A PGD dream

I had a dream about PGD or rather IVF. After all although the PGD part is the key, the most important, the whole reason for doing IVF from the patients point of view it is only a phonecall about how many embryos are unaffected.

So I had an IVF dream. It was quite scary really, like dreaming about school or exams.In my dream I had a conversation with my consultant.

My consultant is a lovely person. he is very energetic and optimistic. He really wants couples to get pregnant it is not just a job for him it is also a passion, a very rewarding experience in case of success. He is relatively flexible and full of new ideas. He really does want the best outcome.

Sadly I don't think he sees me as an individual. I mean he does when he talks to me but not when he "works on me". I am just a body then. I piece of material for his next experiment. He wants his experiment to be successful and he uses all the best equipment and best added ingredients. However he does not take me into account. He follows the clinics general protocol very strictly and trusts their drugs far more than a woman's body. Well, he should beleive in what he is doing, he should beleive in his own clinics protocol but I wish he would take me more into account.

In my dream we reached a satisfactory conclusion for both parties. We agreed that he will firstly use my own egg and only than the stimulated eggs. Sadly such thing is only possible in a dream. As in reality things work a bit different. My explanation will not be at all scientific and might even be wrong in parts but that is what I understood.


A women has many-many follicles with hopefully eggs in them to start with. Some might be empty and some might have two eggs but the majority have one egg inside. They are "sleeping" in her body. Each month around 20 follicles wake up. Due to the hormones produced by a female body  each month one of those 20 follicles will mature and the rest will just be discarded. That is the normal cycle. In a stimulated IVF cycle due to much more hormones than normally the rest of those 20 (or whatever number) follicles might mature as well.  So there is no telling which one would have matured had there been no stimulation. It sounds fantastic doesn't it? After all 20 follicles must give a lot more chance than 1.

Well, not necessarily. It is not as easy as that. Our ovaries are designed to nurture 1 follicle every second month (as there are two ovaries working alternately) not 20! Therefore the environment is far from ideal. A bit too crowded with difficulties in getting space and nutrients. In fact one might end up having 20 crap eggs instead of 1 perfect. And that is what happened to me on our second PGD-IVF cycle. Except that I had not 20 but more than 30 crap eggs. It wasn't comfortable either. That's why I am contemplating trying natural IVF where there is no stimulation involved, the doctors just retrieve the one egg grown by the woman's own hormones.

Back to everyday life

We had our first ever Christmas as a family of three. It wasn't as I imagined it long ago but it was still wonderful. But then a lot of things are not how I imagined them long ago and are still amazing.

I imagined having children at around 23 but than they wouldn't be Lily. I am so lucky to be so close to this wonderful person and have the responsibility to look after her for a while. I love her so much and I am so glad to have exactly her and not someone else.

Lily loved spending time with her grandparents, cousins and all sort of family members. The plane journey was not too bad either and she was brilliant all through the long voyage. With all the excitement going on she got a bit confused at some point thinking bedtime started in the afternoon and morning started at 3 pm but once home we managed to get her back to normal.

Sadly this idyll will not last long as I am back to work in January. We hope that Lily will settle in to the nursery realtively easy as she loves to socialise and we also hope that she won't be constantly ill for the first few month as she has already been exposed to a lot of other children at playgroups. We might just be a bit too optimistic.

Going back to work will make PGD far, far more difficult as well. As our clinic is in London a single appointment means missing a whole day's work not to mention the costs.

But I do like my work and it will be great to get a nice work-life balance. If only we wouldn't have to deal with PGD as thus it will be a work-life-PGD balance.

Misadventurous Monday

I can be horribly clumsy sometimes and make bad decisions. Although at least I am quite good and organised most of the time when I am with Lily.

However yestearday evening I left without her to go to my special Christmas training. I was really looking forward it as I already missed the Christmas meal although I still had good fun that evening as I was babysitting for Annie.

