IVF on the NHS ?

Just back from the hospital. It was good to talk to the consultant and I was quite satisfied with his review of the events of June.

• Mrs T was definitely pregnant.
  
• Mrs T was bleeding and in pain.
  
• The sonographer (a senior sonographer) couldn't see an embryo.
  

Given these facts, the only option was to assume an ectopic pregnancy and investigate accordingly. When you look at the records of women who have died following an ectopic pregnancy there's always been delays in treatment. He was satisfied that, given the circumstances, the laparoscopy was the only appropriate course of action.

And then he surprised us.

His main aim of our meeting was to consider the question, "where do we go from here?". We've demonstrated that we can get pregnant unassisted, and we could of course continue trying to conceive naturally - which was in our minds exactly what we'd planned. After all, if you've read the earlier entries in this blog you'll remember that we did have a couple of cycles of fertility treatment (Intra Uterine Insemination - IUI) and that we felt uncomfortable with the amount of medical intervention so withdrew from it. However, he recommended that we move on to IVF - "now that you can get funding for it on the NHS". You certainly couldn't in our area when we were first seeing him.

We'd not thought about IVF at all since withdrawing from IUI, but he persuaded us to let him write the letter of referral to our nearest NHS IVF clinic, which serves as an application for funding. It won't come through for a few months, and even then we could put on hold if we're still uncomfortable with it, but it does get us in the system, gives us time to talk, think and pray about it, and - if we go for it - will save us about £5,500. (Of course, we weren't actually planning to spend that anyway, so it's a slightly misleading factor.)

In the meantime, we'll still try to get pregnant. Then we won't have to decide about IVF.

Not pregnant - and relieved

Tonight Mrs T said she was relieved that she wasn't pregnant. I guess it still feels quite early after loosing the last one. And she's still recovering from the operation, too; despite being back at work and seeming in good health, she could always be stronger. Tomorrow we see our consultant. I do hope he's able to tell us something.

Day One again

I knew my hopes of a 'false negative' were rather ambitious: Mrs T started her period this morning. That means we'e back at Day One of her cycle and ready to start again.

"Am I or aren't I?" had been taking up too much of her mind for the last few days, so it was good to hear her say that she'd not thought about it much yesterday. Of course she'd taken the First Response test which had at least answered the question, but in a general sense we don't want this to be the one think which occupies all out thoughts. A baby would be great, and we would consider it a blessing from God, but we want to trust that His plan for us is the right one and if it doesn't involve children then we'll want to know what it does involve instead. For the time being, we'll continue to hope that it does.

A friend from church is popping round for a drink this evening, and will want to pray with us. We'll not be sharing this story with her. There are other things to pray about. As we're going to see the consultant tomorrow we might have a chat with one of the few friends who does now about this and ask them to pray.

As for me, I'm home sick today - my first day off sick for about four years. I started with a very upset stomach on Sunday and my system hasn't been right since. Today is a day for staying at home, resting, and eating nothing.

Hoping for a "false negative"

Mrs T said last night that she really wants to be pregnant, but that the thought of it scares her. After last time, who can blame her?

Not knowing either way proved to be too much for her today and she went out and bought a First Response home testing kit. (These are supposed to be able to tell you up to four days before your period is due, unlike most of the kits which only work once you're late.) It was with disappointment that she told me the result was a negative. I find my emotion is more sadness than disappointment, but her fear means that the hope of pregnancy is, for now, tainted so she couldn't honestly say she was sad to get the result.

If the test is right (the chances are, of course, that it is, but the books tell us that although a false positive result is impossible, a false negative result can and does happen) then Mrs T's body gets another month to continue healing from the operation. As I said in my last entry, we're finally going to see our consultant on Thursday to get a post-operative review to see if we can work out just what happened back in June.

I find myself concerned that we may get drawn into a long cycle of hope, disappointment, hope, disappointment if we're not careful. Much healthier to simply trust God that his plan - and his timing - is right. I pray that we will be able to return to that state of trust and relaxation: to let the thought of actually becoming pregnant become a joy to look forward to rather than a goal to be achieved.

Appointment!

Progress! I rang the hospital myself and made a bit of a fuss. (On an answering machine, of course.) Our consultant's secretary has just rung me back and come up with an appointment for next Thursday. Perhaps we’ll finally get a clue as to what happened back in June...

(By next Thursday we might also know whether Mrs T is pregnant again.)

Starting again

It feels like an age since I posted here, and I see that it has been about six weeks.

Mrs T's recovery from her operation is pretty much complete. We've had a busy summer and she's now back at work and ready to receive her new class of children.

Needless to say, we didn't get pregnant over the summer. The doctors had advised that we wait a while before trying again, but we did make love a few times despite this. (Circumstances meant that our lovemaking never coincided with Mrs T's most fertile times, which was probably a good thing.)

We've seen the new babies in the family quite a few times and they are very special. We love them dearly and still maintain that it's much easier to do so with family not knowing we were pregnant back in June. But there have been a few emotional times. One of Mrs T's friends and colleagues - her closest friend on the staff - has just let us know that she's pregnant. Mrs T got quite upset at the thought that the two of them could so nearly have been sharing the experience.

