Control freak:

 

I used to be a total control freak – especially regarding my fertility.  I think I’m one of the most difficult patients my FS’s must have ever had!  I questioned everything that was suggested.  I researched everything that could have been a problem with me or my DH, and I suggested treatments or medication.  I am amazed that both the FS’s were so patient with me.  I think even DH was embarrassed at times, because I really grilled both doctors as if they were in an interview with me, and basically told them how to do their job – me who has just high school biology behind me versus a doctor who has studied probably more than 10 years to be able to do his job. 

I think it’s only recently that I changed into this control freak, well regarding our fertility treatments anyway – say the last year and a half.  I think it’s because I trusted doctors and I still didn’t get a positive pregnancy test.  It cost us a lot of money and a lot of heartbreak, and I felt burned.  So I decided not to trust anymore, and only rely on myself. 

After our miscarriage and after Shumi was diagnosed with his cancer, I think I freaked out a bit, because matters were out of my control no matter what I tried.  There was nothing I could do.  Thank God that he has guided me in this time, and one of the things that I have learnt is that I must trust Him completely with everything.  I thought I trusted Him – I did in certain matters, but I cannot say I trusted Him completely.  I still wanted to control certain things.

During the last 5 months God has been chipping away at this control issue of mine – it was not something that I was willing to let go easily.  Slowly I was able to let go of certain things, one at a time, and I think I am finally at the point where I can now say that it is now 100% in God’s hands.  The decision to not go for anymore fertility treatments was the last little bit that I had to let go.  And I’m happy about that decision.  I am calm and at peace.  I’m not worried that we won’t have children or that I’ve made a mistake – I trust that God will work it all out for good. 

I would never have been able to make all these decisions if it was not for the fact that God has given me some minor breakthroughs as proof that He is faithful and will help us.  I should have realized it all a long time ago, but I guess we are sometimes blind to things right under our noses.  Let me take you back a bit to some examples that I have actually blogged about:

1.        With our last IVF I was worried that I would have adenomyosis and that it would impact negatively on our IVF.  The month prior to that I was in considerable pain all month and the FS actually picked it up on a scan when I complained about the pain to him.  It looked like huge black circles in the wall of my uterus – almost like the follicles look on your ovaries when you are close to triggering, and thanks to reading Ja.ckie Mi.ze’s book – Su.perna.tural Child.birth I confessed that I will have no adenomyosis and there was nothing – no sign of it at all during any of our scans.  You can read about it in this post.
2.       During this same cycle I got another polyp (see this post) – something we tried to avoid by being on a low dose stimulation cycle as I got polyps with my last IUI and second IVF.  I had an operation to remove one a few months earlier and I was really scared of getting another and that it would affect implantation.  Fortunately I also confessed that the polyp would go away or shrink so much that it would not be an issue and that is exactly what happened.  See here:  The polyp was so small it could almost not be detected by ultrasound when they did ET – this has never happened to me – the polyps only got bigger as my lining thickened, and the FS could not explain it either.
3.       I must put our pregnancy in here too – for me this is still a miracle that I ever got to see a BFP – as it took a full 10,5 years to see it for the first time!  Even though it ended in a miscarriage, it is still a miracle to me, and it’s given me hope – because now I know I can get pregnant.  That was something that at one stage I thought was totally impossible!  I can with confidence now classify our pregnancy as a miracle, because I know now that God did not cause or allowed the miscarriage, it’s not His fault, so that does not make it less of a miracle.
4.       There is the time I suddenly saw Shumi had a big lump on his back and it was rock hard, it felt like bone – that really shook me.  Once again with the help of God that lump disappeared completely!  There is still no trace of it!  Shumi also had a little hard bump next to his tail one day, that is also almost completely gone and once DH felt Shumi’s palate, because the vet said that it would go soft and that would be one of the bad symptoms, showing us that he is deteriorating, and it was actually getting soft on the left hand side underneath where his tumour is supposed to be.  DH felt Shumi’s palate again a few weeks ago and there is no sign of a soft spot.  The latest breakthrough is that Shumi had real trouble sleeping at night and he woke us up at least twice every night with his hard breathing and gasping for air.  So I started to say things like:  “Shumi your nostrils are both open and you can breathe easily and you will have a good night’s sleep without waking up every now and then.”  He has slept through since then, and his one nostril was even unblocked for a little bit that one day last week.  His eye also looks a lot better! 

