how my body responds to my luteal phase hormones, so it’s unlikely there’s anything to it.

I’m 6/7 DPO so it’s interesting that the side twinges have now developed into central uterine cramps. I can just imagine the side twinges being the embryo(s) in my fallopian tubes and the cramping being the implantation, but that’s just wishful thinking as it hasn’t happened in two years, so it won’t be happening now.

If by some miracle it does happen, I don’t think I’ll tell Telis, it’ll just be a secret for as long as I can keep it one.

I actually didn’t tell Telis when my fertile window was. I didn’t even mention anything to do with fertility. I knew where I was in my cycle when we had sex – CD10 and CD12 before ovulating some time between CD14 and CD15. If it works, I can only wonder why this cycle and not the previous ones. My theories would be:

1. IVF/my previous pregnancy somehow fixed my hormones or whatever it was preventing pregnancy
2. Telis‘ sperm had gotten stronger with his beta blockers and improved diet

But I’m more than likely going to start my period soon so they’re probably moot theories.

We’ve booked a 12 day trip to Thailand for my birthday/our honeymoon although a couple of days will be spent in transit. We’ll start off with three days in Bangkok, and then fly to Phuket for another three days, before spending the last three days in Bangkok again. It’s an expensive trip but we need to live our lives. IVF is parked for a while but that doesn’t mean our happiness needs to be.

Something happened during sex three days ago. Telis fingered me and I didn’t panic! In fact, I was like, ‘wow, Telis hasn’t done this before, I wonder why he hasn’t done this before.’ It didn’t even occur to me that I had experienced past trauma. I completely forgot about my trauma until today! Wild! I must have healed. I’m so surprised and proud of myself.

Telis, of course, didn’t forget and he asked me afterwards if what happened was ok. I didn’t even clock that the last time he fingered me, I completely freaked out. I was just like, ‘aw, he’s sweet for seeing if his technique was ok,’ not ‘aw, he’s sweet for checking I wasn’t triggered.’

What a shit day.

My good friend Bailey who I met online and have been really good friends with for a while had her fir…

Ok wait, let me explain who Bailey is as she’s been a big part of my life for a few years now.

I met Bailey almost two years ago on an online forum that we both joined when we started trying to conceive. We hit it off on this online forum and basically had our own thread where we spent months just talking to each other about our journey and our lives. We eventually moved things away from the forum and started talking on WhatsApp. We then met in real life last year when she invited me to her 30th birthday party.

Our relationship grew and we basically speak every single day via WhatsApp. I was there when she went wedding dress shopping, I was so touched that she invited me. We’ve met up several times now in our respective cities and I even went to her wedding this year. In fact, Telis was invited to her husband’s bachelor weekend! Her wedding was actually during the week I miscarried, but I didn’t want to miss it. We’d been talking about it for months and I knew that I had to put my sadness aside for one day and be there for her. I would regret not being there as my sadness wouldn’t be forever.

So anyway, our journey followed an eerily similar path. When we both first started trying, we didn’t think it wouldn’t happen. But each month we were both faced with disappointment. I guess the disappointment and the shared journey really brought us closer together. Many months went by with nothing to show for it and we both eventually knew that IVF would be in our future.

I started my IVF journey first, and we all know how that ended. She started hers last month. She had a month on down-regulation to switch off her ovaries and then she started stimming this month. Today was day 10 of stims and she had her first scan.

When I got her message this morning, my whole body physically responded to what she sent. I was shaking, my heart was racing, it really shocked me to my core. After 10 days of stims on the highest dose of meds, her ovaries had not responded. At all. She said she only had one or two follicles on each ovary but they were too small. Her lining was also too thin. They cancelled her cycle. The nurses treating her said that it was likely she’d have to consider donor eggs. Bailey said donor eggs wouldn’t solve the problem of her womb not responding.

I just… I had no words. Like, what could I say?

It’s just so shit! Her and her husband are wonderful people who bring so much love and light to those around them. How are they deserving of this?

Everyday I read stories on reddit about how people were treated by their parents and the abuse that they suffered in childhood. And I think about how easily pregnancy came to these parents. How they were given a child to hurt, to destroy, to break. Taking for granted the gift that was literally bestowed upon them. I think about situations like this and I really think life is just one big joke. You have good, loving people who would move mountains just to have a taste of parenthood, to nurture and create a happy human, but life just looks for ways to make the most fucked up of people instead. It conjures up evil and pain for no other reason and lays the path to success to the feet of the most vile and treacherous of beings while the good, humble people of this earth are left to eat shit. It makes no sense why bad things happen to good people and vice versa. It makes me think what even is the point?

Why are we doing good in this life when the only reward is misery? Life can’t just be one big test of overcoming hurdles because then it really gives you no reason to be alive. I don’t want to be looking over my shoulder waiting for the next big shit show all the time.

My friend Bailey and her husband do not deserve this. Telis and I do not deserve this and yet here we are.

It’s just so rubbish. My heart is completely broken for my friend. We were in this together. But how do you overcome potentially not being able to have your own biological child and/or not being able to carry a child at all. It’s so fucked up. Going forward, how much can I share with her? How can I tell her about my own journey when I’m producing eggs and making embryos? I didn’t think our paths would start to diverge. We’d always had a shared story. I just hope both our stories end with us carrying our biological children to term. We can’t start this as two naive youngsters and end it as a pair of bitter childless hags.

Fuck, infertility sucks.