On the medical front, we're quite upset that the promised appointment with the specialist has still not materialised. Mrs T has now phoned the clinic about sixteen times. It's quite possible that our consultant won't be able to tell us anything about what happened that day in hospital - but we must have the opportunity to find out. I suggested that she should phone every single day. She hasn't; perhaps I'll take it upon myself to do so.

As I type, we are in the middle of what should be Mrs T's most fertile period this month. (In which case you might wonder why I'm typing this rather than having sex right now. I think her being fast asleep is a good enough reason!) let me just assure you we'll not let the moment pass!

Normality returns.

Well, whatever counts for normality, anyway. Specifically I mean that Mrs T and her Mum seem to be talking again and we had the weekly email update for the first time in a few weeks. Mrs T phoned on Monday evening and spoke to her Dad, then again on Tuesday and spoke with her Mum for quite some time. Apparently the conversation started as if nothing had happened, but Mrs T did bring up some of what we've been feeling and they spoke seriously about things. On that Wednesday, following the operation, the silence from us (well, me) allowed Mrs T's Mum to convince herself that Mrs T must have died and that I hadn't plucked up the courage or energy to let them know. No wonder they were getting anxious.

Mrs T and her Mum have spoken again since, and as I said above the family newsletter arrived today, which suggests things are back on track. At some stage I'm going to have to speak to them myself, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

New Baby!

There's a new baby in the family! Everyone's healthy, and we popped down in the evening to visit the hospital. It was great to see them looking so happy through their tiredness. (Labour was over 24 hours...)

On route home we spoke a bit about whether we'd felt at all awkward visiting such a new baby so soon after a failed pregnancy. I'm pleased to say neither of us felt especially emotional about the situation. Mrs T also mentioned that the visit confirmed to her the rightness of not having told our family about the miscarriage - or indeed the pregnancy. I quite agree: knowing what we've just been through would have made it awkward for them in their joy.

Hurt relationships

I note that it's a week since I last posted here. As with my attempts at keeping a diary over the years, my initial enthusiasm soon wears off. I'm going to try keeping this up - at least a weekly entry - as I think it's been a useful tool for me.

Mrs T continues to recover, physically, from the operation. The Laparotomy scar is healing well and her energy levels are - slowly - improving. We went out to a local town for a couple of hours this afternoon where they hold a free music festival each year. It was a lovely warm day and we enjoyed some great music and fairly decent food before pottering round the market to stock up on fruit for our juicer (cherries! Yum!) and finding our way home. An excellent afternoon, but still very tiring for Mrs T.

Of concern at the moment is our relationship with Mrs T's parents. (See "bad son-in-law" for the background to this.) We've had llittle communication: no phone calls, and Mrs T's emails have been unanswered. She did speak to her Mum last Thursday, but came away with the impression that her Mum "couldn't wait to get off the phone". Mrs T has drafted a possible letter to her folks, but neither of us is really sure how best to deal with this. We feel that we hurt them deeply by asking them not to come down following the operation and then aggravated this by my lack of communication the next day. Mrs T's letter talks of us both being in a state of shock for several days, but having our reasons for wanting to deal with this on our own. We're not posting the letter just yet, and I think, after chatting about it on a few occasions, that Mrs T is now going to try phoning over the weekend to see how things feel.

All clear!

Saturday evening, and I'm just taking a quick break from watching Live 8 to update you all. (Note the vain assumption that there might be someone reading this.)

We went to the hospital yesterday for our first follow-up appointment. First to the pathology lab to take yet another blood sample for analysis. It's quite common to wait ages there once you've 'booked in', but Mrs T was lucky and was seen very quickly. We then had an appointment at the ultra-sound room. I think we were both quite nervous; it was in that very room that things had turned into an emergency ten days earlier. The Radiographer (or is it radiologist?) tried to be gentle because of Mrs T's scar, but Mrs T was clearly uncomfortable. The scan was once again unclear, and she explained that because Mrs T has a "retrovert uterus" (ie, it slopes away deeper into the abdomen than usual) an external scan will always be unclear. After the previous experience, however, Mrs T did not allow her to do an internal scan. After all, the blood test might well show all we need to know. We waited to see the doctor...

After a while in the waiting area (surrounded by couples having - presumably - routine pregnancy scans, he called us in. He'd picked up the blood results, and could very positively confirm that the pregnancy hormone had dropped right back down to a normal level. I guess for most couples who had been pregnant two weeks previously that would be very sad news. For us it was confirmation that there was no ectopic pregnancy still hiding away somewhere and therefore came as an "all clear".

Somewhere in the last few days Mrs T had indicated that she thought it might be "quite some time" before she'd feel like wanting to try again. (Understandable, I guess.) I was really pleased though that yesterday, as we walked, slowly, along the High Street, after picking up yet another DVD to while away the hours at home, she said something along the lines of "I'd love to think we'll be pregnant again soon". I smiled.

I think it's time to go, now. It sounds like The Who are on stage.