Uh oh

Murray lost his job today. Well to more correct, his contract is not being renewed at the end of the year, so he has a job until the end of the school year, but they don't want him back. He is just devastated. He has had a personality clash with his head of department the whole two years he has been at this school, and she gave a scathing review of him to the principal so that is that. Nevermind that he has never had a bad review from ANY of his past schools, colleagues or boss. Or that the kids love him and respect him. I am so angry and upset for him - his confidence has really taken a blow.

Luckily he had an interview at another school this afternoon, so I tried to pep him up and get him feeling positive about himself, and apparently the interview went well, so we just need to cross our fingers and pray that he gets the job.

At least he is on school holidays for the next two weeks - he doesn't have to be around all of those horrible people. He wasn't the only one that was let go, around 7 other teachers also got told that they were out of a job.

We are going away next week for a little getaway - off to the Barossa Valley in South Australia for four nights. Lots of wine and good food, staying at a bed and breakfast and hiring a car to get around the place. I think it is going to do a lot of good.

Dan Brown and Infertility

Is anyone reading Dan Brown's new novel 'The Lost Symbol'? I am only half way through (so dont spoil the ending!) but the idea that thoughts can move matter is something that is really interesting to me. Maybe that's what our IF community is doing through L&F, ICLW and all the other groups. By all of us praying for and thinking of other people, maybe we can change our infertile reality. Just an idea...

Losing weight for IVF

I know you all saw the title and went 'yeah, yeah, here she goes again', and yep, I am on the weight loss merry-go-round again. I have just finished the second week of boot camp and am utterly exhausted. Our trainer was half an hour late today so we spent that time in the gym going hard, then ran a couple of kilometres to a park to do hill runs and plank holds, sprints and other exercises, then ran back again. Two hours of hardcore exercise! On a Saturday morning! But I know I burnt an enormous number of calories so it makes it worthwhile.

Last week I lost 1.5kg and I am aiming to lose 5kg all up before our next IVF treatment in November. The clinic want me to have my BMI under 35 which is fair enough, but I also want to feel good about myself, and losing weight is definitely one way I can do that.

I know the experts say that losing just 5% of your body weight can help restore normal menstrual cycles in overweight women. Well I lost 20% of my weight two years ago and it did absolutely nothing for me, nor my PCOS. But it did make me feel good, which I think is worth just as much.

A couple of my good friends who also go to my gym are coming over tonight for a bit of a girls night in - healthy hamburgers, celery, carrots & dip, and low-calorie cocktails. Bring it on!

No good sperm

We had our meeting with our specialist on Tuesday which went okay.

At the beginning of the meeting they were hesitant about me cycling again considering my emotional state after the last cycle, but I have honestly bounced back really well, and feel 100% on where I was at that point. They could see that as well and so are happy for us to attempt one more IVF cycle before the year - hopefully lucky cycle number ten.

We went through what happened last cycle, and our embryologist explained that the female (egg) DNA is what gets the embryo to develop up to day 3, which is when the male dna takes over and gets the embryo to day 5. If you have plenty of embryos at day 3 but they fail to develop to day 5, it means your sperm is kaput. While you can still fall pregnant with high sperm DNA damage, the combination of him also having no motility means that the clinic would prefer us to move to donor sperm. Unfortunately donor sperm in Australia is incredibly hard to come by - very few sperm banks and they are only for their clinics use, there is a 5 family limit on donors and a long quarantine and cooling off period. There is no way we could fit another cycle in this year with donor sperm so we are going to roll the dice and try one last cycle with Murrays sperm. I can't quite let go yet, after all his sperm was good enough to get us pregnant one - plus the chemical pregnancy last December. Two out of our five transfers, something happened - I still think those are good odds, even if we havent necessarily made it to transfer in a lot of the cycles.

So at this point I am going to cycle in November, but we are still progressing our adoption seminars which are at the end of October, and are going to start advertising in the papers and on the internet to hopefully find someone who is willing to help us by donating sperm, in the event that this cycle is unsuccessful and we need to go again next year.



They are really happy with my egg production, so we are going to stick with the same FSH dose, although if I want it turned down one notch, they are also happy with that (to hopefully avoid ohss).

Quick updates

Super quick updates because I am exhausted

• Started my new job today - so totally awesome. And so much less stress, I can not even explain how much it has already helped my stress levels!
• Murray winning that money has helped us so much - and we found out that it is actually six thousand not five! Which is just an extra bonus!
• We have fish! Quite a few actually, we have names them all, and are loving our new members of the family
• I start boot camp on Wednesday and had the most full on personal training session ever today - so much boxing
• My personal trainer also told me she is three months pregnant. She was nervous about telling me because she knows what I have been through. It's bittersweet but I am very happy for her
• Our specialist appointment is tomorrow, so I have written a page up about our history and all of our questions so that I can hand it over and get everything out that I want to say. Really super nervous about it, especially when I know in the letter Mike wanted me to take a break for a while, but this already has been a good break for me, and I really want to try one last time, just to get to transfer and have a shot at it.
  
• Did I mention I love my husband!

That's it - I'm off to bed, will let you know how the meeting goes!

Oh. My. Goodness!

Murray just came 5th in his NRL footy tipping competition. Yeah I know. But the kicker is that the prize for fifth place is .... drumroll please..... five THOUSAND dollars!!!!!!!!!

We can actually afford one last go of IVF!

We have spent the last half an hour alternating between crying and laughing.

I can't believe it!

Comments

Thank you all for your comments on my last post. I never really stop to think about everything that is happening, and it was admittedly a little hard reading people telling me that I need to take a break, but I do appreciate the honesty.

For the moment, I would still like to do another cycle before the end of the year, December if possible, as it will be the last chance to make use of our Medicare safety net before all the changes come in, and the $1100 limit restarts. If that cycle doesn't work, we will be having a very long break, most likely of a couple of years time, but I don't know if I could just stop now, when I know that I could have one more go of it.

I do realise that I need to get myself right though before I attempt another cycle. That is emotionally as well as the physical side of things. I really believe that changing jobs is going to help my mental state a lot and help me to not be so stressed out. We also have some really enjoyable things coming up to look forward to - a wedding in the south west next weekend, another wedding in November, a four day getaway to the Barossa Valley in South Australia at the end of this month, plus Christmas - my favourite time of the year. I don't know if I could cope with getting to Christmas and knowing that I am still barren. I feel like I need to give it one more chance. I know I could keep saying that forever - just one more cycle - but in my head and my heart, I feel like I need to.

Is three months enough of a break? I don't know, but that is what I am going to aim for at the moment, and I guess I will reassess before we start to see if I still feel comfortable.

Okay, rambling is over... just such a hard thing to decide. If I was talking to anyone else, I would say take a break, take the time, but I just can't do that for myself. What if that cycle is the cycle that I could fall pregnant with my child?