Butterflies...

Hello everyone!

This is likely to be the longest post ever!

So as you all know we had our meeting with the consultant at Bourn Hall a few days ago on the 25th January. If you recall i told you that as it was at 9am we were going to have to be awake at 5:30am! Urgh...

Luckily for us though my lovely sister Sharon (who amazingly lives just 4 miles away from the clinic) said that we could stay at her house on the Thursday night! Fantastic! This meant we were able to have a good night's sleep in preparation for the meeting!

As we got to the clinic we were so nervous, especially about my BMI, which was at 30.2 the day before. Even though i was only 1lb over the maximum allowance for IVF it will still not be accepted, but we just thought they would hopefully ask us to come back in a month and be weighed again so we can start the process then. In which time i know i would of easily lost that last 1lb, and more!

The moment of truth arrived, i was weighed and measured, as was Phil, but the lady did not give us the results, oh god... i said to Phil that it was probably bad. Still, with high spirits and wearing my lucky 'orange knickers' we sat in the waiting room for our appointment time.

Our consultant is a lovely man, you can't help but feel comfortable and confident around him, which is brilliant. He went through the whole process, explained certain aspects of it all, IVF, ICSI (for those who don't know, ICSI is where they take a single sperm and inject it directly into an egg, it is used for those with a low sperm count/ low morphology etc, which is the problem Phil and i have).

Basically the process involves me injecting Buserelin for a few weeks to dampen down my own hormones (called Down Regulation), then injecting Gonal-F for about 2 weeks to make more than 1 follicle grow in my ovaries (he hopes for anything between 8-10 follicles, but it could be anything up to at least 25!). Then after regular scans to check how those follicles are growing there will come a time where they will ask me to inject a hCG 'trigger shot'. This will make the eggs mature and they will need to be collected within 36 hours.

This is when Phil and i will go into the clinic and have my egg collection. It is also when Phil will need to give his sperm sample. Depending on the quality of the sperm we will either have IVF or ICSI (i expect it will be ICSI) and then the embryo's will 'hopefully' grow for up to 5 days and become 'blastocysts'. Then we will go back to the clinic and have 1 of these little miracles put back into my womb and pray that it sticks! The other embryo's will be frozen for future use.

Lots of relaxing will follow, and after 2 weeks i will be asked to do a pregnancy test, if the test is positive then i will be asked to repeat the test a week or so later, if that is also positive they will book us in for a 6/7 week scan!

So there you have it, how to make a baby in however many steps... easy isn't it? Ha ha!

Whilst he was telling us all of the above in the back of my mind i was thinking 'this is all well and good but what is my BMI!'. I was just waiting for the bad news to come when casually the consultant said 'oh yes, and your BMI Sarah is 29.2 so you will need to try and keep that down as it is quite close to 30'. To say Phil and i were in shock is an understatement! They must have rounded my height up to 5'2 as i am about 5'1 and just over a half. What a relief!

We went back into the waiting room and were just looking at each other, completely gobsmacked...

Then we went in to see a nurse who would take us through starting dates etc, as i hadn't started my period yet nothing could be booked, but she said once it had arrived i was to call the clinic.

They also arranged for us to have our 'drug teach', which is where we learnt how to do the injections. Then we had a lovely drive home, laughing and chatting about it all. It was lovely!

I hadn't expected my period to start until the 31st January so when it started that evening after the appointment i said to Phil 'it must be because i am wearing the lucky 'orange knickers!'. Typically though it was too late to call the clinic so i had to wait until today (Monday) to call them.

The call went really well, she confirmed that because my period had started in the evening after 7pm that Saturday the 26th will be my Cycle Day 1. She said my medication will be delivered to me in about 2 weeks so i can start my Buserelin injections on Cycle Day 21. Then i will have a bleed about a week later (normal period, maybe a bit heavier) and then i am to call the clinic again so they can confirm when i am to start the Gonal-F injections.

She said that with those dates they would be looking to have the egg collection on the 18th March, with the embryo being returned to the womb 5 days later, and the testing 2 weeks after.

Now... i know what you may think, you may say to Phil and i to not get too excited, but we just can't help it! I have had loads of happy butterflies in my tummy all day long! I just can not believe it is finally happening! For 3 years we have been waiting and finally we have a great shot at getting pregnant.

So it's all happening...

I can only hope every day that it works for us, first time! We deserve this little bit of luck!

Come on Baby Cole, i know you are ready to come meet us!

Take Care All xxx

What a busy few days!

Hello everyone!

What a busy busy busy week it has been! This will be a long post! Ha ha x

Firstly my friend Robyn gave birth to her beautiful baby girl, Erica on Saturday. I was fortunate to have been her birthing partner alongside her hubby and it was amazing! She had been in hospital for a few days before as she was induced on Wednesday morning but that wasn't working, so by Friday night the hospital had decided that it was time to kick it all up a notch so confirmed that Robyn would have a drip (not sure what it was exactly) to speed things up a bit.

Blimey, did it do just that! Loz and i left the hospital at around 10:30pm on the Friday night and by our return at about 11am on Saturday Robyn was already 3cm's! Fantastic! We were thinking at that rate the baby should be with us by maybe 7pm?

