How Not to Make Brownies

And no, I don’t mean small girls in brown dresses. Or yellow jumpers and brown culottes, which is what I think I used to wear as a brownie. Either that or my mother bought me Really Bad Clothes when I was growing up.

When I first saw the recipe for marshmallow chocolate brownies, I was excited. It doesn’t take a lot; anything with chocolate in it tends to excite me these days, being off the booze (the vascular dementia drugs give me horrible headaches. I have pretty much had a permanent headache for the past 3 weeks, which is annoying to say the least. I have worked out ways to keep it under control though, by having NO caffeine (sob!) and no alcohol (bit of a bugger, like my wine) and eating on a very regular basis (like every hour or so)). So I was imagining gooey chocolatey goodness, with soft, fluffy marshmallows like little stars in it…

I followed the recipe. That was my first mistake apparently, because it told me to bake said brownies in a hot oven for 20 minutes. I did so, than removed them. The top was burnt, and they felt suspiciously soft.

“Oh well,” I thought to myself, “I’ve never made this recipe before, maybe they’re supposed to be like that.” I dutifully left them to cool and did some work for my course.

When they were cool and I tried to cut them up, I discovered that although the top was burnt (due I think to the marshmallows being in close proximity to the top?) the underneath was rather more gooey than I had anticipated. Imagine a burnt crust on top of raw brownie mix, and you’ve got the right idea.

Annoying, as I had to take those brownies somewhere. And I didn’t have any more ingredients. What to do? I ended up putting them back in the oven for another 30 minutes. After which they were cooked, but, well, had a nice topping of charcoal. Yum.

Weirdly, they actually tasted OK. Quite nice, dense a bit chewy, like a good brownie should be. No sign of the marshmallows though. They were completely gone. Bastards.

Next time, I’ll be making HFF’s ginger cake…

Chocolate biscuits by the bucket-load

I finally had an appointment today to get the prescription for my meds. WHY the consultant couldn’t have scribbled on a prescription pad when we saw him 6 weeks ago, I do NOT know, because that was all the doctor did today. I could have saved myself 6 weeks of emailing…

But, getting the requisite bit of paper and depositing it in the hospital pharmacy was not as simple as it sounds. The doctor rang pharmacy to check they had the meds, as they’re a bit weird. They did, and put them on the side, ready to be dispensed. All good.

I toddled off to the pharmacy, where I was told I would have to wait 30mins. “OK,” I thought to myself, “that’s fine, I’ll go and get a coffee.” I wandered over to the coffee shop, had to have tea instead because they’d run out of decaf coffee (one of the meds causes palpitations… seeing as I already get them sometimes, it would appear to be prudent to give up caffeine for the time being…). I sat, drinking my luke-warm tea (apparently they haven’t heard of boiling water in the NHS) only to be rudely interrupted by a man PUTTING HIS NEWBORN BABY ON MY TABLE! I was minding my own business, when he obviously thought she was too heavy to hold at all of, what, 7 pounds? And just plonked her straight down on to the table in front of me. I was somewhat taken aback by this, but couldn’t find the words to say “What are you doing you weirdo? Can’t you see I’m sitting here?!” as she was surrounded, instantly, like flies on shit, by a group of women cooing over her and tickling her.

Is this normal behaviour??

I escaped, not long afterwards, leaving the rest of my tea to the newborn, and back to the pharmacy, sure that my prescription would be ready, and I would be able to make a quick exit and get home. I didn’t count on the fact that I would be sitting there a full 90 minutes later, still waiting. Yes, two hours to do a prescription. The weirdest part of it all was that it wasn’t the vascular dementia drug they had problems with giving to an under-30, but the Vitamin E… Apparently they’d never seen a dose that high before. Call me weird, but I didn’t honestly think that 1000iu of Vitamin E was that strange… They kept wondering if it was supposed to be Vitamin D (I know, because I was eavesdropping… Nothing else to do you see…). Even the woman with her very large bag of IVF injectables escaped at least an hour before I did!

So I drove home, took the dog for a walk and am now having a large cup of (hot) tea and half a packet of digestives caramels to make myself feel better. All ruined, of course, by the fact that I went and read the information leaflets for the meds and decided I don’t want to take them…

 

Sprout, anyone?

Or, if anyone’s bored, would they like to join me in a raid? I’m thinking of using HFF’s idea and getting  a battering ram to storm the hospital as it seems to be the only way I’m going to get my hands on the medication… There has been little movement over the festive season, despite chasing.