So you see God reminded me that he has done some wonderful miracles already, and that it is not impossible to do the rest.  It seems that some things go away quicker and easier than others, but I think that has to do with what the problem is and how I see that problem.  For instance the polyp I had was not such a big issue to me so that was resolved in about 5 days.  Shumi’s cancer and my infertility was something that was not so easy to believe that it would go away and I had to work on trusting God that He can heal us of it completely.  Now, I’m convinced and I cannot wait for the proof that Shumi is completely healed and the proof that I am pregnant!

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My follow up appointment:

The day of our appointment has finally arrived exactly one month after my evacuation D & C.   The FS said that our little baby had Trisomy 13 or Patau syndrome and that is where the foetus had an additional third chromosome 13 and that is caused by nondisjunction of chromosomes during myosis.  In layman’s terms what that means is that the chromosomes did not split properly during myosis (which occurs during maturation of the egg) and that there was an extra chromosome on the pair numbered 13.  The three common occurrences are at the genes numbered 13, 18 and 21 and of those, number 21 is the one where Down’s syndrome originates from and that is also the only one where the foetus is most likely to survive to birth.  It is very rare for a baby with trisomy 13 to survive until birth and should it survive it would be severely handicapped mentally and physically and they do not survive for longer than a year after birth. 

We discussed a plan of action for a new IVF cycle and we can start with one (Femara & Gonal F like IVF # 3) when AF arrives if we want, or we have the option to do a long protocol and do a month of birth control first and the IVF in the cycle after that.  After some discussion of the pros and cons we have decided to do the long protocol with Lucrin and Fostimon (Like IVF # 2).   I have a few reasons for that – the most important being that the cycle we did that way produced better looking embryos on day 3.  The other reasons were that my FS feels that the short protocol is better for poor responders and I’ve never been a poor responder, I’ve read that Femara compromises quality by influencing the myosis process (my FS does not agree but I don’t want to take the chance) and I’ve read that the down regulation of LH with birth control and Lucrin can also help with quality (again my FS is not convinced of that).  We will be doing a lower dose of Fostimon than last time – I was on 225 units but now I will go on 150 units, and hopefully it won’t give me a polyp.  Last time it was reduced halfway through stims to 150 units anyway so I think it will be sufficient.

I don’t have a clue where I am in my cycle and the doctor did a scan – my uterus looks good, no polyp present and it looked like I did ovulate from my one ovary, so the FS said AF can come anytime from now up to 2 weeks from now – I guess I just have to wait patiently…

We discussed PGD – it’s an option that we are seriously considering but the doctor recommended that we only do it if we have at least 3-4 8-cell embryos on day 3.  We spoke to the lady that does the PGD and she is a qualified genetic specialist.  She gave us a lot of information on it, and we found out that if we would have done PGD the trisomy 13 would most probably have been detected.  There is a chance however that the test can come back inconclusive or that the embryo can be damaged.  The other problem is that it will cost an additional R10000 on top of the cost of the IVF, for which we didn’t get a quote on today.  So we will have to see if the budget allows for it.  We have at least 6-8 weeks to decide on it anyway, so no rush…

So the first thing is for AF to arrive, of which there is still no sign of by the way, and then I must start the birth control pills.  DH thinks it’s totally weird for me to go on them when I want to get pregnant, but its better that way as it will also help to regulate my cycle which can still be disrupted from the miscarriage after AF has come on.   It also means IVF will be done in the 3^rd cycle after our miscarriage and that’s also a bit safer…

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Do not give up hope:

I’ve mentioned this before, but I feel so strongly about it that I need to write about it again.  I basically felt that it was almost impossible for me to ever get pregnant.  I just went through all the treatments of the past year, just so that I could say:  “At least we tried.”  I felt that I didn’t want to regret not trying when it was too late.  Quite a few times my FS would berate me for my negative attitude when I went for a scan, as the moment I saw a polyp I would make a comment that the cycle would not work.  I did not have much hope, and I was starting to feel that I was just wasting money towards the end.  DH and I really did discuss the fact that our 2^nd IVF and the following FET’s would be our last treatments ever and that we would make peace with the fact that we would be childless if any of those did not work.  We never expected to have just 1 FET, and that almost all our frozen embies would not survive the thaw.