I was supposed to go to my friend, Jane's place, and get a lift from her as training is quite far and I don't have a car. Although before Lily was born I used to be late from everywhere (except for training and work which is a bit stupid as surely my friends are more important then work) but I improved a lot since. I am almost always on time, or even early nowadays. I arrived to Jane's 10 minutes early when I realised I left my mobile home. I quiclky started to think what to do. Should I just hand around hoping that she would call me and Puil would pick the phone up and tell her I must already be there but phoneless? But I didn't want her entire party wait. She lives in a block of flats and I couldn't remember the number. I should have waited really.

Instead I decided to call Puil from a payphone and tell him to call Jane. I still had 10 minutes after all. I found a phone box easy enough however I didn't have cash. I wish i didn't have my card with me either as then I would have waited. The shops on the street wouldn't give cash-back and all the cash machines I passed were out of order. By then I was already quite far from Jane's place and getting a bit nervous.

And miraculously I bumped into our coach. I borrowed her phone, called Jane and explained the situation. I told her to go without me and that I will take the bus instead as I really didn't want them to wait for me after offering me a favour. Although I had no cash I had bus passes with me for two different bus companies: the one I took to get to her place and the other to take me to training. I got on the bus just on time and started thinking where to get off. I already took the bus a couple of times for training however it was always late and there are 3 different buses going to the same direction parting a bit before the leisure centre. I was not really sure which one I was on and where to alight.

Finally I plucked up my courage and asked the driver. After all most bus drivers are really friendly. This one certainly was although his sense of time was not perfect. Maybe he drives his bus so often he is not quite sure how long it takes on foot. Anyway he told me I have gone past my stop but explained me which way to go which would take 10 minutes.

It took 20 minutes in the end and it was very dark. I kept asking for directions and people were very friendly. I really don't know why am I so afraid to ask things most of the time. Somewhere on the way I also discovered that I left my bum bag on the bad with my CD player in it. At least my phone was home and my bank card was in my pocket. It took me 80 minutes in total to get to training and I was late.  Luckily Jane knew I was going to come so she out me on the list.

Training was great. I couldn't really warm up and I have some back pain today but I had a really good time yesterday. It was good to meet my friends and have some good fun while playing my favourite sport.

Puil was really sad when I told him I lost my CD player. He knows how much I depend on in when doing housework in the evening. I since called the lost property department but it is not there. Not that I expected it to be handed in. I can buy a cheap second hand CD player but there was also a CD in it and it was from the library. I will have to buy the audio book I was listening to. I feel horrible about losing the library's property. I am going to google the book right now and I really hope it is available in the shops.

Annie

I first met Annie at our local hospital's pergnancy exercise class. She was a couple of weeks ahead of me which I didn't realise until we started talking as her bump was so tiny. She is also a foreigner like me and she is a bit shy although she has got a British husband and her English is way better than mine.

We became really good friends and our babies seem to like each other as well. We carried on going to a postnatal exercise class at the same hospital together. Her daughter is a lovely little girl always smiling. She is very clever with her hands and already knows a lot of words. Annie was worried that she started crawling late but she crawls wonderfully now, with ease and elegance.

Annie guessed that Lily was conceived by assisted concenption, but she doesn't know the genetic side of things, she doesn't know that we used PGD (Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis) in order to prevent Lily from inheriting her father's genetic disorder which would cause her cancer.

To be honest it was quite easy for her to guess, as

1. Annie is smart.
2. One of the other girls at the postnatal exercise class also had IVF and as she didn't know that I don't normally tell people that we had IVF she started talking about it. I quickly changed subject but perhaps it was too late.
3. Annie came babysitting for us and we might have left some of our million papers outside. They are normally on our desk or at the computer as we have to deal with them.
4. I also left some Clexane in our food cupboard and told her to eat whatever she would like to. I hope she didn't use the Clexane though. It is a blood thinning drug and is generallt given for IVF patients in order to increase blood flow to the womb after embryo transfer. I did not want to take Clexane, in fact I did not want to take any additional drugs only the absolutely necessary ones. I trust my body much more than any drugs and I am quite convinced that my blood flow is good enough. However at our second IVF-PGD cycle I was at risk of hyperstimulation and had no other choice but to use it.

