One for sorrow…

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It has taken me the best part of two weeks to be able to sit down and write this news..

On the Friday after I found out I was pregnant, I started having tummy cramps, which I thought were just normal, until I spotted blood. It was just a light pink colour at first. So, again I was hopeful that it was implantation bleeding, until I realised that it was too late for that. I was 5 weeks + 2 days along. My wife called her mum (who we hadn’t even told yet), to ask her advice – she was great and said hopefully it’s just a period as she had got them when she was pregnant. Later that evening the bleeding got darker and the pain got worse. I went to bed hoping that everything was going to be okay. At 2am, excruciating cramps woke me up, as I went to put my hand on my tummy to comfort myself, I fast realised I was drenched in sweat and my body was trembling with the pain. I went to the toilet, and as soon as I sat down, bright red blood gushed out of me, and a lot of it. I knew this was all very bad, the pain was worse than a normal period and I couldn’t stop shaking.

The next morning we decided to ring 111 for further advice. They told me to go straight to A&E to get checked out. My wife is disabled, so she wasn’t able to take me, so her mum took me up to the hospital whilst my wife had to wait and wonder at home. Once there, they took my bloods and sent me to the women’s unit. They only had one doctor working who was covering 3 areas, and was stuck in theatre, so we waited about 5 hours to get my news, it was the longest 5 hours of my life!

The doctor told me that the blood tests revealed my hormone level was only on a number 8, and for 5 weeks pregnant they would expect it to be 15! He said it’s most likely an early miscarriage and to go home, take pain killers and rest. He said to do another home pregnancy test in 2 weeks to see if / how the pregnancy had progressed, but that it will probably show a negative result. He also said that it is very common and happens to 1 in 5 pregnancies, and that it doesn’t mean that I won’t go on to have a perfectly healthy pregnancy in the future.

So, home I went, trying hold it together whilst I told my beautiful wife that we had lost our little bean 😦 her mum was brilliant that afternoon (she is an incredibly understanding and supportive woman) and told us to keep trying. I have spent the past 2 weeks feeling like I was on a second round of TWW’s and wondering if every pain and twinge was a sign all was not lost. I bled on and off for about a week, and I still am having some tummy pains, but alas, I took a home pregnancy test this morning and sure enough it showed a negative result. I have to be thankful, in a way, for two things – 1) That I miscarried so early, meaning I could pass everything naturally (I’m not sure how I would cope if I’d already heard the baby’s heartbeat!) and 2) That today’s test was negative, because for a while I was starting to get anxious incase it turned out to be ectopic.

I walk our dog every day in our local country park, and the week when we still thought I was pregnant, I saw two magpies followed by a third. Two for joy, three for a girl right? So, i believe we lost what would have been our beautiful little girl 😦

We are still firm believers in that it will happen for us when the time is right, and not a moment before. We have decided to have at least a one month rest, to make sure I have at least one natural cycle before trying again, which will also give us both time to heal emotionally and my body to heal physically. We are lucky we have a very reliable and committed donor, who assures us he will continue to donate until we get our next ‘two for joy’. For now, the healing process continues.

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So Happy – BFP! :D

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Wow!! I can’t quite believe I am even writing this, but I’ve been holding off writing any posts during the TWW because I didn’t want to obsess about things too much! However, I have been secretly tracking my symptoms, especially over the last week which are as follows:

7dpo – I felt very emotional and tired
8dpo – Noticed a really strong, overpowering smell in the kitchen
9dpo – Sharp abdominal pains early morning, still strong smell in the kitchen
10dpo – Tender / swollen boobs, woke up at 5:30am and couldn’t get back to sleep
11dpo – Woke up at 4:30am to pee, couldn’t get back to sleep for an hour, tender boobs again (especially my ‘pecks’ area near armpits), some cramping, mostly on the right side in the evening, peeing ALOT!
12dpo – Woke twice in the night to pee, woke up with sore / swollen boobs again, very tired in the evening, went to bed early.
13dpo – Sharp pains in right bottom of my back, extremely tired all day, increased appetite, outbreak of spots on face, sensitivity to other smells (my hand cream smelt off weirdly!)
14dpo – Woke to pee three times in the night!, very tender pecks again, can’t stop thinking about food lol, pms ratty symptoms and more spots appearing on my face

^ I was starting to wonder if the last couple of days symptoms meant that I was completely out – because they are very similar to signs AF was coming. However, because I’m not blessed with a decent rack and have very small boobs, it was very weird for me to wake up in the mornings with them really swollen, it made it more noticeable for me and that was the biggest give-away sign that made me believe this month was going to be the one 😀

So, I tested this morning and got my BFP!! 😀 (15dpo – CD32) with FMU, I used a cheaper First Response test and got a faint second line that got a bit darker as the minutes went on. To make sure, I then tested again with Clear Blue Digital and sure enough it said PREGNANT!!

