Something to make you smile…

What song would you use to make an England or Britain day silly song?

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That little blob of messy, cells is number 13 of 15 fertilised eggs that Repromed have had in the incubator since Friday morning.  This little chap(ess) was chosen because he/she is made up of so many cells that you can’t count them anymore.  They’re all merging together, just as they should be.  There are already three more of these little, tiny things frozen for the future .  This little guy/gal was picked from those four because, apparently, there is already a tiny hole in him/her, which is, so we’re told, good and a sign that he/she is already ready to start the next phase.

This, tiny, weeny little thing was introduced to us on an iPad, in the hand of a smiling embryologist.  It was then shown to us “live” under the microscope before being placed on the thin end of a very thin, device and dropped inside me.  The Dr gave me an ultrasound wand to hold over myself, pointed at the embryo’s new home, so that we could watch the entire thing.  We got to see the end of the bendy straw sneak in there and drop it in place.  We also got to see it, sat there, afterwards.  Strangely, it kind of glowed in there.  I’m not sure why, but there was a definite light patch where it was sitting against me.

They write the number they've taken on your hand so you can see when you wake up.

It was a bit touch and go as to whether we’d be allowed to transfer the embryo today.  The doctor was aiming to retrieve 10 eggs on Friday; he got 29.  That’s a sign that my ovaries were very stimulated.  I was a bit shocked when I saw that inky number on the palm of my hand, I knew that there were 27 follicles on the Monday of that week but I wasn’t expecting there to be that many reaching the point of producing and egg… instead I ended up with 2 more!

Having sorted through those eggs we were told that 19 were mature enough to be inseminated with.. we’ll call it man juice… (lol) Having injected 19, by Saturday lunchtime 15 of those had fertilised.  Then it was just a case of wait and see.  Today there are 3 in the freezer, one in me, one that has 14 cells, another with 11, another with 8 (all of which are being left over night to see if they get to the stage the one you see pictured above is at – if they do they’ll be put in the freezer too).  There’s one with only  a single cell, after 4 days… lazy …and cells like that will not be frozen and kept for the future.

We’ve been really lucky to collect so many eggs as it will reduce the chance of me having to go through the whole process for a while.  We can use up each one of the embryos that are frozen, should we need to, before I (or indeed Matt) need to hand over some more.

The reason that it was touch and go was because, as we were told by the doctor today, in the past if they have collected 29 eggs they just cancel the embryo transfer.  That’s because, in order to produce so many eggs at once (i’ve just given up over two years worth of eggs in one go) my ovaries have to become enormous.  As a result, I am really bloated and a bit sore.  At the weekend I was REALLY sore and walking at the pace of a snail.  I’m on hormone therapy now too and the side effects of that include bloating too! However, they changed my trigger injection to Lucrin (instead of Ovidril) and this seems to have made all the difference.  Lucrin’s hormone release is shorter, meaning that my body has had longer to recover and calm down. Under instruction from the doc i’ve also been drinking 2.5 ltrs of water everyday to flush out as much as I can. Of course, i’m still taking the more traditional oestrogen (Progynova) and progesterone (Cronin) but all the Follicle stimulating hormones have wandered off.

Because my bloods showed normal levels of hormones, i’m not dehydrated and my belly shrunk a little less than an inch in a day, the Dr let us go ahead.  There is still a risk that I will still end up with OHSS (Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome) but if I do begin to feel ill, this time it will be because the pregnancy hormones are kicking in… which also means … I’ll be pregnant!  As long as we’re vigilant we’ll be fine  I’m sure.

Every step of this process has been a risk.  The risk of OHSS has been there at every step of the way.  If the Dr was happy to offer us the opportunity then we decided were we happy to take it.  So now all we have to do is sit and wait.  The next hurdle for me is a pregnancy test.  If there’s no period (sorry boys) by the 8th of Feb I have to pop in for a blood test.  That’s how we confirm pregnancy here – something I know N8Girl would have appreciated when she found out she was pregnant

Keep praying, crossing fingers and sending us positive vibes.

Go number 13!

Strange facts…

• On Friday we were laughing when we realised we had chosen parking space 13 as we headed to the operating theatre.
• Yesterday my mum sent me a silly email asking how the little ones were.  We made a joke that number 13 needed burping…
• Embryo 13 was chosen.

Spooky!

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What a lovely face I could pull at 22. Why'd I choose this one?!