I am fed up. I am so fed up, I’m watching Lord of the Rings, which I tend to reserve for Specially Fed Up Occasions. And I’ve peeled a giant pile of sprouts for tea, hence the title. (Don’t worry, we’re also eating turkey. I appear to have forgotten Christmas has finished.)

So to answer a few questions – my particular cocktail contains: Vitamin E, Vitamin C, Aspirin, Pentoxyphylline (reassuringly used for the treatment of vascular dementia… er…) Oestrogen (patches + oral +/- injections) and Viagra. So don’t worry, HFF, I think by mentioning that I’ll be sending *those* visitors here myself! What I need from you guys is all your thickening, juicy, plumping thoughts that it works, please!

It’s a risky business, though. Because of my adhesions, I have higher risks than a *normal* IVF cycle. I hesitate to call it normal, because really, when is an IVF cycle ever normal? I don’t know if my uterus will stretch to accommodate a growing baby, and adhesions will interfere with normal placental function. The chances of a normal delivery are remote (but really, if I get that far, I really don’t care about that!).

Anyway. My period is late. I feel decidedly unpregnant, and am certain it will start in the next 24 hrs, but really, have these pelvic organs no manners? I’ve had cramping for the last 3 days. I mean, it’s just rude, isn’t it? If it’s not going to fulfil its primary function, it could at least be polite, start my period on time, and Not Hurt. That’s just good manners!

 

Merry Christmas

OK, OK, so I know I don’t write this blog very often anymore. But things are just so… DREARY that I can’t see why anyone would want to read it. It’s not exactly joyous news that I have to impart.

The uterus is a pain in the… well anyway. I saw the consultant, who looked decidedly less optimistic this time, and he scanned me, as my period was definitely heavier after the HSG (and no I didn’t get pregnant after… not one of those “A HSG made me pregnant!” stories… Though if it had, it wouldn’t be a HSG after all…) but my endometrium had not got thicker (and why would it, really…). It was between 5 and 6mm (the husband was watching, he told me there were some measurements of 6mm). The endometrium is “deficient” at the bottom of the uterus, from about halfway down, and also on the right, which he hadn’t seen before, but was seeing with the benefit of the HSG having told him that there was scarring there. The weird sac-thing was still there. The only good news to come out of the scan was that I definitely have a triple stripe appearance to the endometrium I do have, which means it works and is reasonably healthy.

However, his face when he was scanning me, was not the face of a man who was pleased with what he saw. and I KNOW he is less optimistic now. In fact he’s starting to become pessimistic. He told us to think about surrogacy. Which is a difficult one. I’m not keen, really. I want our “own”, biological child, obviously, but I don’t know who on earth would do that for us, and I don’t know who I’d trust to do that. I also don’t want to spend years trying to find someone to be a surrogate when we could be pursuing expanding our family in other ways. The husband, however, seems kind of keen on this, which makes me a little uneasy. As if I’m the one with the physical problem, therefore I should go along with what he wants as it’s All My Fault.

(Before anyone thinks anything, if I was completely against it and told him so, he’d never make me do it, he’s not like that, but I would feel that I had to…)

The plan, for now, surprisingly is not for surgery. It’s an option, but I think the consultant was unsure if it was possible to remove the scarring, or if it would change my fertility. So he’s going to give me an interesting cocktail of drugs to try to thicken my endometrium and if that helps, then it’s ahead to IVF/FET. If not – surgery and repeat as appropriate. Not that I’ve had the drugs yet – I’m having to continually chase people to try and get them. Bloody useless NHS.

Of course IVF is another matter, which scares me stiff. He seems to think pregnancy and carrying a baby is possible (I asked him outright) but the risks are, well, increased greatly, to the baby and to me. Which brings me onto the question – is it completely selfish of us to try this? What if the baby dies? What if the baby has serious and life-limiting sequelae of very early pre-term birth throughout their life because of what we’ve done to have a baby of our own? Would I then spend my entire life blaming myself? I know there are risks of this anyway, but going into it knowing the risks are so much more… seems different somehow.

And then there’s the other elephant in the room – adoption. We’re not ready. I know we’re not ready. We have to finish (and start, let’s be honest!) our treatment first. And then grieve our biological children that we didn’t have. But I have good feelings towards it.