Since we know the exact date we conceived, and pregnancy is actually calculated from the first date of your last period, it works out I am actually 4.5 weeks pregnant. We are SO happy and excited and can’t quite believe it’s actually happening! This is our first pregnancy so we don’t know quite what to expect over the coming months! We’re not telling our family and friends until after the 12 week scan, and I’m going to try and keep cool until then, because I know this stage is crucial. I have a doctors appointment next week, so will be asking them for a blood test to be triple sure and find out what happens next. eeeeek! 😀

I thought it would be helpful to list my TWW symptoms for anyone that is waiting, and also, for those that are TTC, have a read of my previous blogs that explain how and when we did the insemination, because the timing was perfect 🙂

If anyone else here got their BFP around the same time as us, let us know, it would be great to have some buddies! x

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The next day test strip says…

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I used my ovulation test strip at 2pm today and here’s the result (pictured below). Definite positive L.H surge detected (this is 24 hours after insemination). I continued to have some stomach cramps last night which could well have been ovulation. So, now fingers crossed nature will do it’s job and the little fellas have survived up until now, all riled up ready to race for that egg! I wish I knew exactly when I have / am going to ovulate – the signs are all there obviously but the closer the ovulation to insem the better chances of conception. I hope that the strip doesn’t mean that I will ovulate tomorrow, but that I have already ovulated sometime between yesterday and today.

There’s nothing left to do but keep myself busy, sleep if I need to, try not to think about it at all and….wait.

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We’ve got it all worked out (Back on the TWW)

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This is my first post of 2014 and I am full of positive thinking that this year is going to be ours!!..

I had the scan on my ovaries last month, and all is well in that department. We are still not sure what all the pains I had at the end of last year were all about, but whatever it was, it has gone. So after a long 4 month unwanted break, we are back! Today marks our third attempt at AI donation and we have taken a slightly different approach to this one…

On our last two attempts, we waited for the ovulation test strip to show a positive L.H Surge, and notified the donor we were ready, but due to circumstances beyond our control, for whatever reason, he was unable to donate that very same day as detection and ended up donating just outside of the 12-36 hour window of ovulation – resulting in a negative – we had missed the boat both times. Our plan this time, was to have the donation bang on or just BEFORE the L.H surge detection in a hope that the sperm will survive inside, and be effectively waiting to meet the egg as it’s released. I’ve read that sperm can live inside you for up to 72 hours. So, this morning I tested and my test line showed up faintly next to the control line (pictured below) – from past experience with using these strips, I am pretty confident that tomorrow that line will be a lot darker and the ovulation window will open. Now, if the theory works for us, this means that by the time I ovulate, the sperm will have been inside me for 24-60 hours. Marry that theory with the fact that I know my body and can spot the signs I’m about to ovulate (I had very healthy amounts of stretchy ‘egg white like’ CM this morning, along with sharp twinges in my left side) we are keeping everything crossed that the little fella’s are already one step ahead, on board and no chance of missing that boat! Also, what I didn’t take unto account this morning, but have only just thought about – is that I tested this morning at around 10am…well what’s to say that line wouldn’t have gotten darker as the day has gone on?. For all these reasons, this donation feels a lot more promising than the previous two.

I have been a good girl in the last few weeks (well, I did have 1 or 2 drinks just over a week ago, but totally ready to give that up completely now, not even a sip of red wine here and there. I know I’m ready because I went to the pub the other night and had nothing but a soda and lime 😀 the more the weeks go on with me trying to cut out alcohol completely, the more I’m not bothered about it). I have cut our tea and coffee completely, switched to full fat milk and cheese, and eaten good amounts of foods that are supposedly good for boosting fertility; organic eggs & whole milk, pears, broccoli, cauliflower, lamb, pumpkin seeds, and drinking lemon water or green tea. I am also making good use of my yoga mat that my wife got me for christmas by attending a 1.5 hour class once a week (I’m ready to step that up, so have ordered a couple of yoga dvd’s off Amazon too, waiting for them to be delivered) and I’ve been walking the dog for a good 30-60mins a day (most days).