Why was I so negative?  Simply because we were trying for so long already and we have never had any success before.  I just thought that if I could not get pregnant after 10 years of trying, why would anything change?  I did not know of any people who were trying for so long and had success.  Yes, I knew of people trying for so long or longer, but they did not have their baby or even a pregnancy yet.  I know 2 ladies that gave up hope and went for hysterectomies, and I know one of them really did regret it afterwards and I guess that’s why I felt we had to try at least.

But things changed on the 10^th of March this year, I remember the date so well because it was my dad’s birthday.  That was the day we had our appointment with our FS about what went wrong with our FET.  I just wanted to go, get closure and get on with my life.  My FS said that day that I must not give up hope – he knows I can get pregnant, and that it is just a matter of time before I do.  He said that our fresh embryo’s were very good quality, much better than expected for a woman of my age and in his opinion my body is much younger than my actual age.  He had a plan for a low stimulation protocol that obviously worked out much cheaper than a normal IVF as the medication was so much cheaper.

I started this blog and I went through my diary with lessons I’ve learnt recently and I was reminded of the following two people:

Matthew 9:20-22 (NIV):  “²⁰ Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak.  ²¹ She said to herself, If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.  ²² Jesus turned and saw her. Take heart, daughter, he said, your faith has healed you. And the woman was healed from that moment.”

John 5:5-9 (NIV):  “⁵ One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.  ⁶ When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, Do you want to get well?  ⁷ Sir, the invalid replied, I have no-one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.  ⁸ Then Jesus said to him, Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.  ⁹ At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked… ”

I suddenly saw the numbers jump out at me – 12 years and 38 years.  These two people had problems for a longer time than I, and Jesus healed them immediately.  I realised I had to get faith and my mindset had to change.  A dear friend from Fertilicare site suggested a wonderful book to help me in those areas (Super.natural Child.birth by Jac.kie Mi.ze) and it did help me tremendously.  I was just what I needed and I got it at the right time.  I’m still using it now because it deals with every aspect from infertility, to miscarriages to pregnancy and giving birth.  It is a relatively cheap book that reads very easily and quick, but you can refer back to it time and again.

We could not make up our minds whether we would be doing the 3^rd fresh IVF, until a day or so before AF was due.  We were scared to try again, but eventually we decided to go for it.  Today I’m so glad we did, because I am eventually pregnant.  There was a time where my attitude was very important – I still got a polyp during this cycle, but this time I had the tools to deal with it.  I prayed and confessed scriptures over that polyp and on the day of ET it was almost gone!  That surely helped me with my faith during the 2WW.  Some days it’s still hard to believe that I’m pregnant, but mostly I am thankful for every moment since we have received the good news!  To me this is indeed a miracle pregnancy!  Even the sister at the clinic said so.  Her exact words were: “See miracles still happen today!”

So what I’m trying to say to everyone reading this is:  “Do not be discouraged by your circumstances!  Miracles still happen today and if it can happen to me it can happen to you!  There is nothing special about me or my DH that makes us more worthy than any of you!  Trust in God and have faith!  We might not understand why, or get impatient with the timing, but God has a plan, and the realisation of that plan might be sooner than you think!  Do not give up hope!” 