Matt and I have been together for nearly 12 years and married for 3 and half. We’ve travelled the world, bought and sold houses, studied for a degree each, helped each other develop our career pathways and started new businesses together.  We’ve emigrated to the other side of the world so that we can experience life in another hemisphere.  We’ve achieved a lot together but there’s been one thing evading us – children.

One of my favourite students (I know I don’ t have favourites yadah yadah) told me, 3 years ago, that I’d better hurry up if I didn’t want to attend parents evening with a Zimmer frame – that actually made me laugh.  (Teenagers are amusing little creatures – they think 26 is middle age.) I’ve had adults I’ve worked with tell me how much they enjoy still playing tennis with their kids because they had them whilst they were younger – hint hint – and I’m bored with the assumption that people make when you meet them that because we’re in our 30s and married we must have young children.

It’s not that we don’t want them.   In fact, I remember one argument when we were 24 and unmarried where Matt suggested we have a baby before we were married – babies are something we’ve been discussing for a very long time.  We’ve always known that we wanted a family of our own and although our adventures have delayed us a little, we’ve actually been trying to create baby woowaa for nearly two years.  To some, that might not seem very long but every ‘big fat negative’ is actually pretty hard to take –  it gets harder to take with ever month.

About a year ago, we did some ‘investigations’ and were referred to a fertility clinic.  It turns out that, for us, there is actually a biological reason why we haven’t given conceived a baby Woowaa.   Our chance of conceiving naturally is pretty low.  We were told by a GP with sympathetic eyes that, if weren’t in any rush, we could just keep trying and see what happens, he told me to read the content on the Repromed site.  It was “NO” number 20 that helped us make our decision. 20 months might not be long to some, but for us it was long enough.

Yes, biscuits are a very important part of the injection process.

We’ve been in the expert care of Dr Angela McClean of Repromed, Adelaide for the last 12 months or so.  We’ve both been poked, prodded, scanned and tested.   It was through this process that we discovered that Matt has a unsually low white blood cell count which prompted a whole line of enquiry that was quite scary but thankfully fruitless.  We’re both proven fit, healthy and ready to be parents. We’ve made the decision to start IVF treatment.  In fact, the reason I’m writing this now, having stayed very quiet about it for all this time, is because I started the injections last night.

I’m writing about this now so that I can share the journey.  This blog has always been about sharing.  Its read by lots of people looking for information about how to emigrate from the UK to Australia.  Now, as our life moves towards a different kind of journey, maybe we can share some thoughts that will support others who are experiencing the same thing.  I wasn’t ready to share these private events before.  Maybe I am now.

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Well it’s not really that much of a surprise to see these little  furry creatures in Morialta Conservation Park but there you go!  See if you can spot our furry friends, the koalas, in these pictures. (They get bigger if you click on them

We took the photos in Morialta, a conservation park about 45 mins drive from our home here in Adelaide. It’s a place we’ve walked many times. We’ve e taken some of you with us on occasion.  Unfortunately for the cute koalas, Sunday was a very misty, rainy day so they were very active.  Most of them were curled up in a little ball, like hedgehogs in trees (without the spikes I guess).  After last weekends 43 degree heat I imagine the rain and the low 20 something temperature had them feeling a little chilly.  Poor things!

Just waking up

Look really carefully

apparently Koalas don't appreciate the rain

They're cute though aren't they!

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I am so looking forward to 2012.  I have so many things to look forward to! To begin with, in April, there will be the birth of two  niece (s)/nephew (s) (One official and one unofficial).  I also hope that I can add a miniature ’woowaa’ to the list of 2012 births – we’ll just have to see.  Then of course there’s the very real chance that Matt’s business will take off meaning that he will finally be happy at work.  If it doesn’t? Well then he’ll get an equally lovely chance in another (who knows what) job to finally be happy at work

We had a lovely Christmas – as you might have been able to tell from the piccies in my last post. We were both really lucky and had so many presents! Thank you to everyone who sent something over – I know it’s not easy.  The fun part about delays in postage is that Christmas keeps on going.  Since Christmas day we’ve had more cards from relatives and friends and even an extra pressie from one (CHOCOLATE BUTTONS and SNOW! – she knows me so well! )

and i haven't drunk a drop...

