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We got our blood test results and its positive. We're pregnant. This is very good news :) C has put it more succinctly than I! BFP, for the unitiated, stands for Big Fat Positive (and is the opposite of the evil BFN monster :)

I'm trying to temper it a little because we have been here before. But, from what C tells me, the results are stronger this time. I've got a call in with the IVF nurse to get it first hand, just to make sure she hasn't coloured the news with her excitement :) The last time it was me who got the call and, I swear, it was so hard not to switch off after the nurse said the magic words. I just want to make sure its all covered.

But, that said, the last thing I want to do is panic her. We're very happy at the moment,as you might imagine, and I don't want to spoil it.

Anyway, we've got another blood test next Wednesday, as well as a scan and stuff a couple of weeks after that. So far, so good!

hanging in there...

If anyone is following our little baby making dance, I'd recommend C's blog for the greater amount of detail! But steer clear if you're sqeemish :)

In a recent post she asked me break down exactly what my infertility issues are. This I'd already done a while back. So if you're interested, here it is.

The only thing I would update is around the following;

"...my body produces antibodies against my own sperm. Don't ask me why, ..."

Since then I've come to some greater understanding of the antibodies issue. In short ones own sperm are foreign bodies from the point of view of the bodies. Quite why I don't fully understand, but its essentially the case that your sperm is the DNA of another person. So it makes sense that its DNA is different and your own immune system doesn't recognise it.

This is why the testicles and that entire system are actually separated from the rest of the body by a natural barrier. (I'm not sure what kind, but its not a brick wall, anyway! Some sort of membrane, I guess.)

The problem is that in my case this barrier has been breached. It may have been constructed poorly in the first place or may have been the result of an injury at some stage. (I've copped my fair share of whacks in the goolies over the years, so I can't rule it out.) But, once its happened the horse has bolted. My immune system now knows of my sperm and as the fine people of Krikkit once said, "Its got to go!"

They can't fix the barrier, mainly because they can't find the breach. (Well, in my case no one has actually looked, but their experience is that it isn't practical to try.) They could supress my immune system with cartabolic steroids, but thats pretty nasty stuff and still wouldn't make our chances of natural conception all that flash. So, no joy there either.

Anyone would think the treatment methods were developed by blokes who got all squeemish at the idea of knives near other blokes tackle! But that's a whole other discussion.

another one down...

Yesterday we cleared another hurdle in our IVF marathon.* Still a couple to go, but we're getting there.

* Actually, this probably isn't quite right. Its certainly been a marathon since we first started two and a half years ago, but this cycle has gone like the clappers. So, perhaps we should call it a sprint to the line!

ivf...

Things are progressing nicely for my wife and I with our latest shot at IVF success. You can see her blog for the details and earlier posts of mine for some background.

I don't really want to go in to too much detail. There are a couple of real life friends who read this and we haven't even told our families this time! Suffice to say we've cleared a couple of major hurdles in the last week or two and with a bit of luck we'll clear a couple more next week.

Its hard yakka, I'll tell you that much.

feeling like an idiot...

The last few days I've been feeling like a bit of an idiot. I'm making basic, dopey errors; I'm procrastinating on the most simple requests. They should be easy to complete but I'm drawing them out and making mountains out of the tiniest mole hills.

I've cocked up communication between my new brother in law and my sister about a possible fencing job. In order to cover my arse I've kind of lied to my sister. Its too long and boring a story to go into, but suffice to say I haven't really lied to her - the info she got is correct - but I've embellished the circumstances a bit.

Last night at work I made the kind of stupid, unnecessary mistake that I just don't make. Not a slip of the pen or anything. I utilised a function on the system that I knew nothing about and cocked things up royally.

To make matters worse, C has a new job. Well, of course thats good news in itself, but you see we've just gone back to IVF. So while I'm sitting here wasting time, my darling wife, who is about to undergo a painful drug regime, invasive tests and finally an operation in hospital is actually working longer hours and more physically demanding work than me.

I'm feeling lazy, stupid and very sorry for myself at the moment.

This is going to sound like changing the subject, but possibly its all tied in together. I don't know if its the root of the anxiety or not, but I've always been scared shitless of not being able to afford to support my family. Here we go again with the IVF and who knows, if it works this time we might be parents by November. Then where will we be?

My income alone is unlikely to be enough. Sure, there are tax benefits and so on, but still what if we can't afford stuff. Is C is going to go back to her backbreaking physical work while I cruise through in my cushy little 40 hour a week, entry level, somewhat poorly paying job?

I'm scared out of my mind.

The thing is, there is no need to be. I'm not without prospects. Together we have a broad range of skills and a couple of really good ideas, but getting off my arse and making them happen is proving rather problematic and I wish I knew why.

By the way, I'm not unaware of the irony of one in an essentially good place being so down on himself. It'll pass!

Anyway, I'm off to contemplate my navel some more.

catching you up a bit...

I guess it's probably time to put some of this IVF stuff in context. If this thing is going to be anything more than purely venting, then a post like the last one needs a little background. Let's start at the beginning.