It’s Christmas in a few days, and I feel decidedly un-Christmassy. The husband is on call on Christmas Day, so the family are coming down. I don’t know if I can survive 3 days with my parents and remain unscathed. And I spent far too much money at the supermarket yesterday. So, Merry Christmas, Season’s Greetings and all that. Here’s hoping that 2012 will be a better year for all of us. The last 3 years have been shocking, surely it’s time for a good news year??

Infertility… The gift that keeps on smacking you in the face…

OK, I know I haven’t posted here for a long time. If anyone’s pregnancy radar has been going off, I’m not. Definitely not. Blame a combination of moving to a house with no internet or phone line, apathy, and an intense desire to have a break from all things conception-related.

We had a break for a few months, and it was good. I felt human again. There were other things in life, like blue cheese, good wine, and of course our Obligatory Infertility Animal; our retired greyhound (who is utterly gorgeous by the way, and gentle, and funny, and helps to mend a broken heart). This week, we came back down to earth with a bump. Or an almighty crash, if you like.

I had a HSG this week. I told them, in the nicest possible way, that they should cover me with antibiotics. They said it would “depend on their protocol”. They couldn’t get the catheter through the adhesions into my uterus, so inflated the balloon in my cervix. Yes, the same poor, battered cervix that got forcibly dilated earlier this year. They got some dye through the not insubstantial adhesions into my uterus, which showed more scarring near my right tube. My right tube was open, my left was not (which surprised/disappointed me actually, as I’ve always been told they were both open. Liars). And then I started swearing at them because it hurt so much, and they stopped. They didn’t give me antibiotics.

They did, however, give me an infection.

Great news for adhesions and future fertility, hey? I went to my GP, who was surprisingly helpful, and phoned the gynae reg on call, and gave me antibiotics. I really hope they kick in soon, though, as somewhat worryingly the pain is getting worse. It’s not so bad that I can’t function, or eat cake, however. But it’s there.

I’ll keep a close eye on it. If it continues to get worse I’ll have to go to A&E I suppose and try and see gynae. I don’t know what else to do. My consultant hasn’t answered his phone this week. Helpful!

So to say I’m a bit pissed off is an understatement. I don’t know where we go from here, fertility-wise. I suspect they’d need to do more surgery for IVF to even be an option. I didn’t know if I wanted IVF, it scares me (as does pregnancy now – all I can see is the spectre of pain and failure and loss). But now knowing that I might not be able to have it, or not yet, well I feel disappointed. Which tells me that we need to at least give it a go; I’m not ready to give up yet. We need a plan. And I need to get rid of this bloody infection.

Lost my mojo.

I’m fed up. Utterly fed up.

I’m fed up of not getting pregnant, I’m fed up of getting stressed about my periods, which only last for 1 day of light spotting. I’m fed up of knowing what day of my cycle I’m on and I’m really fed up of having sex with my husband when I don’t particularly feel like it (headache, tired etc) just because I’m ovulating. I feel I should point out: I love my husband, I fancy the pants off him, but the thought process of “It’s CD whatever, we’d better have sex” is not a turn-on. Especially when month after month it just doesn’t work. I’m fed up of analysing the soreness factor of my boobs and I’m fed up of feeling guilty about drinking coffee/wine/not taking that bloody folic acid (is anything a greater daily reminder of your failure to be a fertile woman?) just in case.

(Edited to add: I’m also REALLY fed up of people who really should know better saying such useless things to me as “you could still be pregnant, just one of those women who still has periods and negative pregnancy tests.” I mean, come on… I feel a very strong need to swear.)

We’re midway through our fertility investigations: just waiting for my HSG which isn’t for a few months. I don’t mind waiting too much, we’ve got a house move in the meantime, but I do feel somewhat as if now I’ve got onto a train that I can’t get off. There is this incessant slow movement forwards towards IVF/FET and I’m in the system now, no matter what. I feel I can’t escape it, and I’m wondering if this was the right thing to do.

To be blunt, IVF/FET (which may be more likely what we’d have to do) scares the pants off me. I know it’s huge, I dread to think what sort of toll it’ll have on me physically (all that oestrogen…) let alone mentally. I know that it’ll more likely not work than work. I know that even if it does work there are no guarantees, particularly for me, having a significant proportion of endometrium missing, that I’ll even be able to carry a baby. And that just breaks my heart. I don’t know if I can go into this with a likelihood of failure, of miscarriage or stillbirth. I don’t know if I’m strong enough.