Since finding out that we possibly had IVF she makes very funny comments. But I never encourage her. I am sure she would be absolutely nice and symphatetic about it but I don't want people to think about Lily as an "IVF-baby".

Once she said how really sad it is that we had to do what we did in order to have Lily. I thought of it long and hard afterwards and although IVF is far from pleasant it is amazing that there is a technique like this, especially when coupled with PGD. It is amazing for people like us with genetic problems and amazing for anyone who for one reason or other cannot have children otherwise.

Another time she asked if we were born by IVF. She caught be my surprise and I said I didn't know although I am pretty sure we were not. Our parents didn't even know we were twins until we were nearly born very early and our mum had to go to hospital. We were born two month early in the end but thanks to the modern techniques we survived and are absolutely fine. There were no regular scans like nowadays.

It is funny that people think that having IVF can be inherited. The first person conceived by IVF is Louise Brown. In interviews she almost always gets the question whether she got pregnant by IVF herself. What a silly question to ask! Of course not. She has respectable amount of patience and always answers nicely that no, her children were conceived naturally.

Although I had IVF with PGD myself I wouldn't want anyone from my family to have it, especially not my own daughter.

More of Puil's presentation

The long voyage

1) And they visited the wise man of their kingdom, who knows everything about curses, but he could not help them. They met the greatest healer who said he can delay the spell but can not free their children from it. But they did not loose hope. The Princess and the Prince were invited to a far-away Kingdom. “While we are there” they thought “we might even accomplish our mission.” And that’s what they tried to do. In their search they travelled from one city to another, they have met wizards, witches and hermits.

2) A year passed when they arrived to a tent of a fortune-teller. She looked at the Prince’s hand, she examined it so closely her nose almost touched it. There was a long, very long silent interval. “I see” she cried in trance “I see that you are under a terrible spell. And so are your yet unborn children. But I see ways to avoid it. Listen now carefully, and I shall tell you about them all. You might not like one or another. What is right for someone might be the worst for somebody else. You must find your very own way.”

3) The genetic team at City Hospital provided an in depth explanation of the genetic side of our condition. When we asked about family planning, we were informed of the following options.

Remain childless / Adopt a child / Conceive naturally and test children at the age of 12 / Conceive naturally and test for FAP during the pregnancy and optionally terminate it / IVF-PGD treatment / Sperm or egg donation

We feel so glad that we had the opportunity to make our own decision. Every couple is different so is their preference. Rianon and I have chosen the IVF-PGD treatment, Valerie and her husband to conceive naturally. My mother said that they would have probably remained childless if they knew about my father’s condition. It is a difficult personal decision of the couple and nobody should judge that.

We were told that the exact mutation of APC gene (Adenomatous Polyposis Coli gene, the gene responsible for Puil's genetic mutation) must be located before we can be referred to a London clinic for the IVF-PGD treatment. We had to wait 6 months for the result and we felt we were running out of time. My sister Valerie just announced her pregnancy and while I was happy for her I have to admit I was jealous. We were ready for having children for years and we were nowhere near.

4) “Look, there is the cottage the fortune-teller sent us to.”

“Come in, come in” said an old rusty voice from the cottage. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

“Oh no, it is very kind of you, we would like just...”

“I know very well what you want. And I know exactly what to do”

“Then tell us please we have no time to loose”

“No, no, no. You must not hurry. Just sit down, have a nice cup of tea and listen to me”

And she said exactly the same, what the fortune-teller already explained.

“It would take long, it would be expensive, it would not be easy at all, and at the end you might even fail. Are you sure you would like to do that?”

“Oh yes, we...”

“Do not answer yet. Have a good rest, and tell me tomorrow morning.”

So even if we agreed on our way to London before the appointment, that we won’t waste any more time, we had to make the journey again in a month time to say yes we are sure, this is what we want to do.

5) So a quick recap of IVF-PGD. Multiple eggs are produced, fertilized. The grown embryos are tested for genetic mutation.

 

The genetic testing is the key factor of the treatment, it must be 100% accurate. Therefore a lot of preparation is needed. The geneticist has to be able to carry out the test in a short time and also make sure that the genetic material they are examining comes from the mother and the father and be able to decide whether the embryo carries the mutation or not. The length of the preparation phase can not be predicted as it is not an automated process, it involves creative research depending on the individual couple's genetic make up.