…So, two week wait – we meet again, we’re ready for ya!! 😛

Anyone else out there on their TWW – let us know and we can keep eachother sane!! 🙂 x

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A little break…

Hey.. so just a little update about the unwanted break we are currently having…

After the suspected ‘PID’ back in October – I got my test results from the clinic which were that I had NO STI’s at all. Everything came back absolutely fine, and so it isn’t sure if I ever did have PID or not. This led to an appointment with my GP, because even though my pelvic symptoms seemed to subside a little after taking the course of antibiotics, I still was (and am) getting the odd pain here an there, and my periods are a bit skewiff.

My GP thought it best that I have an internal scan of my pelvic region just to be sure I don’t have any cysts on my ovaries or anything, and to give me peace of mind. She said it’s best t be sure, as we don’t want a complication with pregnancy etc and I totally agree. So, although it is gutting that we are having to wait for this appointment to come through and put the baby-making plans on hold for a couple of months, we would much rather be sure everything is okay before we try to plant any seeds!

My  scan is on the 9th January – too late for us to try for the Jan cycle, so we are going to have to wait until February 2014 until we can have our next attempt (all being well that is!). Fingers crossed all is good because we are longing for our family. I have a really good feeling that 2014 is our year to conceive. I got given a yoga mat for Christmas and I intend to start a class in January to try and keep my fitness up, along with walking the dog everyday and cutting out alcohol completely in the New Year (rather than just cutting down), has anyone got any other tips for boosting the chances of conception? I will be drinking green tea and eating lots of foods that are supposed to boost fertility i.e eggs, pears etc…. does anyone know of any herbal remedies I can take or anything else positive I can change to help? advice would be much appreciated 🙂 what worked for you?

…I wish you all a belated Merry Christmas, and a very Happy, positive New Year with lots of baby dust xx

Pelvic Inflammatory Disease :(

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So, after all the upset with donor no.1 disappearing. I thought it best to go to the G.U.M clinic and get tested. It really has put me about that he vanished into thin air and I am left unsure as to what his actual motives were… ( I already got tested after donor no.2 so I know that all is good there!).

Also, I have been having some unusual symptoms. On day 10 of my period, I noticed some ‘spotting’, it was only a small amount, and was gunky and slightly brown (TMI I know, but necessary) – this never happens to me I usually only bleed for 4-5 days. I thought it might be that I was experiencing ‘implantation bleeding’ (even though I had my period, I have read that you can still have some periods whilst pregnant). However, I did a home pregnancy test at the beginning of last week and it was negative. I also have been experiencing the worst stomach pains I think I’ve ever had, so much so, that on Saturday morning I woke up in pain, sat on the toilet, doubled over, with hot sweats and thought I was going to pass out. This pain fluctuates between a constant dull ache and an excruciating stabbing.. it’s either in the middle of my belly or on my left hand side and creeps round the bottom of my back.

I went to the clinic this morning and they did the full works on me. I am still waiting on some of the results like chlamydia, gonorrhoea, hepatitis, HIV etc because they have to be sent off to the lab. They also did another pregnancy test (which was negative) and ruled out any urine or kidney infection with a pee test. After all the swabs, the doctor did an internal examination as well (because of the stomach pains). It wasn’t very pleasant, but actually the swabs hurt more. I joked that if I can’t handle this then I couldn’t handle labour! lol!! :/

What they think I have is something called ‘PID’ (Pelvic Inflammatory Disease) which is the inflammation of your reproductive organs: the womb (or uterus) fallopian tubes, ovaries, and surrounding tissues. It is usually caused by a bacterial infection that spreads from the cervix (neck of the womb) up into the womb, fallopian tubes and ovaries. Apparently, in about a quarter of women, it is caused by a sexually transmitted infection. If not treated promptly with antibiotics, it can lead to scarring of the fallopian tubes and serious problems like infertility. So, as you can imagine I’m pretty upset (not to mention don’t feel very well).

The doctor told me that they can’t ever say for sure if a woman even has it – but they treat it with antibiotics to ‘air on the side of caution’. I have 2 sets of tablets to take over the next 2 weeks in a hope that the symptoms subside – if not, or if the pain gets worse, I need to go to the GP quite urgently. Also, if it doesn’t clear up after the course of antibiotics, then I need to see my GP so they can see what’s up, and they may check for ectopic pregnancy, (though the doctor said this is unlikely as the PT’s were negative) / cysts etc.

So I need to try and rest a bit. I will update again when I get my tests results for the other STI’s . The other thing is I can’t have sex with my wife because she could catch this PID through sexual fluid and of course it also means we have to put our next planned insemination on hold until this clears up. Pretty gutting 😦 but for the best – You can’t go putting a pregnancy into an inflamed pelvic!

