Hello HRT my old friend

One of the great things about being pregnant was that I didn’t have to take HRT (hormone replacement therapy) as my placenta magically produced oestrogen which was otherwise lacking in my body as my ovaries stopped making it when I was in my mid thirties – hence my premature ovarian failure.

While I was pregnant I asked my IVF doctor and my obstetrician when I would need to begin HRT after I had my baby. Both said I should wait around six months and then go back on it.

Well given the state of my poor old head, we’ve had to bring that date forward somewhat.

I restarted it about five days ago after my psychiatrist contacted my endocrinologist to confirm it with her. And I’m already feeling better. It’s amazing what a difference HRT makes – without it a girl can feel so anxious, withdrawn and down.

Upping my oestrogen means any remaining breast milk is drying up but breastfeeding my wee babe was already out of the question since I began on the antidepressant Pristiq last week.

So my mood is gradually lifting and I’m slowly feeling a little better. It can only improve I hope.

Anxiety and postnatal depression

Apparently anxiety is a symptom of depression. I’ve been anxious for years now and my doctor says it’s possible I could have benefitted from antidepressants a long time ago.

First I was anxious and upset about having premature ovarian failure which I was diagnosed with about six years back with no follow up support or counselling.

Then I was anxious due to the biological effect of my premature ovarian failure ie: not having any oestrogen actually made me anxious and gave me insomnia. Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) helped alleviate some of this but only after about three years of living on my nerves without it.

Then, my husband and I moved from the UK to a new country  (Australia) without jobs and minimal social connections. We made our way on our own but it was tough going while trying to come to terms with premature ovarian failure and the ensuing infertility. It was our own doing but sometimes I think you bite off more than you can chew!

Then we tried IVF as a doctor believed he could get my ovaries working. When nothing happened it was devastating and very anxiety inducing. Once again that doctor offered no follow up counselling or support.

We began working through our infertility and accepted we would be childless until three of my beautiful friends came forward to offer us their eggs. While this was amazing, it was still a very anxious time trying to work out how and whether to proceed with these kind, kind offers.

Then my darling sister offered and we decided to move forward and try. But that whole process was also very stressful as I wanted to give her room to back out at any time and the thought of that happening was terrifying. Then I felt anxious putting her through the physical ordeal of egg donation, as well as splitting her family while she travelled from NZ to Australia to undergo the treatment.

Getting pregnant the first time as a result of her donation was massively exciting but also very nerve-wracking. When that pregnancy ended in miscarriage we were devastated. But somehow we got back on the horse and tried a second embryo transfer with no luck, before I fell pregnant again on our third attempt with our beautiful daughter.

All through the pregnancy we lived on tenterhooks. Would I miscarry like I did the first time? What if the baby had something wrong with it? When I began bleeding early on it was horrendously anxiety invoking but luckily that stopped and we now have our gorgeous girl.

All the while I was working in a job with a psycho boss who demanded far more than I could deliver and played with my emotions in ways that disgust me when I think back to it.

So anxiety has been my constant companion for a long time and is it any wonder that everything just mounted up and landed me in a big heap now?

The great thing is that I’m finally getting treatment for a depression that may have been lurking for a long time as a result of our trials – and hopefully anxiety will be a toxic shadow I can discard forever.

What a difference a year makes

Waiting for a baby can seem interminable but it only takes a year - sometimes less - for things to change completely

Waiting to conceive a baby can be unbearably long, lonely and painful but things can turn around so quickly.

In just a year, we have undergone donor IVF with my wonderful sister from New Zealand; conceived, miscarried, had a negative transfer, conceived again and are now awaiting the arrival of our first baby in five days’ time.

Conception and pregnancy followed six years of grief, uncertainty and personal growth, all of which began with my diagnosis of premature ovarian failure at 35.

I grieved then for my young womanhood (going into premature menopause made me feel like an unattractive old crone), my periods (truly!), the children we would never have; our first IVF cycle that yielded zilch eggs and for the life we’d had before my diagnosis.

More recently, we grieved for the little baby we lost last year to miscarriage – it felt like our hearts had been ripped out.

But all the grieving and uncertainty helped us to become more thoughtful, empathetic and kind. It made us rethink what being a beautiful, sexy woman or man really means (it doesn’t mean you have to be fertile) and what life would be like childfree (books called Silent Sorority and Sweet Grapes were particularly helpful).

So what a journey it’s been!  It has been truly remarkable for which we are very thankful.