I know IVF isn’t a miracle cure. God knows I know that. I know it won’t be happiness and roses and it certainly won’t be without problem. I feel it shouldn’t be taken lightly. And I don’t know if I’m ready for it. At the moment, I’m not even sure if I want it. I used to think it wouldn’t be such a big deal, we’d just do it and it’d be fine, but now I know (thanks to our last scan/meeting with the consultant) we’re heading that way, suddenly I feel out of control and careering towards something I’m not sure about.

Out of control. It’s a good way to describe the infertility journey isn’t it? You do your best, you control what you can, but at the end of the day it doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference. So, my way of regaining control is to stop trying. Or, at least I’m trying to stop trying. I need a break. I need to not know what day of my cycle I’m on. I need to remember that what my husband and I have is good, is enough. It was enough 3 years ago when I married him, it should be enough now.

I’m flatly refusing to do IVF before next year. I can’t. The earliest it would be anyway now is Christmas, and just – no thanks. Christmas ruined by failure/drugs/stress? No. I shall curl up with my husband and my dog (which we shall have shortly) and shut the world out. We shall all wear pyjamas, all day, and drink champagne, and cuddle up under a blanket. Then, in January, is my 30th birthday. I don’t want to be doing IVF then either. I know about success rates decreasing with age, but I ain’t that old, and I really don’t think a few months will make any difference.

It might make a difference to me though, and my emotional state.

I was congratulated recently, on my negative outlook on IVF, and the fact I thought it wouldn’t work. By someone who knew not what they were talking about, I might add. Apparently it’s healthier, compared to her other friend who is doing IVF right now, who is positive and hopeful. I told her that my negativity is borne of failure, of loss, of a broken heart. I told her that I’d love to feel hope again, that I’d love to believe it could work for us. That a future child/embryo deserves nothing less than your hope and your love.

Instead, I am trying to get my head round the idea of a childless life, just in case, and wondering if it would really be so bad after all.

My husband is of the “if it doesn’t work, we’ll just adopt” mindset. Adoption also scares me, and I know that we have to do it, if we do, for the right reasons, and it cannot be a back up. It’s a whole different ballgame of parenting, and while I suspect, being the sort of people we are, we might not be awful at it, we cannot do it while still craving a biological child. No matter how much IVF scares me, I’m not ready to let go. Not yet.

Anyway, in about a month or so we shall be moving, and we shall be taking home a beautiful retired greyhound. And she is funny, and quirky, and loving, and will expand our little family, and bring us joy. And be really happy to greet us when we walk in the door.

My own pregnancy test

Done with first-thing-in-the-morning wee, instead of oh-crap-they-want-me-to-piss-in-a-pot-quick-I’d-better-drink-some-water wee, was also negative.

I am CONFUSED.

What the hell is it? If it was a pregnancy sac, then surely I’d have enough HCG in my system to trigger a pregnancy test? As I’m not, then what the…?

I admit he didn’t seem that worried, which I suppose is a good thing.

I have all these thoughts of possible pregnancies and miscarriages and sadness and not knowing rushing around in my head, and wondering if I should cut down on the coffee/uncooked eggs/smelly cheese etc JUST IN CASE.

Aargh! Quick, someone hit me over the head with something and knock me out, please?

The only time a negative pregnancy test has been a good thing…

Interesting title, huh? Yes I thought so too. I feel a little weird for thinking it’s a good thing, but here’s the reason.

I had my mid-cycle scan today.

The good news? I have some endometrium, it looks healthy, and has reached the mammoth thickness (ha!) of 5.3mm. That’s not great, but it’s better than my last scan, which was 4mm pre-surgery. I was pleased, he was pleased there was some, but would have preferred more, and for it to be >7mm.

The bad news? I have no endometrium further down in my uterus, just above my cervix. Essentially this means that there is less area for an embryo to implant. If there is scarring at the bottom, it may be preventing the rest of my endometrium from thickening.

The weird news? There was a sac at the fundus. It was small, only tiny, but it was there. It’s day 15, it’s too early for anything from this cycle, and too small for anything from the last cycle to be viable. He wasn’t sure it was a pregnancy, but wasn’t sure it wasn’t, so he got me to do a pregnancy test.

It was negative.

It is the only time in my life I have been pleased at a negative pregnancy test. The thought of having had yet another missed miscarriage and not even knowing I’d been pregnant is too much to bear. I feel bizarrely guilty/confused at being relieved, however.

I went and bought some peesticks on the way home, to make sure, you know.