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The Lord will provide:

Psalm 37: 3-5 (NIV):  “ ³Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.    ⁴ Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. ⁵Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this:”

I must say that I did mention this in my previous post, but I think I did not give it the attention it warrants:  The polyp I had was 5mm big on Monday 12 April 2010.  The doctor really had trouble measuring my lining, because of the polyp.  Yesterday it was so small that you could almost not see it on the scan.  Now for many it might not seem significant.  For me it’s a huge victory!  You see I’ve had a lot of polyps lately – the first time I heard of polyps was about 2 months before my first IVF.  I had to have a Hysteroscopy to have it removed.  I didn’t worry about it again.  Last year May I went back to the same FS, and he found another polyp.  I was not happy with his opinion and I decided to see someone else.  That is how I got to my current fertility clinic.  When I got to see my new FS there was no sign of the polyp – the FS said it must have shed with my period.  In the following months with the treatments that I got I had another 4 polyps excluding the one I had this month.  Never with any IUI or previous IVF cycle did the polyp get smaller during my cycle.  It either shed with my period afterwards or it had to be removed by Hysteroscopy, except for this cycle.  It is surely a miracle in my eyes!  Praise the Lord!

What is the difference?  I realised that I do not have to accept it – I prayed several times a day about it.  I asked God to either remove it completely or to “neutralize it”, but to ensure that it will not interfere with my embryos and their implantation. I still insisted yesterday that the doctor do the ultrasound guided transfer, but I certainly did not expect that the polyp was almost gone, although I believed with all my heart that it was possible.  I just didn’t expect such a clear sign, or proof of our Almighty God’s healing power!  Lately I got the message so many times that there is such incredible power available to us through Jesus Christ.  We must just make use of it, by asking in the name of Jesus Christ, and pleading His blood over our troubles – it is there for us to use and it’s your loss if you do not take advantage of it.   I got proof that it does work!

1 Kings 17: 3-16 (NIV):  “³ Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan.    ⁴ You will drink from the brook, and I have ordered the ravens to feed you there.    ⁵ So he did what the LORD had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there.    ⁶ The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.  

The Widow at Zarephath  ⁷ Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land.    ⁸ Then the word of the LORD came to him:    ⁹ Go at once to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there. I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food.    ¹⁰ So he went to Zarephath. When he came to the town gate, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and asked, Would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink?    ¹¹ As she was going to get it, he called, And bring me, please, a piece of bread.    ¹² As surely as the LORD your God lives, she replied, I don’t have any bread— only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it— and die.    ¹³ Elijah said to her, Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small cake of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son.    ¹⁴ For this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the LORD gives rain on the land.’    ¹⁵ She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family.    ¹⁶ For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the LORD spoken by Elijah.”

In the above scripture the Lord feeds Elijah when he cannot do so himself, because of the severe drought in the country.  First it’s through ravens and later through a widow.  I’ve read a lot about widows recently in the Bible and my reference Bible explains time and again how vulnerable the widows were in the biblical times.  They had no way of supporting themselves.  They were reliant on their children or the church to support them.  If neither of them supported them they would have died from starvation.  Can you imagine what Elijah asked of her?  He asked her to take all that she had and make him some bread and she had to give it all up for a stranger.  She was obedient and acted in faith and God rewarded her for it.  She didn’t have to worry about food again until the end of the drought.  Just like this widow we must trust God – we must trust that although circumstances might seem dire and you might not be able to see a solution for your problems that God will provide.  He loves us.  We are His children, and He wants to help us, we must just ask.

I met someone earlier this week (I volunteer once a week at a feeding scheme we have in our city centre and we give out food to unemployed people); this man was one of the hungry there.  He spoke to us so beautifully that we asked him to minister to everybody there.  He asked us all:  “Why don’t we see miracles like those in the Bible anymore?  The answer is easy – we do not have a good enough personal relationship with Jesus and because of that we do not realise the power that is available through Him.  Our faith is not good enough.  We go to church and practise a religion.  We do what we do out of selfish reasons – we want to receive our message and go home and live our selfish lives.  We can do so much more for our neighbours.  We must walk in love with each other.  We mustn’t do any of this because we want something in return, but we must do this out of gratitude for all the blessings that we receive daily from God.”  This man made a huge impact on everyone there, not just us volunteers, but also to all the hungry people.  The Holy Spirit was working in people’s hearts!

What I’m trying to say here is that I got the same message from different sources last week (books, TV and people):  I must trust God, believe He can help me, pray and ask Him to help me in the name of Jesus Christ, and see how good He is!  Hallelujah!