Firstly, a quick Too Much Information warning for the squeemish :)

Male Factor Infertility, or MFI for short. That's what I've got. As is usual with such things, there is no one type and no one cause. There are a whole swag of different types. I have several of them. I have Oligospermia, which is basically a fancy way of saying low sperm count. Then there is the tetrazoospermia, which relates to the motility or swimming ability of the sperm. I also experience a high abnormal forms ratio, which means that there are relatively few of my sperm which are properly developed, even before the other matters have their effect.

As a final whammy - and this is the bit my doctor describes as "clinically significant" - my body produces antibodies against my own sperm. Don't ask me why, but the upshot of this is that if and when any of them finally reach an ova, they can't stick to it while they burrow in.

About six months or so after C and I started trying to conceive (ttc is the jargon, I've learnt!) we started to suspect something might not be right. C had always felt she had some sort of a problem. Prior to the coeliac diagnosis she'd much of the five or so years before that vomiting fairly regularly. This she felt had limited the effectiveness of her oral contraceptive regime over that time. Also, she had never had a single scare in ten years or so of sexual activity and her menstrual cycle wasn't particularly regular.

All things considered, some problem sounded likely, so we went off to the doctor. Sure enough she hadn't been ovulating, possibly for quite a long time. The doc gave her some stuff which seemed to do the trick. A couple of months after that I thought I'd go along and get myself tested, more or less just to dot the i's and cross the t's. After all, we'd found and fixed the problem. But that wasn't the case at all. The diagnosis came back and the rest is history.

There are a few key milestones in an IVF cycle. Broadly there is the harvest, where they draw the ova from the female. There's the fertilisation, which is kind of self explanatory. Although there is a little more to it in terms of the continuing development of the zygote in the dish. And there is the transfer of an embryo back into the female. From there it all becomes essentially the same as a natural conception, in terms of pregnancy, miscarriage etc.

Before the harvest they boost the ovulation cycle of the female to try to get just the right number of ova. If they get too many the hormone levels can be dangerous to the female and too few means its not worth the hassle of harvesting.

Our first cycle C hadn't grown enough ova, so they pulled the plug.

Second time around they changed the mix a bit and we got a harvest. They didn't get as many as they might've liked - only four ova - but it turned out that was enough. All four fertilised into embryoes and they transferred one fresh embryo back into C. That one didn't take.

A month or two later they went to thaw a couple of frozen embryoes to try again. They successfully thawed two, while one of the remaining embryoes failed to develop any further. They transferred those two thawed embryoes. One failed to take, but the other was successful. Unfortunately we miscarried that pregnancy at about the six week mark.

So, that's where we're up to. I hope that puts the earlier posts in context!

back on the train...

So, we started back on the IVF train this morning. It's our second treatment cycle and within the first cycle we had two transfers, or implants. For the record, the first didn't take and the second resulted in a miscarriage.

I admit to being a little thrown by how quickly it's taken off. We're going in for Cate to have a hysteroscopy and a D & C next Wednesday. Already! Fuck! I'm concerned with the overlap with the last of C's study and the wedding, which will now all be happening at once. She assures me she's thought that through. I can only take that on face value and tell her of my concerns, which I've done.

She had the same procedure last time. Last time they did it primarily to see the lay of the land first hand. They wanted to check her uterus was in good shape. Even though the tests and scans had all been fine, it never hurts to be surer than sure. Plus they also wanted to stretch her cervix a little, which sounds bad but while uncomfortable for Cate is handy later on. It wouldn't do to go all the hassle of the cycle and then find the tube with the embryo in it won't fit! Plus, they're not stretching it to fit a large object through. Just a very narrow delivery tube, but I suppose even that's a wide opening in relative terms. She was uncomfortable last time, but it wasn't the worst part of the whole thing.

This time they're going to do it for the stretching reason, but less for the checking reason. They also want to make sure there is no tissue left from the miscarriage. But also, fascinatingly, they've discovered recently that fresh, regenerating endometrium cells are better for adhesion of the zygote.

It sounds, from what our doctor was saying, that there has a been a quantum leap in technology since we last tried. And that was only a year or so ago. Which, I fear, makes it a little harder not to get my hopes up. That's my dealing tool. I just convince myself that we're not there yet, so that failing is no surprise. C completely fails at this. It hurts so much to see her crushed every time, but I know she'll never take my tack. All I can do is hug her lots.

Nowadays they try to let the embryo grow in the dish an extra day or two. It then becomes, using the technical term, a blastocele. Apparently, and I suppose naturally enough, less embryoes get to the blastocele stage, but those that do have double or better chance of going on with it. According to the doctor they're up to about 50% success from that stage, as opposed to about 20% to 25% before. So that's got to be good. If it's better, I don't know why they haven't always done it. Presumably they've just got better at keeping the cells alive outside the womb, or something like that.

C is never a fan of internal examinations. Notwithstanding the personal discomfort it bring back certain memories of unpleasant experiences. So it's no surprise that the unexpected pap smear the doctor gave her today threw her a bit. :(

So, no move before next Wednesday.