 

6) “Very good, very good my dear” said the old lady next morning “I see that you are ready for this long and difficult journey. You must go and find the Goblin forest. You need to cross those dangerous mountains. The only way is through a tunnel.”

They found the tunnel easily. Inside it was cold and dark. They were walking for 3 days and 3 nights. But they did not reach the other end yet.

“We should be already out”

“We must have taken the wrong way”

“I feel lost; it is so dark I am not even sure whether we are closer at all now than when we entered into the tunnel.”

“Something is definitely wrong, we must go back and ask the old lady for more precise directions”

“Hello, my dear little Prince and Princess” said the old lady “Why are you so upset? Sit down please. Do you want a cup of tea?”

And they explained how lost they felt in the tunnel.

“But I told you, that the tunnel will be blocked while the goblins are preparing for you. You must be patient. It should not take too long now.

They went back into the dark and one day they spotted some light. They climbed out and they exclaimed “Oh but it must be the goblin’s forest!”

How to find somone?

I met Vicky at my first proper workplace. I was a helpdesk agent and my mum constantly urged me to get a job in my field but I actually quite enjoyed it. I was taking calls in English and German language and our callers were employees of a client so not just any random people.

I only met Vicky by a chance but I liked her instantly. We found out that we have some common interest: she was painting and drawing and I was writing short stories as a hobby. We agreed that when I become famous she will be my illustrator as she quite liked my stories and I quite liked her pictures.

We went out for lunch together a couple of times but then quite soon we both left the firm. We were corresponding for a while but then it faded away.

And now I would like to find her. No, I am not famous (yet), but I realised if I ever want to have my stories published it might be easier if they are complete with illustration. As somehow most of my stories are fairy tales for children. It just happened this way. I was writing a story for my nephew's birthday and as more nephews were born it became natural to write a story for each of them.

So there I am searching for this girl with no luck. We were friends on a social network site but she deleted herself and I don't remember her last name. I might have some e-mails from her at my old e-mail address, the one I locked myself out. I once decided to change my password and that was it. I am not able to get it back since.

I have a memorable question I can't remember the answer for. I asked Puil, my sister, my mum and dad but noone could help.

Maybe I should sign up to Facebook and search for her there. But my memory is not very good and I have forgotten most of the people from that places. I only worked there for two month as finally to my mum's great delight I found another job in my own field. I didn't like that job very much but that is another story.

Any ideas how to find Vicky? She is tall and pretty with long black curly hair. She must be around 35 now. She worked one year in London after breaking up with her boyfriend when she was 28. She likes drawing.

She could be anyone!

Angry

I have been really angry latetely. Angry and difficult for no reason. Writing this post (in my head first) helped though. I am OK now. I think.

I was angry with Puil, impatient with Lily and even angry with the poor dog. I was angry with him just for being a dog I suppose.

But let me tell you his guilt-list:

1) He is whining and whinging constantly. It seems to be his default mode. He whines when he begs for food, in fact he whines during the whole of meal times. And meal times last long in this house (ok, flat). He whines despite the fact that his own food is waiting for him in his tray. He whines when he wants to go for a walk (we take him out four times in total) or when we do not throw his ball for him as soon as he puts it down (a whole meter away from us). He is is really bad with that ball as he puts it to places he cannot reach and then cries until I get it out for him. But worst of all he whines really loud when I carry Lily! I suppose that is just the love he feels for her and the rest is normal dog-nature. So it is all forgiven.

2) He barks when someone comes near our door even if it is Puil coming home. He will not stop when I tell hime that a friend came. He barks whenever Lily cries. Even during the night when she cries for two seconds then continues to sleep. We are afraid that the barking might wake her but actually it does not so it is all forgiven. Well, again barking is dog nature and I suppose he might think we did not hear her cry.