The next step was for Robyn to have an epidural. That was awful. I don't know what was going on but something wasn't going right and Robyn was in a lot of pain. So much so that unfortunately both Loz and i came over all faint and i had to lie on the floor! Oh it was funny, i think even Robyn cracked a smile! She was then measured at 5cm's so it was just a case of waiting... or so we thought!

Loz and i went to have something to eat at 1pm and when we got back the midwife was trying to pop a catheter in but Robyn started to have some huge contractions so the midwife had to stop. Robyn was checked and was found to be ready to push! We could not believe it! Robyn was such a dude, she pushed Erica out and i was amazed by how well she did. I was so impressed with her. Lots of tidying up and cuddles followed and little Erica and her mummy are now both safe and resting at home.

It was bloody brilliant!

Oddly now that i have witnessed birth first hand im not afraid of it. I had not really thought of it actually, but whilst i was there, and in the aftermath i thought that i would be able to do it, i will just have to follow Robyn's example and i know that i will be ok.

Onto something different now... Phil and i went to our seminar at Bourn Hall last week and it went really well. There was lots of waiting around though and we had to get there for before 2pm even though we didn't go into the room until 3pm... bit strange? I also thought it would be a bit more involved but it only lasted about 40 minutes.

It went through everything and Phil said at the end 'you knew all of that anyway didn't you?' which i did so in one sense it was a bit of a waste of time. However, it was nice to go and see the clinic and meet a few people, take in the location etc.

We left with a pack which included photocopies of the presentation and loads of forms to fill in and sign (which i love doing!).

Lastly, not long now to go until our consultation on the 25th, that is at 9am so it means that we will have to be up at 5:30! My sister lives 4 miles from the clinic so we may well be taking up her offer and staying with her!

We are really looking forward to the consultation, although my weight is being so irritating at the moment so i doubt we will be having the IVF with my February cycle. Hopefully it will be a good enough BMI for Friday though.

We can only hope...

Take Care All xxx

Almost there!

Hello everyone!

So here we are, standing on the edge of it all. 1 day to go until the seminar and we are feeling very excited about it all! We are not so excited about the fact that we have got to make a 1 and half hour journey and be there for 9am though! Ha ha, needs must i guess...

I assume that at the seminar we will be going over every option of IVF, ICSI etc. Learning all about it and being shown around the clinic. Meeting various staff members and just having a general 'welcome' day.

Then we will have just over a week to wait until our consultant appointment!

It is all happening now!

I am doing quite well with my weight loss and am currently at 11st7lb, which gives me a BMI of 30.6. Still not the best but i have a couple of weeks to go and i am so determined. We are going on our nightly walks still and have found that we can now do 4 miles in one go, which is fantastic! I will lose this weight!

Whilst on our walks it gives us the perfect opportunity to discuss everything and you may find it strange but we have been speaking about how much having a child will change our life, and how maybe we will find that difficult.

The trouble with us is that we are, well i am almost 28 (urgh... don't talk to me about it...ha ha) and as we have been trying for so long now (3 years almost seriously trying, about 5 years not preventing) we foolishly expected to be pregnant with at least our second child by now. Our problem is that we are now too set in our ways. If we had had our child when we were say 24 then we would not know any different. It would be natural to be tired, selfless, think of someone else all the time. We are now feeling like, urgh... we won't be able to just do what we want all the time, how annoying! Ha ha!

I am sure that once we are confirmed as pregnant we will be over the moon and totally forget about all of those thoughts, but it is something to ponder isn't it?

Nightmare...

Taking everything into account though we are truly excited and ready to become a proper family and can only hope and wish that the IVF works first time for us.

Please keep your fingers crossed!

Take Care All xxx

Edging Closer

Hello Everyone,

It has been too long again since my last post, but what with christmas and family stuff to do its quite hard to find a decent amount of time to write a post.

I hope everyone has had a lovely christmas and new year. Our new year was made even more special with the safe arrival of my little sister Lauren's baby boy on the 31st December. We are going over to see him later on this evening and i am very excited to meet him!

I can't believe how quickly January is already going, its mad!

It needs to slow down a bit as unfortunately due to lots of naughty buffet style meals during the christmas holidays i managed to put on 7lb! That is disgusting! However i am now back on track, eating breakfast, salad for lunch and exercising as much as i can. I am happy to say that with that lot happening i weighed in this morning at 11st 9lb, which is fantastic! Definitely need to keep this up...

So we received our letter from Bourn Hall and to my surprise not only did it confirm our seminar appointment for the 16th January it also told us that we have been booked in for an additional appointment. This is for the 25th January and it is our consultation meeting with the consultant. I am assuming this is when we will discuss everything arrange the IVF to start. It could mean that in less than a month we will know when we will be starting the huge journey... nervous?

Mostly i really need to shift some of this weight so i can be at the correct BMI for the treatment, and by the sounds of things i need to shift it soon! That is my worry above everything else at the moment.

Wish me luck everyone!

Take Care All xxx