I really hope that it’s NOT caused by an STI – I feel very foolish at the thought I put myself at risk like that! And hope that anyone reading this, who has the intention to use a donor from the internet, that hasn’t shown you some STI results – will think again! x

October BFN :(

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Well.. as I suspected, my symptoms must just be down to good old fashioned stress! 

I got my AF last night. I was hoping it would be implantation bleeding, but it got heavier and hurts like a biatch! I was going to buy a pregnancy test today, but now I guess don’t need to. We are both big believers in ‘it will happen when the time is right’, so trying to stay positive and remember there is always next month. I am going to an event in London at the weekend so I will treat myself to a cheeky vodka and then it will be back to green tea next week in prep for trying again in November. I think that the day we inseminated was 1 day too late and we missed it. Next month I hope we can time it just right… don’t we all eh! Good luck to everyone else that’s waiting to test. I wish you all the baby dust in the world x

TWW – 12 DPO

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So… the dreaded two week wait!!.. I’m 12 days past ovulation, so I’ve done pretty well to get this far and not obsess about it TOO much! I try to drink green tea every day and eat all my fruit and veg. I have read that certain foods help with fertility like; free range eggs, green tea, pears, organic milk, pumpkin seeds, mackerel, broccoli etc so I have been trying to get all of those inside me.

I have noticed a few symptoms over the last week and that has got my mind doing overtime today. Here’s what I’ve experienced so far:

Headaches (not uncommon for me).

Tiredness (I am a full time carer so I’m tired a lot anyway).

A few sharp twinges in my lower left abdomen.

Nausea – I have felt sick on and off for the past 2 days, especially that sicky feeling when your hungry, even though I may have had a meal an hour before!.

Needing to pee often.

Slightly tender boob – just my left one oddly.

Hot flashes.

Feeling super cold.

Back ache.

Last night I cried uncontrollably – however I had had very little sleep and was stressing over something. It could have been my normal ‘period cry’ but it felt different somehow, like raw emotion that went deep to the bone.

Tongue ulcers – I found 2 today, very painful – I’m thinking I must be run down.

^ Now that seems like a pretty extensive list – it’s important for me to remember though, that I am prone to feelings of exhaustion anyway due to my caring role. Also, I think a lot of it could simply be put down to stress. I have had a particularly stressful week and found myself getting worked up over an unrelated situation, so a lot of these symptoms are most likely down to that.

Has anyone else experienced any of these symptoms before getting their BFP?

My cycle length varies between 30 and 38 days! – So, I technically have 4 more days after today in which AF could arrive! I am going buy a home pregnancy test on Tuesday which will be day 37 (and 15 DPO), fingers crossed this isn’t all in my head, because I do feel a bit ‘different’!!

Wish me luck!! 🙂

September 2013 – 2nd Attempt

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Monday 30th September – Approx 48 hours after first detection of positive LH surge. (Again, sadly We think this will be missing my fertile window, but donor no.1 didn’t turn up 2 days earlier and we haven’t heard from him since. So donor no.2 donated last minute for us).

So, we had our second attempt this morning. This time the insemination went EXACTLY to plan!! There is no way we were gona let those little swimmers escape this time, so we said ‘sod it’ to the air bubbles and just got on with it! Again, the donation came already in the 10ml needless syringe with a small plastic tube attached to the end. As soon as I got in the house with the sample, my wife and I got down to business. I felt sooo much more relaxed this time around. Even with the whole stress of the ‘no show’ donor no.1 fiasco – I was just SO happy to be given this second chance this month!! Bless donor no.2 coming through for us last minute! A total Godsend.

After the insemination and love making, again with a climax so as to help the little swimmers move along to their destination easier (not that you need an ‘excuse’ to have an orgasm lol! ;)), I spent about 20 minutes laid on the bed, with pillows under my bum and my legs in the air. I did some bicycle exercise leg movements in this position on and off and my wife kissed my tummy a lot! awww! 🙂 So.. here we are on the dreaded TTW. More about that on my next blog.

Donor 1 & Donor 2 Explained

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So, I wanted to explain to you a little bit about why we have mentioned here not just one, but TWO donors. We aren’t greedy I promise! What happened is the following chain of events:

Back in September 2012 when we first started looking into potential donors, we found one we were both happy with. I wont use his real name here so we will call him ‘donor no.1’. Then my wife fell ill and we had to postpone our baby plans until we had things sorted out a bit more at home, and adapting things to accommodate my wife living with her illness.