3) He never listens to me. He tries to go in to Lily's room and puts his ball on the bed. I usually walk him without his lead as that is what I was told to do. It is OK in most cases as there is a lovely little nature reserve area two minutes from us and most people walk their dog without a lead there. However some have their dogs on a lead and even though I call him as soon as I spot a dog on a lead he won't come and won't let me put his lead on. Instead he causes trouble. He loves annoying bigger male dogs. But maybe it is all my fault I should just walk hime with his lead on and all is easy then.

4) He has a poo all the time! As said before we take him out four times: Puil in the morning and evening and I during the day. Just yesterday he had a poo three separate times at one single walk so I nearly ran out of waste-bags. Worse than that he had a poo in our living room. Just an hour after his last walk. I couldn't beleive my eyes. After all he is over 10 years old so should know better. This one is not forgiven. A poo in my living room! I will be cleaning and cleaning for days after he's gone.

5) I cannot go out when he is here. Last time we had him I went to a baby group with Lily and during that time he howled that bad, that our poor neighbour complained. I cannot blame her. I heard that howl myself and it is simply horrible. The problem might be that he is not used to our flat and is really scared that we might never return. Apparently it is better to do dog-sitting in the dogs own house. But that is miles away.

Ok, rant over it felt good. And why do we all love him after all? Because he is so warm-hearted, and friendly. He can be made so happy with his ball or with a nice walk. His ears flutter in the wind when he runs. But most of all there is pure love between Lily and him.

Lily's face lits up when we take her out in the morning and she can see that the dog is still here. It is hilarious to watch her as she crawles towards him with a huge smile on her face. She learnt to stroke gently and learnt to throw his ball. I hope she won't miss him too much. At least I can compensate her with going to some baby-activities.

The dog leaves today and I will be half relieved, half sad to say goodbye. It is nice to be a casual dog owner for a couple of weeks every half year. But having a dog is a lot of responsibility.

We will meet him again soon when Valerie, my sister-in-law comes for a visit. He is her dog.

PGD

Ok, the first PGD post.

I was avoiding this post for a while, after all I am trying to live my life (over, or despite PGD).

PGD, or pre-implantation genetic diagnosis is basically a technique to select the healthy ones from a batch of embryos. It looks at a tiny little bit of all the genetic information. However it raises many difficult ethical questions and I am afraid I cannot answer those. But I can try to discuss them.

1) Is PGD a technique for creating super-smart or super-strong people?

No. You can only work with the parent's genes and if the parents are not clever enough (although of course cleverness depends on more than one gene and I think it also depends on the environment) the child will not be clever enough either. Remember, it is not prepairing, it is selecting.

2) Can it be used for sex selection?

Unfortunately, yes. Worse there are clinics in some countries actually doing sex selection. I cannot possibly imagine how those doctors working there decided to agree when there are plenty of decent places to work in assisted conception as unfortunately the demand is quite high.

Lucky though it is not allowed anywhere in the UK and the whole of Europe.

Some say the Beckhams used PGD to have a daughter but I don't beleive it. It is perfectly normal to have a daughter after having three sons, it happened to my sister-in-law as well. According to my sister everyone will say that that they kept trying (I mean my sister-in-law, not the Beckhams local gossip is far more exciting for me) until they had a girl. But I don't beleive it either. My sister-in-law is still young and according to my husband all their babies were accidents. I am looking forward to meet my new nephew or niece in around three years time.

3) Is it any better then termination during pregnancy?

Yes. It must be, otherwise we made a horrible mistake. I hope and pray and beleive that it is different. For me the tiny little 8-cell embryo is only a possibility whereas the foetus in the womb is already a being. I would never terminate my future child just because he/she has FAP. That is actually the reason why we choose FAP. We didn't want to terminate yet we didn't want to pass this disease on either, so PGD was the perfect choice for us.

4) Will PGD screen for other diseases as well?

No. Maybe in the United States, but definitely not in the UK. The tehcnique consists of taking one cell out of an embryos and actually destroying it during the testing process. It would be very difficult to test for other things as well. We have the same possiblity for our children to have random genetic diseases like anyone else. I was dreading this: what if i wnt though all the heart-ache and difficulties just for my child to have something even worse? But we were lucky, Lily is perfectly healthy.