If it can happen for us, it can happen for others too.  I can’t wait to read about other people’s success stories – I know they are out there, or about to begin.

Rubbish at conceiving but great at pregnancy – dispelling my concerns

Having no eggs with which to conceive a child made me doubt my body and ability to carry a baby (I thought that perhaps I’m not meant to have a baby if my eggs are used up?) – but this pregnancy has changed all that.

My pregnancy has been fabulous with no afflictions (yet). My skin has been clear, my back straight and strong, my abdominal muscles elastic and still holding up without the need for support pants, the skin on my belly is stretch-mark-free and I have no varicose veins.

Even being long in the tooth for a first time mother (I’m 42) has not caused me to crumble under the physical strain of pregnancy.

The only complication is that my baby is lying sideways and showing no inclination to move its head down like all good, compliant babies should (!) but as I’m having a c-section, it doesn’t matter.

This makes me feel a little smug when I hear about much younger and more fertile women struggling with pregnancy aches and pains. I know – it sounds like a bad case of schadenfreude but I’m so pleased that FINALLY,  I can do something well in the reproductive area!

But it’s also good news for all those other infertiles out there who may have the same worries about pregnancy, should they conceive. Just because you may not have good eggs, or for whatever other reason may find trouble conceiving – it doesn’t mean you’ll have a troubled pregnancy – isn’t that great news?

An extra special dinner and a tribute to all egg donors

I bet that the dinner I went to on Saturday night in Melbourne was the only one of its kind happening at that time – in the world.

It’s not that the food we were eating was unusual or that the venue was strange – it was the people who made it unique.

We were all (nine of us) either egg donors, people looking to match up with a donor, or people pregnant with a donor egg.  Unfortunately, I was the only one in the latter group. It made me realise how lucky my husband and I are to be pregnant with my sister’s donor egg; it doesn’t happen for everyone.

Our group met for the first time having traded recent stories on a forum called ‘Egg Donation Australia’. This is an extra special forum.  It was established by women who are donors. Women needing donor eggs can go onto the forum and get to know potential donors and vice versa. Close relationships are formed, especially between those who decide to team up, and sometimes a baby is conceived.

At the risk of sounding cheesy, I think the women who set up the forum are angels.  They established it voluntarily to help other women – strangers – in need of a donor.  I still can’t get over how altruistic these women – and egg donors everywhere – are.

So to be eating dinner with some donors in Melbourne on Saturday night was fantastic. It was equally fantastic to be able to talk to others in the same boat as me: women who have tried and tried to have babies in every which way possible. These women and their partners are all so brave as they just keep getting back on that horse even though it keeps bucking them off – often with horrible, painful bumps.

And then there are the women who are doing it on their own. There were two at the dinner.  To do it with a partner’s support and love is tough but I imagine doing it solo takes true grit.

So this is why I think Saturday’s dinner was so unique. I challenge anyone to tell me of a similar dinner that was happening at the same time. In fact, I would love to be proved wrong.

IVF vs Adopt: Cutting down the choice of infertiles even more

I heard something this week that made my blood boil; apparently people in Australia (I’m not sure which states) who try to adopt aren’t allowed to undergo IVF at the same time.

How ridiculous! This makes the already difficult journey of trying for a child even more fraught.

I don’t know what it’s like in other countries, but in Australia the average couple can expect to wait up to four years to adopt. If you are already in your late 30s when you begin trying, you also risk getting too old to adopt while waiting (I’ve heard that younger couples are favoured over more mature couples).

Why not in the meantime, try IVF too? This option also has a use by date too as every year that ticks past means your eggs get older and IVF is less viable.

Trying both at the same time makes sense to me – that way you are spreading your risk so that if one doesn’t work then the other hopefully will, and soon. Or perhaps you hit the jackpot and have a child via both avenues.

Can anyone confirm if this is true or not, and if so, what states it applies to?  No doubt it was passed by the same cretins who passed the law in 2009 requiring couples undergoing IVF treatment to prove they are not pedofiles first.

Holding my breath and trying not to bleed

I always check the toilet paper whenever I go to the loo, scared to see any streak of colour against the white. Last night my worst fears were confirmed, when I started bleeding.

I paged my obstetrician to see what I should do. He had seen me yesterday for a check up and said the baby had seemed fine then and that it was unlikely to be anything serious. But he said to call him in the morning if the bleeding got heavier.