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Embryo transfer:

Our embryos are safely back in mommy.  The doctor replaced 4 embryos – I thought 1 didn’t make it, but apparently it was slow and they thought it would not survive but it did.  So of the four we have 2 grade 1 embryos and 2 grade 2 embryos, but the slow one is not so good quality as the other grade 2 one.  They didn’t say how many cells the embryos were – they did tell me last time, but I was so drugged that I didn’t think of asking.

The transfer was more difficult than usual – apparently there was some bleeding, and the doctor had to clean that up and insert a hollow tube through my cervix to make sure that no blood could contaminate the embryos.  I guess the bleeding isn’t as bad as I didn’t even have any spotting so far. The good news is that the polyp shrunk so much that it was barely visible on the screen.  Hallelujah! The embryos were placed well away from the polyp, so the polyp should not impact implantation. 

I didn’t get my second Intralipid – the pharmacy could not get any from the distributor, nor from any of the hospitals in the Johannesburg area.  The doctor said I might have to come in sometime next week and get it if they are able to get some.  I’m not particularly worried about it – I trust in God, He knows best and if I need another Intralipid drip He will make sure I get it. 

It was incredibly busy this morning at the clinic.  There were at least 10 other ladies there and it seems most were there for IVF.  I recognised a lot of them from Wednesday so I guess they were also there for ET.  I assume the new faces were there for IUI or ER.  The one lady was so drugged when her husband walked her out of the clinic, but she recognised me and waved.  Shame, she almost fell over by waving – her husband did not seem very impressed, but I was touched.  I saw her with every scan and we went together for ER.  I hope she will be pregnant in 2 weeks time… Actually I hope all of them will be pregnant in 2 weeks time…

I can do the blood test on Wednesday 28 April – 12 days from now.  I believe this time I’m getting my BFP!

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A slight hiccup:

A little problem presented itself this morning with my scan:  I have another polyp.  It’s not in the same place as my previous one – last time it was at the top of my uterus, this time it’s at the bottom.  The doctor says it is small (5mm), but it can affect implantation, so ET will have to be done under careful ultrasound guidance.  It is not ideal, but fortunately not bad enough to cancel the transfer.  DH asked the doctor how that could happen as we didn’t see anything on Saturday and he said it can happen very quickly as my estrogen levels rise.

My follicles are perfect today – ready to trigger tonight with Ovi.drel at 23h00.  The follicles are: right hand side a possible 4 (biggest 19mm) and left hand side 3 (biggest 18 mm).  My lining measured at 8mm today – it’s less than Saturday, but still fine – but the doctor did have problems measuring it without measuring the polyp along with it, so I don’t know how accurate it was.

I also got my Intra.lipid drip today, and it seems I will be getting another one on Saturday when the embryos will be transferred back. I can’t believe how easy it is to get the Intra.lipid this time.  It took some convincing to get it the first time (when I went for my FET) and I was my FS’s first patient ever to get it.  This time I’m getting it twice without asking for it, and I heard today that at least 1 other patient at my FS has also got it in the mean time.

It seems that even this low stimulation cycle was too strong for me, but I’m not going to be ungrateful – Thank the Lord for everything! I’m reminding myself that God has done incredible miracles in the Bible, so He can do a miracle for us too!  I’m not letting it affect me negatively – I have faith in the Lord – He will help me.  Psalm 5:12-13 (NIV): “¹² For surely, O LORD, you bless the righteous; you surround them with your favour as with a shield.”

If He can make Sarah pregnant when she was already too old to have children, if He could make blind people see and cripple people walk, if he could raise people from the dead, then a mere 5mm polyp is nothing in His eyes!  Romans 5:1-2 (NIV): “¹ Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,    ² through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.” For Christians no situation can ever be hopeless, because we have hope!

Isaiah 43:2 (NIV): “² When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.” This verse gives me comfort because it says that if you believe in Him, God will be with you, not matter what difficulty you may encounter.  Nothing can come in your way, not the devil, not other people, no physical problems and God certainly does not want to.  No matter what problems you endure in life – you do not have to endure it alone!

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