Breastfeeding

Breastfeeding was never a question with my cultural background. In my culture, it is not really a choice: you can either breastfeed and then you do it or you can not and then you bottle-feed. As simple as that.
A problem with this approach might be that women who can't breastfeed might feel bad about it. So imagine how I felt when I stopped breastfeeding after six month as a choice. I was at my breastfeeding best. I was over and done with the sleepless nights, with the marathon feeds, with my forever hungry baby. At last everything was perfect, supply and demand worked wonders. And then I stopped.

Why?

I wanted to have another child. Normally as breastfeeding gets less frequent and one's baby sleeps all night the woman's natural menstural cycle returns and conception is possible. However as we made the tough decision to have our children via PGD (Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis) with IVF (In Vitro Fertilisation) we had to stick to this choice however extremely difficult it was. And one can only have treatment if breastfeeding stopped. After all we are trying to think of the long-term benefits, about our children's future. But it can be dreadfully hard at times. At times like this.

The funny side was, that people from playgroups and library groups actually envied me. Me? Really? They had problems stopping breastfeeding and were desperate to succeed. Some wanted (or had to) go back to work, some just wanted the freedom. For me, breastfeeding was freedom. I stepped out of my door with 2 spare nappies and that was it. Ok, maybe a change of baby clothes as well. But it all changed.
For a long while I had to be constantly ready and have enough milk powder and cooled boiled water with me just in case she gets hungry. Lucky that she since learned to eat and only has one bottle per day, but I wouldn't wish that period on any person. I was constantly making up bottles, I could never ever go to bed after putting Lily down as I had to make more bottles for next day.

Sadly our treatment failed. I planned to re-start breastfeeding (yes, it is possible) however I won't now as we still want to try again and there would be no point in starting and stopping again for one evening feed.

Puil's presentation

Puil made a presentation for our FAP support group's yearly meeting. Here are some extracts of it and I only changed the names. As remember, nothing is real.

1) It was a wonderful summer day when the Princess and the Prince first met and fell in love at once. They could not believe how lucky they were and their love grew day after day.

2) One day the Prince said:

“Once upon a  time there was a powerful wizard who casted the most evil spell on the world. Who were cursed died shortly after their children were born and what is even worse they passed on their terrible fate from generation to generation…”

“…  and my father” - the Prince said – “was one of them.”

3) My grandmother died when my father was 20 and he suspected that he might be affected as well. But apart from a single incident he had no signs for a long time. Meanwhile Elsie, I and Valerie were born; all was almost forgotten. Then suddenly after his 40th birthday he had to have his bowel removed. Unfortunately it was too late, and 4 years later he died. Elsie was 13, I 10 and Valerie only 7.

4) The Prince continued “My dear mother knew that her three little children might face the same fate. The Queen invited a prophet and learnt that my younger sister and I are in danger too.“

Every year at my endoscopy just a couple of tiny polyps were found. However when Valerie was screened at 18 for the first time more than 100 polyps were found. So the result was unexpected and quite a big shock to her. They wanted to remove her bowel but Valerie refused. Instead she had a special diet for 40 days (she did not take any solid food) and when the endoscopy was repeated most of the polyps have disappeared. Since then she is fine, so it was suspected that we probably have the attenuated type of FAP. But she needs an awful lot of support every time before the screening and she is so afraid to have a bad result again. That’s why I am really glad to have come and met you and see that there is life after the surgery.

5) “Don’t be afraid” - the Princess embraced him. “I’m with you”.

“I’m not worrying of myself” - the Prince replied. “but my children.”

“There must be a way to save them from the curse” whispered the Princess “and we will find it however long it takes and however far we have to go”.

Doctor's appointments

We have been having various doctor's appoinments over the last couple of month. Appointments about PGD (pre-implantation genetic diagnosis), appointments about FAP (Familial Adenomatous Polyposis) and just normal appointments if Lily was ill. I had to take Lily with me all the time as we have no family here to help with childcare. Luckily most places had some toys to play with but after a while she started to have enough. And the PGD appointments are all in London so there is a lot of travel included: by bus to the train station, by train to London and lucky it is only a 15 minutes walk from there. At one of our appointments she screamed so hard I had to go out with her. I think it was too hot and I should have stripped her down completely.

