Today morning we went into Lily's room with a box. When we opened the box out came a puppet. It was the nursery puppet we made yesterday. She was very excited and happy to see the puppet. She couldn't know at that point what it meant but she will hopefully learn it soon. There is also a puppet for Puil and one for me. Each morning we are going to present her the appropriate one.
Although it was sad to take her away I loved riding my bike with her. She also enjoyed it a lot. The roads are a bit too busy for my liking so I cycle on the pavement. Luckily there are not too many pedestrians so I am not being very annoying for them. I am not the only one to cycle on the pavement, I met several others.
I worked really hard all day as I want to get pregnant so I have to finish everything before my next maternity leave. I am not thinking "if" I get pregnant anymore, I am rather thinking "when" I get pregnant. I also started to take pregnancy multivitamins. Admittedly it does feel a bit weird taking a pregnancy multivitamin not pregnant but I don't care anymore.
Tomorrow we have an appointment with our local clinic. Hopefully they will agree to cooperate with our London clinic. This is our first appointment where we do not take Lily with us. She will be much happier in the nursery and will love it when both of us turn up to collect her.
Wednesday, 11 January 2012
Tuesday, 10 January 2012
Exercise
I went to an exercise class yesterday and today. Yesterday's one was a bit disappointing but today's was fantastic! I don't have much choice of which class I go to as it has to be after Lily's bedtime so I am very lucky to have found something so suitable for me.
The fitness centre is only 10 minutes running from us and this exercise class involves a lot of jumping around with a super friendly instructor. I already booked next week's class. I want to carry on during the IVF as well so I have to make sure the doctors understand this and don't make me produce 30 folllicles again! There is a danger of ovarian torsion when exercising with too large ovaries and it does sound scary.
The fitness centre is only 10 minutes running from us and this exercise class involves a lot of jumping around with a super friendly instructor. I already booked next week's class. I want to carry on during the IVF as well so I have to make sure the doctors understand this and don't make me produce 30 folllicles again! There is a danger of ovarian torsion when exercising with too large ovaries and it does sound scary.
Monday, 9 January 2012
Correction
Two tiny polyps were found during Puil's sigmiodoscopy. I am a bit more reassured however I know of people who had nothing in that bit of their colon and plenty further up.
Tuesday, 3 January 2012
Puil's sigmiodoscopy
Puil showed some signs of colon cancer. This happened right after our failed PGD cycle. For a long time he did not take many signs into account as he thought they are because of our difficult times.
I will not go into details but if someone has a gentic predestination for colon cancer than it can be quite scary. After a visit to the GP he got to see a specialist who promised that his colonoscopy will be brought forward to December. The specialist however was not convinced that his symptoms are coming from polyps in his bowel. She beleived it is just a coincidence of having irritable bowel syndrome and hemorrhoids at the same time.
After a long silence Puil started to chase things up. His appointment showed up in the system as cancelled. He was not particulary worried as he himself is certain that his symptoms were caused by having more polyps than usual from all the stress we had and after he returned to normal most of the polyps disappeared as well.
It is possible, it happened to his sister, Valerie. Valerie had so may polyps at her second ever colonoscopy that the consultants wanted to remove her bowel there and then at the age of 18. But Valee did not agree. At her repeated colonoscopy the hundreds of polyps disappeared and since then she has an acceptable number of polyps every year. Acceptable for someone with FAP I mean. A normal healthy person should have no polyps in their bowel at all.
Puil made another phone call just to see what is happening. We became quite good in chasing things up thanks to all the PGD experience. It turned out that his colonoscopy got changed into a sigmiodoscopy and his next colonoscopy due in May was now pushed over to next December. Sigmiodoscopy only surveys the lower third of the colon but it is a much easier procedure according to Puil. I should take his word on this as I don't really want to test them myself.
Anyway his results came back clear. Am I worried? Yes I am. Seeing no polyps in one part doesn't mean anything for the rest. And he always has some polyps. Always. Every year. How could there be none this time? There was no mention of the suspected hemorrhoids as well. The original reasoning for having a sigmiodoscopy instead of a colonoscopy was that the hemorrhoids can be proven and thus the presence of larger polyps can be outruled.
Luckily however we got lots of lovely reassuring e-mails from our support group members telling us that things usually do not happen that quickly and when they do happen the NHS is wonderful. So here's hoping.
I will not go into details but if someone has a gentic predestination for colon cancer than it can be quite scary. After a visit to the GP he got to see a specialist who promised that his colonoscopy will be brought forward to December. The specialist however was not convinced that his symptoms are coming from polyps in his bowel. She beleived it is just a coincidence of having irritable bowel syndrome and hemorrhoids at the same time.
After a long silence Puil started to chase things up. His appointment showed up in the system as cancelled. He was not particulary worried as he himself is certain that his symptoms were caused by having more polyps than usual from all the stress we had and after he returned to normal most of the polyps disappeared as well.
It is possible, it happened to his sister, Valerie. Valerie had so may polyps at her second ever colonoscopy that the consultants wanted to remove her bowel there and then at the age of 18. But Valee did not agree. At her repeated colonoscopy the hundreds of polyps disappeared and since then she has an acceptable number of polyps every year. Acceptable for someone with FAP I mean. A normal healthy person should have no polyps in their bowel at all.
Puil made another phone call just to see what is happening. We became quite good in chasing things up thanks to all the PGD experience. It turned out that his colonoscopy got changed into a sigmiodoscopy and his next colonoscopy due in May was now pushed over to next December. Sigmiodoscopy only surveys the lower third of the colon but it is a much easier procedure according to Puil. I should take his word on this as I don't really want to test them myself.
Anyway his results came back clear. Am I worried? Yes I am. Seeing no polyps in one part doesn't mean anything for the rest. And he always has some polyps. Always. Every year. How could there be none this time? There was no mention of the suspected hemorrhoids as well. The original reasoning for having a sigmiodoscopy instead of a colonoscopy was that the hemorrhoids can be proven and thus the presence of larger polyps can be outruled.
Luckily however we got lots of lovely reassuring e-mails from our support group members telling us that things usually do not happen that quickly and when they do happen the NHS is wonderful. So here's hoping.
Friday, 30 December 2011
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.
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.
Tuesday, 27 December 2011
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.
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.
Tuesday, 20 December 2011
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.
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.
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