So, after our break, we started looking again in the Spring of 2013. We had gone off the idea of using donor no.1 within this time because we felt a bit uneasy about a certain request of his. He was perfect in most other ways, reasonably good looking, had good genes, no record of any serious family medical history, good sperm count, intelligent etc. He also said he had 3 positive pregnancy’s to date, all with the AI method – Great!

However, we got put off using him when his reply to our question about having an up-to-date STI test, was that he ‘doesn’t bother with them any more’. His reasoning for this was that he only donates via AI and had not had any sexual relations with anyone since a long standing relationship that ended a few years ago. He said that they weren’t worth the paper they are written on because, he could for example show us results of a negative test he’d had done on a Monday – but then donate to us on a Thursday of the same week and we would have no way of knowing if he’d had sexual intercourse with someone between taking the test and donating to us. This is true, but I would at least like to know that they would be WILLING to take an STI test for better peace of mind.
There’s one more thing – he had a request that either one, or both of us watched him as he produced the sample. That – we immediately felt uncomfortable with, but he said that his other recipients didn’t mind and he’d donated to lesbian couples before. He said that he wouldn’t dare ask us to join in or anything, just that having someone watch him as he ‘produces the sample’ helps him to do it quicker and also would get a bigger sample too. We umm’d and arr’d about this and decided it was all too risky – so we decided not to ask him again when we started looking in 2013 and found someone else instead – donor no.2!

Donor no.2 is a bit older, early 50’s. Again reasonably good looking, he sent us some baby pictures of himself when he was a child, which were very cute. He would only donate via AI also, which is all we are willing to do so great – he is new to donating and only had 1 positive pregnancy to date. Also, he was happy to meet me a couple of streets away so that he didn’t have to come to our house if we didn’t ant him to, which felt a lot safer to me if he didn’t know where we lived. He didn’t ask for anything in return, he just wants to help! – We had our very first attempt with him in July 2013. (See blog ‘July 2013 – First ever attempt!’).

It was BFN. Meanwhile, he divulged to us via email that he has been helping a lot of women at the same time. He travels all over the country producing donations for people. But the problem with this is that 1) by donating more than once a day, or not leaving a few days ‘rest’ in-between donations, meant he was actually reducing his sperm count and was resulting in failed attempts for everybody. And 2) There is a UK legal limit to how many ‘offspring’ a sperm donor is allowed to have. – We spoke to him about our concerns and we decided that it wasn’t going to work for us if he continued to donate to so many people in this way.

So.. at a loose end for the next month, and dare I say it.. desperate! – We contacted donor no.1 again and he said he was available. I told him when my fertile window was, and he suggested that he should come over BEFORE my fertile window to donate, as apparently it would help me get used to his ‘sample’ – so that when the window came round, my body wouldn’t reject it. – He was an experienced donor so we had no reason to question this. He actually donated to us twice that week before my window – but when it came to the important date – he let us down saying he had to go away for work. So in August 2013, we actually missed our window.

When September’s window came around – he was again a no show. But this time didn’t let us know, just did not turn up and we haven’t heard from him at all since! – I THINK this is because he’d emailed me before the due donation date asking me if I would consider ‘PI method’ (this means partial insemination – where the man gets himself to the point of climax and then enters you for the ejaculation) – either way you look at it – it is ‘NI’ (natural insemination). I was shocked he’d even suggested this as he told us he was ‘strictly AI’! – My reply to him was that there is NO way we would even consider this new method and we are AI only. He said he understood and that he only made the suggestion as it is ‘more effective’ and would mean less donations for us in the long run. This also made me concerned that, actually, he may have done NI with other recipients before but had told us he only did AI and this also makes his ‘not bothering with STI tests’ statement even more worrying!! – Anyway so he was a complete NO SHOW after this – which means his only intention was ever to get something sexual out of it. We feel very uneasy about that whole situation now understandably! 😦 – So PLEASE be warned people if you are going down this same road as us to NOT make that kind of mistake.

Anyway – we knew that in the meantime, donor no.2 had been to get his sperm count tested to make sure he was still fertile, as he still gave us updates via email and had told us to use him if our donor let us down for any reason.The results came back that his sperm was above average, so he has now limited himself to helping fewer and far between recipients to try and maximise the chance of helping people. – so we text donor no.2 and asked him if he would be willing to donate last minute. – He was!!. Luckily, we aren’t too far a distance away from him, and he agreed to come the next day.

So, long story short, we now only have ONE donor, and we are going to stick with him until I fall pregnant. He has 2 positive pregnancies to date, all with AI, so there is hope!! 🙂