But we also had a lovely appoinment with our local genetic counsellor, Lily and I. They are our rock, the genetics people. They are lovely. The lady never rushed us, she seemed to have all the time in the world. At other places we are being made look stupid for turning up with a list of questions (sometimes two lists of questions compiled separately by Puil and me haha), but here every question was a good question, every thought, every fear, every pain of mine was listened to and discussed. In the meantime Lily crawled all over the counsellor (she loved her too!) and the counsellour didn't mind the least. This job suits her fantastically. She is bright and emphatic and I am pretty sure even as a geneticist she can meet sad fates she helps all her clients to get to their own best possible happy endings.

Everything is for a reason. Or not.

So far in my own life patterns fell into place. I still can't understand  though why people dye in wars, natural disasters etc.

But in my own life things seemed to happen for a reason. Until recently. Until I didn't get pregnant from our second attempt at IVF-PGD. I am not so sure anymore.Maybe I was over-confident. After all it was the second time ever in my life actually trying to conceive. Very few people fall pregnant on their first and second try. Or maybe it was for a reason. But what reason? I cannot see any reason for those poor little embryos not to get a chance. Maybe this pregnancy would have happened at a difficult time. But Puil and I are strong. We can cope. And we would have loved them.

I have been really lucky all my life. I started lucky: I was born as twin, I have a lifetime support and fun from my beloved sister. We were also fortunate to be born in the 20th century as we were born 2 month early and we needed modern technology to survive in those early days of our life.
I was also lucky to meet a wonderful man, one whom I adore, respect etc. and get all these back in return. We have so much fun together but he is also the one who can listen to my serious thoughts my fears even. I always beleived there is no such thing as "the one". I still beleive it. There are many "the ones" and I was lucky to meet one of them. Now I just have to be lucky not to meet any more. So far it worked. Since knowing him noone even compared to him.

This weekend I was really ill. So ill in fact, that I am convinced no poor embryo would have survived this high fever. Maybe that was the reason? But why did I fell ill? It was a result of a chain of events which would have happened differently were I pregnant. So I am still not sure.

Nothing is real

None of the names or locations are real although they are close to the truth. I really am from a Middle-Eastern-European country, but not from Slovakia. I live in the Midlands but not in Leicester. I am married with one daughter but my husband is not called Puil and my daughter is not called Lily. Yes, you guessed it right my real name is not Rianon either.

This is my secret blog at the moment but I am sure I will tell Puil eventually and he will want to come and write a post. But it is fun to have a little secret sometimes. I don't think any of my real life friends will ever find this blog unless they search for "IVF blog" or "PGD blog" (abbreviations to be explained soon). But nobody searches for such blogs without a good enough reason. So if you are my real-life friend and you found me online please send me a comment saying something like "I think I might know you in real life". I promise I will never ever talk about it.

So who I really am?

I live the happiest life ever with my wonderful husband and daughter not to mention other family and friends. Yet I have already learnt that however wonderful one's life is there is always a tiny little hitch. So what is ours? My husband has inherited a genetic condition called Familial adenomatous polyposis, or FAP for short. This condition will cause him to develop colon cancer by the age of 40 unless his colon is removed.

After careful consideration we decided to stop this condition in our own family. We had and still have more options to do so but at the moment our main focus is on genetic testing. Lucky we live in the 21st century as there is a shiny new technique called Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) which coupled with IVF is able to test our embryos for this condition.

Just in case you haven't heard the word IVF before it is a laboratory procedure in which several eggs are collected from a women and each egg is placed with sperm from the man in a Petri dish to achieve fertilization. The embryo is then transferred into the uterus to begin a pregnancy. In our case there is also genetic testing involved before the transfer. In vitro fertilization literally means "fertilization in glass." A child born by in vitro fertilization is sometimes known as a "test tube baby."

Our daughter was conceived by IVF-PGD and although our second attempt for a pregnancy was a failure we are still hopeful.