IVF Cyle 2: Roller Coaster

Wednesday morning ultrasound and my four follicles are growing beautifully. This is finally going well. I am filled with hope.

Friday morning, I wake up and I am bleeding. This is not a good sign. I go to the clinic, my heart plummeting because not only is the cycle probably over, but there must be something really wrong. I am just a little bit frightened by what all these drugs must be doing to my body. Some studies find heightened risk of breast and ovarian cancer, but some don't. No one really knows. But I am surprisingly calm. I even manage to read the newspaper cover to cover and feel involved in the stories.

The clinic finally tells me I simply have a large cyst left over from the last cycle and it is simply draining as it should do. The follicles are fine and growing nicely. I now have six, although only four really in with a chance. Everything is going so well that they will do the egg pickup (when they take the eggs out for fertilisation) the following Monday: earlier than I was expecting. My unearthly calm cracks and I cry with relief. I just can't stop crying.

I wake up this morning and I'm still bleeding. Really, quite a lot of blood. I probably shouldn't still be bleeding by now. I call the clinic. No one really knows whether I should still be bleeding at all by now or how much. There are a lot of calls back and forth.

Another call: The most likely scenario is that we will do the pickup but not the transfer, as the bleeding would interfere with it. They should be able to freeze any resulting embryos and then I can do some lighter, easier cycles with them. Most IVF patients call these embryos "frosties". I prefer the term "bubsicles", myself.

This is a total roller coaster. Its up to the heights of hope and exhilaration one day and down to despair and grief the next. I am starting to accept that I can't control any of it. All I can do is try to take care of myself and breathe through it. I can feel a kind of fatalistic calm coming over me. This roller coaster is moving and all I can do is hang on tightly.

Have I mentioned that, during all this, an international conference I have been helping another country to hold almost collapsed (internal political issues of their own) and I have cheerfully rescheduled to hold it in Australia next week? These conferences usually take months to organise and I will be making it happen within a week. I've worked until midnight the last three nights.

Also, my father called yesterday, and we all know what that means!