Profile

Lifeslurper resides in a big brown land called Auuustralia. Her early years remain a mystery cloaked in a veil of depression.

Age 42 Lifeslurper meets the vague but gorgeous Wobbles. “What took him so long to arrive?” She asks.

They make their way together in the world just fine, but are not fine to make a baby – not without some outside help. Enter ART and 2008 the year of 4 IVF cycles & one lousy big fat negative.

Lifeslurper is now 47 years old! Time for a baby is running out fast, so too is her sanity. Now it's 2011 - Lifeslurper & Wobbles have moved into top baby making gear. Donor Egg Cycles are the way to go, after a long pause to take stock after a glorious donor egg BFP & the subsequent loss. This year saw 2 cancelled FET cycles, & and menopause causing delays.

Where to from here? After 10 cycles Lifeslurper & Wobbles now await their WobblyBub who is due in May 2012 - actually make that...um....*sigh*...what's the point?

Obscene(ly mad) about Clomiphene

Okay, by now we have all read it, the newspaper headlines that scream fertility medications that “offer no benefit”. I wonder just how many sinking hearts attached to striking wombs were greeted from across the morning bowl of corn flakes with this latest infertility news?

The British Medical Journey has published findings suggesting that clomiphene citrate (commonly known by its brand names of Clomifert or Clomid does not have “any significant benefit over no treatment at all”. Continue reading Obscene(ly mad) about Clomiphene

Requiem for a Cycle

Before burying Cycle 4 deep in the mental IVF waste dump I am trying to create, I thought I should duly document this antagonist cycle which we hoped would be the answer for us:

Day 1 – Nil medication but lots of hope

Day 2 – Clomid (Clomiphene) 50mg

Day 3 – Clomid (Clomiphene) 50mg & Puregon (Follitropin beta) 225 IU x 2 Continue reading Requiem for a Cycle

All hormonal with no place to go

Today I have been clearing up the visual reminders of IVF. Seems every time we do a cycle the house becomes littered with paper work, FSH boxes, medical swab wrappers and the boxes that the FSH pen needles are packaged in. Perhaps if we could learn to become tidier we could make this stuff work for us? So far IVF hasn’t worked for us. Not physically, Not emotionally. After four cycles we have probably achieved our worst (or second worst) result. It doesn’t look like it will ever work for us.

Continue reading All hormonal with no place to go

The Pointy End

This current IVF cycle has been very low key. Very quick. Almost painless.

IVF life without Synarel seems much easier. Better still is the hope of a new fertility specialist offering a brand new protocol with lots of bells and whistles. How could an antagonist cycle with two daily doses of FSH plus 5 days of Clomid plus latter days of Orgalutran to ward off ovulation possibly go wrong?

Now we stand before that horrible precipice, where a wrong move could see us make a sharp fall to cycle cancellation. Tomorrow is that critical ultrasound and blood test. I catch the train this afternoon to be there on time. Once before, this round of testing has brought us unstuck. On that occasion it lead to cycle cancellation. I had ‘under’ stimulated, yet one follicle had managed to ‘over’ stimulate and at over 35 mm it was considered a cyst. That in turn led to months of delays and a five month absence of menstruation. What fun! Continue reading The Pointy End