It's over

I am sad to be sending the news that our first IVF cycle has failed. I am still reeling a bit and don't quite know whether I am coming or going.

Everything went so perfectly with our cycle - the transfer was a dream, the little embryo was so beautiful and perfect, I was feeling very relaxed and happy and started to get quite a few pregnancy signs over last weekend. I was feeling very excited and positive about it all.

On Tuesday morning, I awoke at 4am with slight cramps. I thought immediately that it might be implantation and then, when I woke up and the cramps were gone, even more so. I felt quite excited. However, on the way to work around 8am, the pain started full force and I asked B to turn the car around and go home. I just knew that something was wrong. I called the nurse and she said that we won't be able to tell until Friday when I have the pregnancy blood test. Some women have a full monthly but still end up pregnant.

However, at 4pm, it was all over. I had, what I can only term an early miscarriage. It was the most distressing thing I've ever experienced. I had to take loads of paracetamol and felt too weak to get up from the blood loss. I called the nurse and asked if I needed a D&C and she said not at this early stage.

On Wednesday morning, I was still extremely weak and bleeding heavily. I got dressed to go to work and walked out the door to go to the train station but my neighbour who is a doctor saw me and said there was no way I should be going to work. I called my boss again and said I wasn't fit to come into work.

I have been in a state of grieving for the last three days with mood swings from euphoria and hopefulness for the future as well as acceptance of what has happened, to extreme sadness and anger which has made me want to scream and smash things.

The pregnancy blood test which was on Fri morning, has come back negative – the nurse called me to pass on the news.

As a way of moving on, I’ve now written down everything we want to do in the next two months which is going to be our break from all this madness: for me - yoga twice weekly, painting, walking, cooking, gardening and for both of us enjoying a few weekends away and our NZ holiday in March.

I've also written out a plan to talk to my doctor. I have always had a gut feeling in these last two years that our problem is not with fertilization but implantation. I am not an expert in this by any means, but the excellent number of mature eggs this cycle (despite a low dosage of drugs), excellent fertilization rate and the high quality of our embryos which were able to grow all the way to day five, leads me to believe that the problem does not lie in this area. So my plan is to talk to our FS about this next Tues, and insist on further testing and potential treatment, if feasible. Aside from all of this, B and I always knew that our first cycle might fail. But, we are very thankful and lucky to have two beautiful 5-day old embryos (our snow babies) waiting in the wings for us.

I do feel a huge amount stronger today - like I am ready to stand up and fight another day. I went to an hour and a half yoga class yesterday morning and this was my first step to moving on and finding my centre again.

I am also so lucky to belong to this blogging community.

Now that I'm thinking more clearly, I dont believe the borderline AMH levels have actually affected me at all as I seem to have lots of really good eggs left. Over the last 2 years I've experienced similar months where I think weve had an embryo form and develop but somehow it ends up unable to implant properly. It's a gut feeling I have.

Around 4 months ago, I linked up with an amazing blogging friend who went through multiple failed IVFs and pregnancy loss. Like me, she had lots of great eggs, a great fertilization rate and high quality embys. She then tested positive for high levels of natural killer cells - these are cells which occur naturally in the uterine wall, which if over abundant, have been known to stop a foetus from developing before it can properly implant. She was treated and is now succesfully pregnant.

When I told my dad the news and about this case, he told me that our family has a history of autoimmine disease - from my great grandfather to my grandad, dad and uncles. My dad is a pathologist and scientist, and therefore believes that I might have an unnaturally potent immune system and has strongly suggested I get tested for high levels of these cells.

The research is very new and controversial but both my parents, strongly agree with it (my mom is also a pathologist) and I'll be talking to my doctor about it on Tuesday even if it means insisting on a referral to another doctor at my clinic who does support this research.
If I dont have high levels of these cells, I will eat my socks, but I have a really really strong feeling that I need to follow this up. Here are some studies which were done on NKs in 2005 and 2009 - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16213853

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18835875

So yes - I am going to take matters into my own hands a bit. In the end we are the only ones who really know our bodies inside and out... Our doctors tend to put us into boxes when each case is so different and unique!

Sorry about the long post but my brain has been working overtime...

Now that I'm back in the land of the living, I'll be back in blog-land and commenting on your posts again. I have been keeping up to date with all of your journeys. Some of your posts have made me laugh and some have made me cry, but always, I've felt that I'm so lucky to belong to this community of immensely strong and like-minded women!

Onward and upwards!