My heart leapt into my throat when it did. It got heavier and redder. My heart sank lower and lower. I got a headache from trying not to breathe. Every movement I made was careful and measured. I barely dared to turn over in bed.

I went to the loo three times in the night and each time I turned on the light to see the water turn murky red in the bowl afterwards.

My husband did his best to comfort me when I started crying, and reminded me that getting upset would only serve to exhaust both me and the baby and that perhaps we should wait until we knew the true state of things. This was a good reminder as it calmed me.

This morning I went to see the obstetrician – still holding my breath. My husband and I were both distracted but trying to keep upbeat and light humoured. We went to our favourite Melbourne coffee shop, Proud Mary, and got coffee and cake beforehand.

Our obstetrician was lovely. He knows about our struggle to conceive and our miscarriage earlier this year. He examined me and proclaimed me in good shape. He then gave me a scan and hallelujah – the baby was still in there, very much alive and kicking.

He said that he could see where a blood vessel had burst in my placenta and said that was probably the source of the bleeding, probably brought on by our amorous activity over the weekend. He was confident that everything was fine and signed me off work for the rest of this week, telling me to have no ‘intercourse’ or any physical activity at all for another month.

We collapsed with relief when we left the surgery. I can’t believe our good fortune.

I am still kind of holding my breath, but have now thankfully stopped bleeding.

My sister – aunty first and egg donor second

My sister's gift of her eggs are what made it possible for us to be pregnant now.

Our families overseas are already making plans to come and stay with us after our baby is born, although my sister says she doesn’t want any special treatment, even though she is our egg donor.

My sister’s help is what made it possible for us to conceive – we wouldn’t be pregnant without her eggs. I would therefore really like for her to come visit as soon as possible after our baby arrives. I mentioned it to her on the phone the other day, and she said she would love to come visit. But she also reminded me of our arrangement – that she is the egg donor only and doesn’t want to be treated any differently from my other siblings.

It startled me a little me when she said this, but then I was grateful for her outlook. That was always the understanding – that she will be the aunty first and the egg donor second. That her being the egg donor wouldn’t give her any special standing with our child. I love that she has this outlook. It gives us the freedom to be the parents of our baby without worrying that my sister wants to assume any type of role with him/her other than being his/her aunty.

Those good ol’ (young) eggs of my sister’s

Janis Joplin,  Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Michael Hutchence are forever frozen in time at the ages at which they died. Forever young.

Similarly and fantastically, the embryos made of my sister’s eggs and my husband’s sperm are frozen in time too – they will always be embryos made from two people in their mid 30s.

So, even though I am knocking 42, the little embryo inside me is seven years younger. Apparently the chances of my pregnancy continuing with embryos this youthful are around 95% – (touch lots of wood).  If the embryos were made of my eggs, it would be a different story with a much higher chance of miscarriage.

Even so, every time I go to the loo I brace myself in case I see blood but to date (apart from the first bit of spotting a few weeks ago which the doc put down to the progesterone pessaries I take) there has been nothing. I am now 7.5 weeks – still early days but further than we have ever been before.

If we are lucky enough to have this child and decide to try again for another baby at some in future with our remaining five embryos, they will still be frozen in time at around 35 years old. How brilliant is that?

I love the miracle of IVF plus of course the wonderful benevolence of my sister and brother in law who have allowed for this dream of ours to gradually be coming true.

Be still my beating heart

My husband and I listened, gob smacked, to the quick whoosh, whoosh  sound. It was the sound of our little fetus’ heart at its six week scan this morning. We could see it on the screen too, a rapid tiny flickering pulse.

I never expected to experience this. A year ago we were resigned to being childless. We were getting ready to celebrate our lives in a different way sans kids. We were going to sell the house, hit the road and head to Europe to work and live for a few years.

But with my sister’s help we are now suddenly looking like we will be parents (providing our pregnancy continues without a hitch – touch wood!).

It has taken us five years to get this far. It still doesn’t seem true.

So now I am in a dilemma about what to write about.  In the past I have stopped reading blogs by some (but not all) women who have conceived. Photos of pregnant bumps and effusive ramblings about the joy of being pregnant struck me to my hurting, infertile core. Their success highlighted my desolation.

I want to keep documenting my journey as a way to help others who may read my blog and for the self counselling it gives me. But I intend to write my blog without shoving my pregnancy down anyone’s throat. My own difficult journey and anyone reading this who is having a tough time will always be at the forefront of my mind.