We spent the New Years weekend over in a place called Marion Bay.  Its about a three hour drive from our place.  We’ve been there before with Pete and Caz and they invited us again  We definitely couldn’t’ say no to the sea, sand, sun (40 flipping degrees it’s been all weekend) and the opportunity to have no mobile signal, no internet, no Twitter, blogs, Facebook, Google plus and all the other techie things that Matt and I both fill our days with! Instead there was sitting, talking, reading, (crocheting… just a bit ) and relaxing.  We even managed to keep Matt down at the beach for four whole hours.  That must have meant that he was really relaxed!

Matt and Pete in Innis National Park

Of course I also managed to achieve my first Jelly Fish sting….  Not as bad as you’d think.  I’ve never been stung by any animal but if there’s one thing in the sea I am scared of it’s jelly fish… the sneaky, see through little critters are just so hard to spot and then avoid!  One got me right on the shoulder blade!  We managed to up the anti though when we got home.  We arrived back at the house and headed straight back to the beach (I know… terrible life it really is).  At 40 degrees the best place to be is in the sea.  We were quite happy in there too until the RSL set off the Shark alarm. We didn’t actually get to see the beastie in question (that would have been cool) but we did have to vacate the lovely cool, bath water of the sea pretty sharpish! Unfortunatly, we were forced to lie on our towels in the sunshine until we dried off….  shame.

We have had one cool change today meaning that we’ve gone from 42 to 36 over night. Another is expected this evening that will bring the temperature down to 25.  After the last few days I wouldn’t be surprised if I didn’t have to “rug up” a bit! lol 25 will feel chilly.  The temperature are evening out to the low 30s now though.  It’s a shame the weather wasn’t like this for ma and pa last year.  I don’t think they believe me when I tell them how HOT it gets! It’s never happened when they’re here.

Anyway, that’s enough from me about what we did – you  can see for yourself  Here are some silly pictures of our shenanigans at Marion Bay

Now, as for New Year’s resolutions: I’m going to be brave and record mine here…. where it will be in Google and archived and everything (so it will have to be done).

1) I will either join a choir or get some vocal training – It’s about time I returned to that.

2) I will carry on with my Pilates every week, even when I feel rubbish, and will try and add two more classes a week to the mix (Zumba is good fun and maybe I can work my way back up to body attack/pump.)

3) I Will  try again with my book.  This time I’ll pick a local publisher and I will have an ISBN for it by the end of 2012 – so help me!

4) I Will finish the two iPod apps I have written for lesson planning and publish them to iTunes

5) I will be happy and healthy so that I can support my family and friends to do the same

What about you?

This week was going along quite nicely until i went for my consultant appointment with the Oral Surgeon on Tuesday.  Wanting to avoid not being able to eat solids over the christmas period I asked if he could fit me in sooner rather than later.   I wasn’t quite expecting him to say “sure.. I’ll shove you on the end of my list for Friday.”  So, here I am less than 48 hours later minus the one wisdom tooth I owned.  Instead I have a sore throat and a chesty cough caused by the tube the put down my throat for the general atheistic and a stitched up gum (ouchy) I should be fully recovered and ready to roll for Christmas though

We’ve also put up our Christmas decorations.  After bug bombing the shed to make sure we didn’t transfer and 8 legged beasts into the house with the baubles (we’ve had quite enough of those already thanks!) the tree, tinsel and all other shin/sparkly Christmassy bits are up.  I think Matt wanted to cheer me up!  :)  I do like Christmas!  Nearly all of the present buying is done and posted.  Most of you will have had your Christmas cards already and some of you will receive yours in a parcel with presents Keep and eye out for that posty van and try not to get too confused if a nondescript parcel arrives from amazon and you don’t remember ordering anything… That’ll be Matt forgetting to let you know that you shouldn’t open that until Christmas day.. lol

Despite being invited out for Christmas dinner, Matt is determined to have his own turkey. I’m leaving it to him to order it!  He’ll be eating turkey fo r a fortnight as he’s the only one who eats meat in this house (unless you count the cats). How are your christmas preparations going?

A couple of weeks ago Matt did the very sensible thing of spraying an insect repelling barrier around the house.  All around the windows, doors walls – everywhere a travelling spider might choose to breach our borders and enter the state of Woosel.. Why then have there been at least 10 spider sightings (and chucking out of the housings) since then…? 3 White tips at least and today we both nearly jumped through the roof…

I was milling around by the window and noticed  a little spider on the fly screen.  Feeling a bit cocky because he was on the outside and I was protected by a lovely, meshy fly screen I tapped it.. the little spiddy when trundling off… but a massive, pint sized huntsmen came trotting into view… on MY SIDE OF THE FLY SCREEN!

Nuff Said?