His thoughts? He wasn’t horrified, but he wasn’t over the moon. He would have preferred more, thicker endometrium obviously (so would I) but there was some. Implantation is possible in the state it’s in, though difficult. The next step is to have the other tests, but it looks like we’re heading for IVF. We get one fresh or frozen cycle here (not both). They’re not exactly generous, are they? Especially as the NICE guidelines suggest you should be able to have 3… (don’t get me started!) Time to look at the finances, I think.

Oh and my ovaries? Apparently multicystic instead of polycystic. Not sure what the difference is on that one…

Plan number… 964 is it now?

So, as you know, I saw my new consultant yesterday. I don’t really know what to call him, as he wasn’t quite as suave in real life as he looked in his pictures. Hmmm, I’ll have to think about that one.

I haven’t really known what to write about the appointment, hence the lack of updates until now. I don’t really know how I feel about it, and if it went well, so I guess I’ll just state the facts and see what you all think.

Firstly, the good part was that he listened to my concerns, and I don’t think that there was anything I forgot to say. He seemed to know what he was talking about, in that the outcome was what I expected, and probably what I think should be done, if not what I want to be done (but then I don’t want any of this).

His thoughts were that my periods are light because 1) my hormone function might be screwed up, 2) there is a primary problem with the endometrial lining, or 3) this is just “the new me” after Asherman’s, and my periods are light, yes, but my endometrium is thick enough.

His plan is to exclude (1) by doing day 3 FSH/LH/Oestradiol bloods. He doesn’t think that this is the problem, but to be complete, and to make sure nothing obvious is being missed, he wants to do them. Fair enough. I did have a mid-cycle oestradiol done a few months ago which was “excellent” so he thinks these should be normal. He did point out that my ovaries are polycystic, but didn’t seem too bothered by this, thankfully (and wasn’t trying to blame my light periods on them!).

He wants to do a mid-cycle ultrasound (tomorrow) to see what my endometrium is like mid-cycle, and see what’s actually happening to it, what the pattern is etc. He’s scanning me himself (!) as he wants to be sure that he looks at it in depth. I’m scared. I know it’s going to be thin, so I don’t really know why I’m worried, but just the confirmation of fears I suppose. He said that if it is thin, he’ll probably scan me again in another cycle; he doesn’t want to take one reading and leave it at that. I think this is fair enough, I can see that if I was the treating doctor, I’d do the same, and I know he’s just trying to get all the information together to make a plan.

He’s requested an HSG, to see the contour of my uterus, see if my tubes are open (there’s a possibility they were scarred by the Asherman’s, or if there was an ascending infection that helped to cause the Asherman’s), and to see if there are any adhesions in my uterus. Again, I think this is a good plan. It has the benefit, as he said, of possibly breaking adhesions at the cervix etc without the need for further surgery. I’m not looking forward to it, but hey.

He listened to my stories of my cervical pain. He wondered about doing a hysteroscopy under GA and dilating my cervix even further. I wasn’t happy about this – this would be the 6th time my cervix has been dilated, and the thought of cervical incompetence is already weighing heavily on my mind. If we have to do it, we will, but as I wasn’t happy about it he agreed to leave it for now, on the basis that if blood can get out, sperm can get in. Whether it is preventing my endometrium from developing is another matter, that will hopefully be revealed by the other tests.

So: after all that, the plan obviously depends on the results of those tests. If it is a problem with the endometrium (which to be honest I think we can safely say it is) we’re looking at IVF, to see how my endometrium responds during a fresh cycle (he said that the fact of having lots of follicles means there is more oestrogen floating around, which can assist the endometrium) or if it’s not great, FET and “shitloads of drugs” as he put it. He mentioned oestrogen patches, injectable oestrogen, aspirin, vitamins C and E, something called pentoxyphylline (?sp) and said that it would be “hard work”.

He didn’t tell me to go and get a surrogate. He said it was possible to have a baby, but I suspect it’ll be a long and difficult road to get there. He told me the only reason having a baby would be impossible was if we had either no eggs or no sperm, and he’s fairly confident that isn’t the case. So I’m pleased that he shows no sign of giving up and that he’s willing to work with us. He seemed relatively positive to be honest, when I asked him what our chances were. The other two gynaecologists have been positive too. I don’t know whether to believe them or not, either they all agree because they’re all right, or they’re wrong because they haven’t been right so far, if that makes sense.

So, what do you all think? Good plan? Bad plan?

Tomorrow…

It’s my appointment tomorrow. I am scared.

Can someone give me a hug/tell me it will all be fine, please?