This week Santa came to Adelaide… He really did. Seeee

This weekend was the official start of both summer and Christmas in Adelaide:  The Credit Union Christmas Pageant!  As usual, I skipped along with “dragged” Matt to the city center to watch the parade.  We didn’t stand in our usual spot this year so the pictures aren’t quite as good but we did have a good view!  A few new floats this year, ones I hadn’t seen before, involved pandas surfing (Yes.. Funi and Wang Wang hanging out on the beach with a koala and… well… surfing! Of course!),   Penguins being cool and some skateboarding crazy people.  All good fun! Matt Certainly enjoyed Tweeting about it all the way through… ;0)

Matt's Nett App Goodies

In other news Matt received a present from someone other than santa this week…  Having photoshopped a competition cap onto his head he managed to win a conference trade stall prize… without ever having attended the conference..  Cap, 3 t-shirt, pocket spotlight, 4 gb memory stick, a shopping bag and load more.. including $50 to spend at JB Hi-fi!  He was VERY excited about his goodies!  I dread to think what Christmas day will actually be like!

In the last few days, for the first time since we arrived (nearly 2 years ago now), I’ve felt a little pang of homesickness.  As it gets warmer and we begin to venture out into the wide world I miss the friends that I want to hang out with.  I have a couple of wonderful friends here who I can call on – I haven’t spent the last two years avoiding civilisation completely – but that doesn’t stop my brain planning things that me and X,Y and Z could do, only to realise that X.Y ans Z are not here.

At this time of year,  there are usually people about to arrive at our home. People to share our wonderful Adelaide shores with. That’s not happening, at all, this year and that feels a little strange. There are no big plans at all. Obviously, we caught up with everyone only a few months ago at various weddings and so flying back to the U.K.,or them flying out here is a little much to expect and I don’t expect it… it’s just strange not having a date pinned on when I’ll see people again. There’s always been an event to plan for. The lack of a date like target, makes it feel like the gap has widened somehow.. Not sure how… I guess it has to eventually, that’s life.

It’s just strange that it has taken so long for my brain to react this way! I’ll get over it! Perhaps that is in part due to the fact that all the strange, awkward and sometimes horrible events that have happened since we’ve arrived here.  The trials and tribulations of both nearly and actually losing family and friends, of stressful workplaces that have had to be left, of bit career decisions or medical situations etc. … they’re all calming down a bit.. Perhaps we’ve finally got some time to relax?  Hopefully, that will mean we can moved forward even further on our journey.

This new life is still growing and developing and with each decision made comes new discoveries about the place we now call home and the people in it.  Sometimes the differences between where I’ve come from and where I have arrived are so subtle that it takes a while for them to come out.. then you have to work out how to get your head around them.  The deeper you go, the more you learn – it’s still an adventure.

I’m “not  in Kansas anymore Toto”.

Oh yeah!  Happy Meowloween!

Christmas time is coming!

Both summer and Christmas are clearly on the way. The temperature this week has gone up and down from 33 to 22 and the decorations have started to appear in the stores. Of course, being over here , we’re going to have to start xmas shopping very soon and get anything tat needs posting over to the UK within the next week or two otherwise, Santa might find himself arriving little late!

The clock have already “sprung” forward so that the sun shines on well after I’ve returned from work and. So, the days when the sun is burning hot, it makes a real difference to be able to come home and head down the road to the beach for a cuppa in the warm sunshine  That, “Living in Oz, is like being on holiday” feeling is creeping back in again.  Lovely!

It’s strange to know that all of my UK teacher friends have already completed the first half term of the school year and are about to settle into half term.  It’s even stranger to receive and email from HR asking me to tell them when I WANT to book time off  and telling me I have to use all of my days before the end of this year… I’m not used to that!  Usually, the council tells me when I’m not going to come in.  I’m also not used to having to work for months and months in one go without a break.  Having said that, my current job is no where near as exhausting as my old one and I know that realistically, for most of my friends, this half term is more about working from home than holidaying!  I get to work from home too so I guess that’s ok

Stan enjoying the sunshine with Pinky (the mouse) in the "water feature"

The half term break does mean, however, that I need to get on with making a Christmas cake!  It’ll need to be slowly fed brandy until Xmas day.  It looks like it’ll just be me, Matt and the cats this year as no one has booked themselves in for a barmy Xmas ont he beach so far.    I guess there’s still time!  Matt has made it very clear that this year we’re having turkey… even if he’s the only one eating it..